Big news for the pill on Friday, September 25, 2020: not only does this day mark World Contraception Day, but this year, the seal that has revolutionized our sex life is celebrating its sixty years. An opportunity to wonder why, even today, contraceptive use remains the preserve of women in cis-straight couples …
Almost every year for 40 years now, it's the same catchphrase: research teams tell us that they are working on a pill, a gel or even a heated brief capable of frying sperm (but guaranteed to be painless). We therefore come to hope that soon, the contraceptive load will be shared among cis-straight couples. But if several laboratories have made good progress on the file – a pill for men promised by the University of Washington, an anti-sperm blocker studied by the University of Monash, in Australia … -, we are very far from finding these products on the shelves of our pharmacies.
In question ? The reactions of male guinea pigs, who consider the side effects unacceptable. Example recalled by the Slate site: in 2016, a clinical trial conducted, among others, by the World Health Organization, was stopped following complaints from guinea pigs, who could not stand acne, weight gain, jagged libido or even mood swings… that is exactly the side effects of traditional chemical contraceptives, which so many cis women endure on a daily basis.
A history of scholarships
Another barrier to bringing such contraceptives to market is that biochemical research is very expensive, as is the large-scale manufacture of such products. The laboratories wanting at all costs to remain profitable, they regularly survey the male population and the answer is clear each time: cis-straight men prefer to leave the consumption of contraceptives to their half. A fact that social psychologists Nikos Kalampalikis and Fabrice Buschini blame for the fear of a "loss of virility", both biological (taking the pill leads to a hormonal change) but also symbolically. Indeed, the men questioned believe that taking chemical contraceptives would represent "castration", which, according to the two scientists, threatens their power of domination.
If chemical contraception is still a "good woman's business", it is not for scientific reasons, but because of purely sociological obstacles. We admit that we have trouble swallowing the pill …