Shooting Blanks

A very thought-provoking piece on an oral contraceptive for men. Lots of issues here: subjecting the male body to a pretty radical chemical change, and the psychological effects thereof, taking the responsibility for contraception (at least part of it) from women, a potential reconsideration of the conception/abortion debate, etc.

“It is doubtful that men would see this as something they should do to the extent that women do,” says Jon Bloch, who teaches a men’s studies sociology course at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven. “Some men who actively practice birth control and find condoms uncomfortable might find something liberating in such a product, but there also might be men who feel that it will take away from their virility, whether in the physiological or psychological sense.”

That unease means a renegotiation of the male image would be necessary for a male pill to catch on, says Nelly Oudshoorn, a sociologist at the University of Twente in The Netherlands and author of The Male Pill: A Biography of a Technology in the Making. “Feminist scholarship has created the impression that only female bodies have been subjected to historical and cultural shifts in meaning and practices in medical discourse and culture at large,” Oudshoorn writes in the journal Men and Masculinities. “The male body appears as a stable category, untouched by time and place.”

In Edinburgh, Scotland, researchers trying to challenge that stable category found a way to subvert men’s unease by creating and selling a new masculine contraceptive identity: the brave man. Posters recruiting subjects for male contraception trials showed the “First Man on the Pill” dressed as an astronaut, striking a confident pose, boldly looking to the future. The researchers hoped to appeal to adventurous, valiant men who would change their body chemistries in order to protect and care for their partners.

For the most part, it worked. “Actors involved in the clinical testing of male contraceptives have actively engaged in articulating the image of the caring, responsible man,” Oudshoorn writes. “Most importantly, men taking part in the clinical trials of male hormonal contraceptives have, in turn, performed this projected identity.”

In other words, by answering the call for brave, caring men, trial participants became brave, caring men. “A more varied practice of use will change the dominant view that men don’t take responsibility for contraception,” Oudshoorn tells Science & Spirit.