We Men Are To Dumb For The Pill

Or so says Ravi Somayia at Gawker, with a frighteningly stupid post about how the male pill is a bad idea because, uh, men are too dumb and libido driven to use it properly. Thankfully, Kate Harding, my hero, eviscerates Somayia’s crap:

Not having his partner’s consent, obviously, is a most excellent reason for a man to boldly disobey his own penis. But so is not wanting to cause a pregnancy or pick up a sexually transmitted infection — in fact, I’m no sexpert, but I’m pretty sure that already, even without a male pill on the market, some man, somewhere, at least once, has decided not to have sex because he had no contraception handy and was so concerned for his own health and/or future, let alone his potential partner’s, that he chose neither to lie nor ignore the dilemma, thereby proving that such conscious action is not a biological impossibility

A feminist defending MEN? My God, it’s like they aren’t all insane gender terrorists but may, in fact, be rational human beings trying to make things better for everybody. After completing her demolition of Somayia, Harding does something that is rare even for someone of her caliber: she points out the lunacy of presuming a new technology has to necessarily supplant the previous one. The male pill is not a replacement for any form of birth control, but in addition to those that already exist:

That’s the other bizarre thing about Somaiya’s argument, however tongue-in-cheek it may be: It’s like he thinks that a male pill hitting the market will render all other forms of contraception obsolete. It’s my understanding that the new pill would be an addition to, not a replacement for, the existing smorgasbord of options (of which I count 20 at Planned Parenthood’s website right now). So people concerned about STIs or suspicious that their male partners are lying could still opt to use condoms. Women worried that their male partners won’t remember to take a pill every day could still take the original version. Anyone looking to avoid pregnancy would still have at least 18 other options of varying effectiveness to choose from. But for people who want it — from players who want an extra bit of insurance against unwanted fatherhood to men whose girlfriends or wives can’t tolerate hormonal birth control to anyone who just thinks it’s about time — it would be one more.

I couldn’t agree more. The Pill isn’t 100% reliable, no method of birth control is, but when contraceptives are used in combination, the risk of unwanted pregnancy falls to essentially zero. In the case of a monogamous straight couple,  each person being on the Pill would allow barrier free sex with a vanishingly low possibility of accidental pregnancy. In the case of a one-night stand or casual straight relationship, condoms plus both people on the Pill offers protection against STIs and triple-protection against accidental pregnancy.

Even if the male pill is completely redundant, it is still a very good thing because 1) redundancy is important and 2) it has the psychological affect of forcing the male partner to be aware of a risk of pregnancy. It’s now as much in his power to prevent one as it is hers.

Oh, and if you haven’t been reading Kate Harding already, I recommend you start.