In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
On November 10 2015 07:57 Plansix wrote: Once again, the censorship term is thrown out when students reminded to think about their fellow class mates before picking provocative costumes. And this time by a professor, who decided the hill he was going to die on was racially insensitive Halloween costumes.
That doesn't seem like a big deal. But to a black student, it says to the school won't take them seriously if they report racism. And this is likely reinforced by their previous experiences with reporting racism in their life.
Did you watch the video of the prof talking to the group of protesting students?
You need to be more specific.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Honestly, I'm completely amazed at how often this point gets lost.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Yes, but maybe wait until that happens and then address it. I totally agree that call out culture is the shittest part of progressive culture, but it needs to be addressed when it happens. And maybe not in a page long response about free speech and the right to wear costumes. Maybe just with a "And if you see a costume that offends you, this isn't license to harass that person."
The same argument could be made for the first email. And, just by the volume of the response, you are informed which was more necessary.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Honestly, I'm completely amazed at how often this point gets lost.
How is the point relevant? Whatever a university allows or not isn't a legal issue, so there is no need to conjure up discussions about constitutional rights in the first place.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Oh really? lol. You're so adorable, even for a Wookiee
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Oh really? lol. You're so adorable, even for a Wookiee
See you in a few years. I hope you're not trying to imply Wookiees aren't normally cute.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Honestly, I'm completely amazed at how often this point gets lost.
How is the point relevant? Whatever a university allows or not isn't a legal issue.
Actually, it is, because they are State entities (although Yale isn't they receive significant federal funds), and are thus bound by similar Constitutional requirements to the police, the EPA, etc. This is the fundamental basis of cases like Brown v. Board, Loving v. Virginia, less famously, but speaking directly to the issue is Rosenberger v. Rector of the University of Virginia. The ACLU, FIRE, and other groups routinely win cases in the Federal Courts on these issues, and the only limiting factor is that they don't have enough money to sue basically all the state colleges in the USA for every free speech violation.
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Unless they plan to start injecting unwilling 12 year old boys, I don't see how this will change any of these stats. We already know the people who should be doing this are going to be the least likely to try it.
It's a cool idea, sure, but I don't think it'll do much to stop unintended pregnancies.
On November 10 2015 11:31 KwarK wrote: Every sperm is sacred. Sex without the possibility of procreation is a sin.
Your sarcasm is actually a significant tipping point. It will represent a significant scism in the religious community between those that believe contraception is a sin and those that believe abortion/intentionally preventing implantation of a fertilized egg is a sin.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Oh really? lol. You're so adorable, even for a Wookiee
See you in a few years. I hope you're not trying to imply Wookiees aren't normally cute.
Touche about the Wookiees, but I definitely think there wouldn't be nearly as much issue with men's reproductive rights instead of women's. The fact that we have an easier time covering Viagra over women's pills (the latter of which provide a plethora of health benefits and contraception, whereas the former is pretty much the opposite of contraception) makes me think that while a lot of people are against birth control for religious reasons, there are plenty of people who just use that as a cover for their misogyny.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Yes, but maybe wait until that happens and then address it. I totally agree that call out culture is the shittest part of progressive culture, but it needs to be addressed when it happens. And maybe not in a page long response about free speech and the right to wear costumes. Maybe just with a "And if you see a costume that offends you, this isn't license to harass that person."
The same argument could be made for the first email. And, just by the volume of the response, you are informed which was more necessary.
For a man who was throwing around the term strawman a while ago, the power of confirmation bias is strong with you.
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Yes, but maybe wait until that happens and then address it. I totally agree that call out culture is the shittest part of progressive culture, but it needs to be addressed when it happens. And maybe not in a page long response about free speech and the right to wear costumes. Maybe just with a "And if you see a costume that offends you, this isn't license to harass that person."
The same argument could be made for the first email. And, just by the volume of the response, you are informed which was more necessary.
For a man who was throwing around the term strawman a while ago, the power of confirmation bias is strong with you.
Your argument is that, if the initial statement was unrebutted, the chancellor would be facing calls for his resignation and crowds impeding him from getting to his office?
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Can I get some of that action?
I mean there's going to be objections from the forced breeding crowd (those that use religious indoctrination to trap women in abusive marriages and force them to breed against their will) but that's the minority of the religious opposition. I imagine the ones who fight for parental rights of rapists may also get in on it.
But the maths will be overwhelmingly obvious that nothing would prevent more "abortions" (if fetuses/fertilized eggs have anything to do with the real argument) than making this new birth control widely and easily available.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Oh really? lol. You're so adorable, even for a Wookiee
See you in a few years. I hope you're not trying to imply Wookiees aren't normally cute.
Touche about the Wookiees, but I definitely think there wouldn't be nearly as much issue with men's reproductive rights instead of women's. The fact that we have an easier time covering Viagra over women's pills (the latter of which provide a plethora of health benefits and contraception, whereas the former is pretty much the opposite of contraception) makes me think that while a lot of people are against birth control for religious reasons, there are plenty of people who just use that as a cover for their misogyny.
I won't argue with the fact that a good portion is likely governed by religious/misogynistic views, but I honestly believe that a sizeable portion is also due to people thinking the government shouldn't be dictating what a private company has to offer/just don't like the idea of paying taxes to support other people's birth control.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Can I get some of that action?
I mean there's going to be objections from the forced breeding crowd (those that use religious indoctrination to trap women in abusive marriages and force them to breed against their will) but that's the minority of the religious opposition. I imagine the ones who fight for parental rights of rapists may also get in on it.
But the maths will be overwhelmingly obvious that nothing would prevent more "abortions" (if fetuses/fertilized eggs have anything to do with the real argument) than making this new birth control widely and easily available.
Agreed, but the problem is that the very religious people aren't concerned with preventing abortions through methods of contraception. They only care about abstinence-only sex "education", which we have tons of data that shows how bad that really is at preventing abortions. It's not about preventing abortions but instead about making people feel guilty for wanting to have sex.
Male Birth Control, Without Condoms, Will Be Here by 2017
Vasalgel, a reversible form of male birth control, just took one step closer to your vas deferens.
According to a press release from the Parsemus Foundation, a not-for profit organization focused on developing low-cost medical approaches, Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study. Three lucky male baboons were injected with Vasalgel and given unrestricted sexual access to 10 to 15 female baboons each. Despite the fact that they have been monkeying around for six months now, no female baboons have been impregnated. With the success of this animal study and new funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Parsemus Foundation is planning to start human trials for Vasalgel next year. According to their FAQ page, they hope to see it on the market by 2017 for, in their words, less than the cost of a flat-screen television.
So how does Vasalgel work? It is essentially a reimagining of a medical technology called RISUG (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) that was developed by a doctor named Sujoy Guha over 15 years ago in India, where it has been in clinical trials ever since. Unlike most forms of female birth control, Vasalgel is non-hormonal and only requires a single treatment in order to be effective for an extended period of time. Rather than cutting the vas deferens—as would be done in a vasectomy—a Vasalgel procedure involves the injection of a polymer contraceptive directly into the vas deferens. This polymer will then block any sperm that attempt to pass through the tube. At any point, however, the polymer can be flushed out with a second injection if a man wishes to bring his sperm back up to speed.
The Parsemus Foundation’s messaging on Vasalgel has focused on making the technology appealing to men. In a New York Times op-ed published this year, Elaine Lissner of the Parsemus Foundation pitches the product to “a 20-something or 30-something man, out on the dating market” who is worried about the effectiveness of the pill, given how many women forget to take pills during any given cycle. This pitch, too, is a plea for help. The Parsemus Foundation has to rely on donations and crowdfunding in order to bring male birth control to the market. Long-term treatments like Vasalgel are much less appealing to potential funders in the pharmaceutical industry who, as they observe, would much rather “sell pills to men’s partners every month.” Why sell a flat-screen television to a man, after all, when you can rent one to a woman for a decade?
In other words, the medical industry’s investment in the multibillion-dollar female birth control industry might block men’s access to male birth control just as effectively as Vasalgel would block their sperm. But a contraceptive polymer like Vasalgel would be a major medical innovation for more than just the man about town looking to copulate without consequence. In fact, male birth control could be the next major medical advance in women’s health, as strange as that idea seems.
If the use of polymer contraceptives were to become widespread, male birth control would completely transform the ways in which we understand sexual and reproductive health. Ever since men started wrapping animal intestines around their penises hundreds of years ago, we have been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman’s body. But what if we haven’t been able to see the forest through the ovaries? What if we could use polymer contraceptives like Vasalgel to block sperm at the source, rather than implementing expensive, convoluted, and potentially harmful contraceptive countermeasures inside women’s bodies?
If Vasalgel were to become as widespread and inexpensive as the Parsemus Foundation expects, unintended pregnancies could be substantially reduced. According to the Center for Disease Control, nearly half of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. That figure rises to 80 percent of all pregnancies among women age 19 and younger, and to 90 percent below age 15. The physical, financial, and emotional toll of an unintended pregnancy can be immense. As a report from the Guttmacher Institute notes, the average cost of an abortion is $485, which “pose[s] a major financial burden for women seeking these services,” who are often lower income. Not all unintended pregnancies are unwanted, however, and given the fact that modern birth control has deep roots in Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics, the benefits of male birth control for lower-income families in particular should not be overemphasized.
Even if we set the prevention of unintended pregnancies aside, however, the potentially deleterious side effects of female birth control are enough to justify the implementation of Vasalgel on their own. As WomensHealth.Gov notes, side effects of the birth control pill include an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, nausea, irregular bleeding, and depression. Less common methods of contraception like diaphragms and sponges can cause the rare and life-threatening toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Injections like Depo-Provera can cause bone loss and the use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) can potentially cause rips or tears in the uterus itself. It would take a commercial announcer a full minute of speed-reading to list off all the risks of every form of female birth control. Interrupting ovulation and fertilization is a complex process that requires a degree of hormonal regulation, often impacting other areas of a woman’s health.
But as luck would have it, you don’t have to tamper with testosterone in order to block sperm. It might seem as if men are unstoppable sperm machines, especially given the fact they produce 1,500 of them per second. But because sperm are as fickle as they are plentiful, technologies like Vasalgel and RISUG need not interfere with the production of sperm itself in the same way that female birth control often interferes with ovulation. Like the Little Dutch Boy walking by a dike on the brink of bursting, Vasalgel can simply plug up the vas deferens and stop an entire sea of sperm from crashing through. It promises to be a parsimonious solution to the age-old problem of preventing unwanted pregnancies. This is nothing short of Occam’s razor for your testicles.
While the way Vasalgel works inside a man’s body might be simple, its cultural impact would be complex. The Religious Right, in particular, has grown accustomed to a world in which regulating access to birth control means regulating women’s bodies, rather than men’s bodies. Although the Affordable Care Act began offering women no-to-low-cost contraceptive coverage in 2010, the Supreme Court’s now-infamous Hobby Lobby ruling this summer allowed “closely-held corporations” to offer health insurance plans without contraceptive coverage. The Hobby Lobby ruling is already being used to try to undermine Obamacare’s contraceptive requirement altogether. This week, Missouri state Representative Paul Wieland’s lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services went to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will consider whether or not it is constitutional for “closely-held corporations” to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage while states like Missouri cannot.
Lost in all of this legal conflict, however, is the fact that Hobby Lobby, of course, still covers vasectomies. But what if vasectomies were cheap, non-invasive, fully reversible, and as widespread as the female birth control pill? Would businesses like Hobby Lobby begin to object to them? If Vasalgel became popular and affordable enough to surpass female birth control, it would put the Religious Right’s opposition to contraception to the test. As The New York Times reported in 2012, many on the Religious Right justify their opposition to some forms of birth control by equating them with abortion because they “prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.” But if men’s bodies became the primary site for birth control, would religious leaders shift their rhetoric and take issue with a technology like Vasalgel on the grounds that it prevents life on a massive scale? Or do debates about life only have meaning when they take place over women’s bodies?
If the Parsemus Foundation’s optimistic timeline for the release of Vasalgel holds true, we may be forced to confront these questions sooner than expected. In the meantime, men, prepare for the possibility that you may soon take over primary responsibility for contraception from your wife or girlfriend. The future of birth control is coming and soon it might be inside of you.
An effective form of birth control for men that pretty much blows all female birth control out of the water. Surprise surprise. How much you wanna bet that there'll be almost no argument as to whether or not this form of contraception should be provided under health insurance and employer coverage? #checkedmyprivilegeandyupitsstillthere
I'll take that bet. People aren't against forced birth control coverage because it's for women..
Oh really? lol. You're so adorable, even for a Wookiee
See you in a few years. I hope you're not trying to imply Wookiees aren't normally cute.
Touche about the Wookiees, but I definitely think there wouldn't be nearly as much issue with men's reproductive rights instead of women's. The fact that we have an easier time covering Viagra over women's pills (the latter of which provide a plethora of health benefits and contraception, whereas the former is pretty much the opposite of contraception) makes me think that while a lot of people are against birth control for religious reasons, there are plenty of people who just use that as a cover for their misogyny.
I won't argue with the fact that a good portion is likely governed by religious/misogynistic views, but I honestly believe that a sizeable portion is also due to people thinking the government shouldn't be dictating what a private company has to offer/just don't like the idea of paying taxes to support other people's birth control.
I'd like to think that those people would be consistent in their perspective too. I guess time will tell as to whether or not they truly are, when they have the opportunity to benefit.
On November 10 2015 10:07 Plansix wrote: [quote] Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Yes, but maybe wait until that happens and then address it. I totally agree that call out culture is the shittest part of progressive culture, but it needs to be addressed when it happens. And maybe not in a page long response about free speech and the right to wear costumes. Maybe just with a "And if you see a costume that offends you, this isn't license to harass that person."
The same argument could be made for the first email. And, just by the volume of the response, you are informed which was more necessary.
For a man who was throwing around the term strawman a while ago, the power of confirmation bias is strong with you.
Your argument is that, if the initial statement was unrebutted, the chancellor would be facing calls for his resignation and crowds impeding him from getting to his office?
For sending an email asking students to think about their Halloween costumes and how others would perceive them?
This is the husband of the woman who sent out the email defending the students right to wear potentially offensive halloween costumes.
Yeah, I don't really agree with him and the title of the video is fucking comical. Cyberbullies my ass. He is talking about free speech like something is being taken away. They have a right to wear the costumes and no one was removing that. The email in question said asked students not to wear them out of respect for their fellow students who are minorities. There is no requirement to do so, but the school is telling the minority students they are not required to like it either or remain quite about those costumes.
This is the shit we feel is important now, racially insensitive Halloween costumes? Like really? I will say the same thing I say every time someone complaints about people being upset about offensive jokes. If you tell an offensive joke and someone doesn't laugh, it was just offensive. To exist with minorities on campus, people might have to tone down how funny they think racist jokes are. Or maybe just use fucking common sense and wear racially insensitive Halloween costumes around minorities.
Wait, aren't the students asking for a "safe environment" where offensive costumers are immediately burned and their wearers shunned? I thought the original professor was the one calling for moderation of thought and a willingness to tolerate what are modestly offensive costumes (it being Halloween and all).
This article has a pretty good break down of it, including both emails for you to read. In my opinion there wasn't in the email from Yale beyond "Use your head, think about what your costume says to people of that culture. Don't be an asshole."
The problem with the "free speech above all" coming from a staff member in this context is it sends this message to minority students "We care more about racist Halloween costumes than you. We don't value you." Yale's email was a suggestion, not a rule. A thought process to being considerate to your fellow students who's feelings you might not consider. In response to that, the staff member said singled to the minority students that really its not other students jobs to give a shit about them.
The professor explicitly said that students SHOULD consider what was appropriate and care about each other, but that they should do it because they build their own community, not because it was an implied rule from administrators. Her letter was more about questioning the university's role in the social climate of its students than championing free speech or devaluing minority students. I don't know how you could come to a different conclusion after reading her message.
Well you have to be a minority who has faced racism their whole life and is completely fed up with it. And then your school asks students to be considerate of your feelings, some professor also comes out and points out that everyone has the right to wear racist costumes and that as important. And this will go on forever. Or until you get a job and then racist costumes are not acceptable because that shit won't fly for an HR department. Really they are only acceptable in college and private parties.
But the key problem here is that every time someone says "Consider minorities and their feelings," it is instantly bookended by someone saying that free speech matters and is a right. So they might as well have never said the first thing about being considerate.
Clutz: Poorly conceived demand from college students are a staple of American culture. But that isn't why that man resigned. And I think you are right that the professor may have mean that, but maybe she should have waited until the students came forward seeking the "high inquisitorial counsel", rather than assuming it was going to happen. Maybe just issue the message of "respect others" and see how it is going to plays out, rather than instantly devaluing the first email by saying "but remember minorities, you need to respect the right for people to wear racists costumes too," as if they needed to be told that.
Agree on the demand point. And the resignation point. However, no one defends racists (except in the 1st Amendment context of preventing them from being arrested for speech) and you keep dragging out that strawman. If you are at all familiar with the views that are prevalent in many of these circles, you know (and are being extremely dishonest by ignoring this) that they are nearly as likely to flip out at a white girl dressed as a belly dancer as they are the Neo-Nazi in blackface.
Honestly, I'm completely amazed at how often this point gets lost.
How is the point relevant? Whatever a university allows or not isn't a legal issue, so there is no need to conjure up discussions about constitutional rights in the first place.
Of course it's a legal issue. And it's particularly an issue in the context of state-run universities like Missouri.
EPT
