Re: MED/SOCIETY:'100% success' for male pill trial

From: Wilson (wilson@supremetyrant.com)
Date: Wed Jul 19 2000 - 20:50:03 MDT


I was looking up references to this Herpes vaccine you were talking about,
and I ran into this:

http://www.dfwdoctors.com/utsw/herpes.htm

Can you IMAGINE participating in this study, and receiving the placebo?
You'd instantly get an incurable disease for your trouble.
Yikes.

--Wilson.

At 07:10 PM 7/19/00 -0700, you wrote:
>What an interesting thread !
>I would take this pill immediately, I recently married and have no desire
>to be a parent nor does my wife, accidents can and do occur and we do not
>want to face the abortion issue (altho its wrong, its not the states
>business, is the functioning model for us)
>
>they are working on a Herp vaccine
>
>any male who asserts that a female is less a person for desiring sex is
>propagating a meme that is counter to his desire for a large population of
>potential partners.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> > "Edinburgh University scientists say the first
>> > clinical trials of a male contraceptive pill
>> > suggest it is 100% effective, with no harmful
>> > consequences. "
>> >
>
>...
>
>>But after discussing the idea of a male
>>pill with lots of different women, I discovered that
>>the (then) prevalent attitude was that it didn't
>>matter if there was a male pill because men could not
>>really be trusted to take it. I heard things like,
>>"Well, if I was living with the guy and I actually saw
>>him take it then I guess it would be OK, but if I'm
>>just dating some guy, I'm not going to take the chance
>>of getting pregnant on his say-so that he took the
>>pill. I'd have to take my own precautions to be on
>>the safe side anyway." The article says only 2%
>>wouldn't trust their partner to take the new pill.
>
>Where do you live?
>I have heard this a lot since moving to Utah and I thought it was derived
>from the marriage-oriented culture here. But it seems to be the general
>assumption that men would not bother to take the 30 seconds per day which
>it takes to take a pill, because they secretly want to get women pregnant
>so they can get married and have a family. This is really, really
>counterintuitive. Most women I know want to have children one day, many of
>them soon - do most men want to have children?
>
>>One concern that a friend of mine expressed is that
>>those men least likely to take the male pill are the
>>ignorant, the stupid, and the lazy while those most
>>likely to take the pill are on the other end of the
>>spectrum. Not particularly good news for the gene
>>pool. This friend of mine also suggested that men
>>will now have even more of a propinquity to engage in
>>meaningless sexual encounters and women's psyches will
>>continue to harbor resentment toward themselves, men,
>>and society in general because of this behavior.
>
>Who was it here who suggested a genetic engineering solution by which
>people are born (or made to be, through gene therapy), infertile, and then
>have to take a fertility pill to replentish whatever chemical their bodies
>have been made unable to produce in order to have children. This is an
>excellent idea, and I hope a gene therapy solution will soon be in the
>works. I have another idea which may or may not be workable, I dont know -
>but a vasectomy which, rather then simply severing the tube and letting
>the ends heal, puts a "switch" between both ends - some kind of pump, or
>better yet, a tube which can switch from open to contracted states
>chemically. By a remote control, or by taking a pill (one time), you turn
>the switch to open or closed to let sperm pass through, depending on
>whether you want children or not. Problem: people are still fertile up to
>a month after a vasectomy from sperm leftover in the tubes and I'd expect
>this to be an issue here too. I think this would be a small problem, as
>people would not be changing their minds once a week about having children.
>I pondered the idea of learning how to do this myself and building my own
>- knowing how I am with building things, I would end up with a foot-long
>length of rubber hose extending from my scrotum.
>
>>Sometimes it seems like this notion that recreational
>>sex is a bad thing is primarily propagated by those
>>women who continue to perceive the need for a
>>long-term commitment from a man before they can feel
>>comfortable in a relationship and this appears to be a
>>carryover from the days when women depended heavily
>>upon men's resources for their well-being and the
>>well-being of their children.
>
>That's certainly half of it...
>The other half comes from men - guys who will lose respect for a woman and
>think of her as a "slut" after she sleeps with him. I think this is less
>common today, but certainly in the past (from what I have read and
>observed of some old people), the idea is that a good woman, the kind who
>you marry, is one who doesn't really like sex too much but will "let you"
>do it to her, as a matrimonial duty. These are the kind for having
>children with. The other kind is the kind for having enjoyable sex with,
>and are often prostitutes. This attitude is expressed very well by a
>character in "Summer of Sam" if you've seen it (a pretty bad movie,
>actually). You would also be familiar with it if you know anyone in a
>frat. If you ever see a book called "Deviant behavior" (sociology book)
>look up the number of men who have lost their virginity to prostitutes
>today, compared to thoe who did in the 1940s - I don't remember the
>statistic but it's the opposite of what you would think.. severalfold
>higher in the 40s. Also, often people who are arrested for prostitution
>(some cities publish this data in papers) are very conservative,
>traditional types of men.
>
>>My hope is that the male
>>pill will indeed take us a step closer toward a more
>>relaxed attitude toward our sexuality, but not a more
>>relaxed attitude toward the responsibilities of
>>marriage and/or family. We really need to get past the
>>paradigm where women sort men by the size of their
>>wallets and men sort women by their potential for
>>sexual gratification. I have to admit though, these
>>hopes are probably unrealistic on my part.
>
>Also required are cures for various STDs.
>Ideally: full cures and vaccines for HIV, herpes, and HPV, (are
>cures/vaccines for the latter two being worked on anyplace?) as well as a
>wider testing for bacterial STDs.
>
>>
>>What are some of the other Male Pill issues being
>>debated?
>>
>>Scott
>>
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