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Every evening at 9:30 p.m., Justin Ménard’s cell phone lights up. Yellow and red tablet emoticons appear on the screen, reminding her to take her birth control pill. Well, not his, but his girlfriend’s.
“If I’m with her, I remind her to take it. Otherwise, I send him a text message, ”explains the young man quite simply. It is the compromise on which the couple agreed, when possible, to share the responsibility for contraception.
“Like that, it’s an action that is done in two and me, it reminds me every day of the efforts she makes for our relationship,” continues Justin.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Justin Ménard has found an original compromise to share the responsibility for contraception with his girlfriend.
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Agreements like these are not commonplace. But they do exist, and they testify to a desire to review methods of contraception. Press spoke to eight young men about it. Some share the cost of the pill with their partner. Others are considering vasectomy in the more or less distant future. Another closely follows the latest scientific advances in this area.
And – surprise – all say they are ready for a male oral contraceptive. The famous pill promised for two decades.
What are we waiting for?
To succeed in creating this male oral contraceptive, the challenge is considerable. Unlike women, who have a regular hormonal cycle, men continuously produce sperm. The quantity of hormones to be regulated is more important.
But it is also that research starts from afar. Very far. “Over the past 20 years, funding and research on contraceptive drugs have absolutely focused on women,” explains Sylvie Lévesque, sexologist at UQAM.
Currently, there are only two male hormonal contraceptives that have passed the clinical trial stage. Two androgenic compounds, DMAU and 11-beta-MNTDC.
In 2019, the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA conducted a first test of the second compound in 40 men. According to the researcher involved, the Dre Arthi Thirumalai, this one “significantly” blocked the production of follicle stimulating and luteinizing hormones, which signal the testes to make sperm and testosterone.
“The next step is to see if we can get the sperm suppressed,” said Dr.re Thirumalai at Press, without however giving a deadline. Optimistically, she says this compound is the way to a “reliable, reversible method of contraception for men who currently have none.”
This contraceptive currently causes side effects such as acne and mood swings. Side effects that are reminiscent of those of female contraceptives, marketed for decades.
Because they would have a choice, men want to make sure that the disadvantages associated with taking a contraceptive would not be too great a threat to their quality of life. Which in itself is a rather healthy reflex, but which brings us back to gender inequality, since women have more or less this choice.
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Sylvie Lévesque, sex therapist at UQAM
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Pill for girls, condoms for boys
Gabriello Provencher has few memories of her high school sex lessons. He remembers two, three notions about sexually transmitted diseases … and the famous wooden penis. “We were taught for two hours how to put a condom on a wooden penis. That’s all. Nothing about other contraceptive methods. ”
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Gabriello Provencher wishes to take further thought on contraception.
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The specialists met by Press also notice this gap in the sexual education and socialization of adolescents. On the program for girls, menstruation and contraceptive pills. For boys, it’s the condom – and rarely to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
“The condom, we imagine it much more as a method of protection against STDs. It is very strongly associated with the beginning of a couple, where we don’t really know each other. From the moment the couple considers themselves stable, they drop the condom, ”explains sociodemographer at the National Institute for Scientific Research Laurence Charton.
Sex therapist Sylvie Lévesque adds: “At that time, it’s rare for men to take the time to ask: ‘Is it okay for you to take hormones every day? Are you experiencing any effects related to this? ” It is not put on the table, it is not negotiated. “The pill is perhaps more effective than the condom against unwanted pregnancies, the fact remains that the contraceptive culture leaves little choice to women, she judges (see next tab).
After the reflection driven by the #metoo movement and the recent wave of denunciations, Gabriello Provencher wishes to push the issue of consent further. “Making love is all about consent. It is an action that is done in pairs. It is a beauty that should be fair and equal. ”
Equal even in contraception, he thinks.
His girlfriend, Sharly Roberge, agrees.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Sharly Roberge and Gabriello Provencher
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In the best of all possible worlds, we would do 50/50! [Gabriello] would take the pill for a year, then I would take it for a year and vice versa […] If we could finally have access to it, it would be a big step towards gender equality.
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Sharly Roberge, sexology student
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To take or not to take the pill
The male contraceptive pill is almost here. Finally, many will say. But will it find a taker?
For specialists, this is the next question that must be asked. First, because it is not certain that women are ready to share contraception, which requires rigor and diligence.
Even if the woman no longer has the daily mental load, she will always be aware that in the event of an accident, it is she who will have to bear the consequences.
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Laurence Charton, sociodemographer at the National Institute for Scientific Research
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Then the men have to come to terms with taking hormones, despite the potential side effects.
Sylvie Lévesque is conducting a qualitative study on the openness of women and men to this possibility. She notes that these are still very rhetorical questions, but that “many men say they are ready to take this drug”.
Frédéric Delisle, he would take the pill tomorrow morning, if he could.
For health reasons, his girlfriend does not take an oral contraceptive. The IUD did not work either. “It breaks my heart to see her always think about it and worry about it,” he says.
From the still very marginal thermal method, which consists of raising the testicles close to the body using a ring in order to increase their temperature and stop sperm production, to hormonal contraceptives being tested, Frédéric has studied everything. , read everything on the subject. He’s still waiting for the perfect option. The least inconvenient and the most efficient.
It’s a choice he can afford. And the male oral contraceptive could be that solution. ” I’m looking forward to it. ”
Contraception, a (another) mental burden for women?
ILLUSTRATION JULIEN CHUNG, THE PRESS
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Contraception has to be planned, budgeted for, purchased, taken every day – in some cases – and side effects, sometimes. Is it a mental burden, like shopping for groceries or looking after children? Sex therapist Sylvie Lévesque and sociodemographer Laurence Charton discuss it in three questions.
Press : Women are fertile four to five days per month. Men, all the time. Yet it is women who are responsible for contraception. Can we speak of gender inequity?
Sylvie Lévesque: I totally believe it. There is always this premise that the person with the womb is responsible for unintended pregnancies, regardless of the relationship setup. Yes, there are men who are sensitized, but overall, this unfair context is not questioned, not negotiated. When two people get into union, they will hardly address the issue of contraception. As if it went without saying.
Laurence Charton : In a way, I think so too. That said, it must be said that there are contraceptives for men. Vasectomy [ligature des canaux déférents], for example, is widespread in North America.
In recent years, the principle of “mental load” has been used to describe all those household chores which most often fall to women. Is contraception one of them?
S. L : Absolutely! Let’s think about the contraceptive pill. Remember to take the tablet every day, relatively at the same time. If you forget her, you have to think about her cycle, when her last sexual relations date back… All this stress is not trivial. There are people who will take hormones for years without having side effects and others who will react much more strongly. There are people who will experience migraines, abdominal pain, and weight gain. So yeah, it’s a load, in the sense that women never stop thinking about it.
Contraception is undoubtedly a revolutionary invention. It projected women into a new era, in the 1960s. Has the relationship of Quebec women to contraception changed, more than half a century later?
S. L : We wonder more about the negative effects of contraception, but not the positive ones. If we ran out of stock [de contraception] tomorrow, we would not have the same speech at all! Contraception has enabled and still allows women to have autonomy in their socio-professional trajectory. It has a ton of benefits, but it also had that unintended effect, I imagine, which is that women are confined to contraceptive management.
L. C : I believe that women in Quebec have always tended to reject what exerted control over the body. Before, it was the Church. Today, women reject unnatural things like hormones and the IUD. Cultural perception has not changed so much on this point.
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