Question*crosspost*

[delicata77.livejournal.com]

What do you all think of that fact that men are much more fertile than women(one man has enough sperm to impregnate each woman in america twice, while women have about 480 eggs released per lifetime.) and yet there are more birth control methods for women than men?

Comments

[tariecloth.livejournal.com]

bc the repercussions of pregnancy are stronger and more direct for women so they need more options ? maybe

[delicata77.livejournal.com]

True.

There is no right or wrong. I just wanted to see what people thought.

[lizdefiance.livejournal.com]

i think it's fucked up and unfair. taking charge of your fertility is the first exposure i ever had to that idea. i practice fertility awareness, so i don't have to do any invasive sort of birth control that fucks with my hormones, and my boyfriend is a pretty equal part in checking my temperature and charting things with me, so i feel good about that. i don't want fucekd up hormones and chemicals for boys like there is for girls. i want more natural things for everybody.

[moonwalker.livejournal.com]

I think that women probably release more than 30 eggs per lifetime. But I also think that more research has to be done for men's birth control. Condoms aren't enough.

Put yourself in a guy's shoes... you would really have to trust your partner to leave birth control totally up to her. With DNA testing, it's harder for a guy to just claim "it's not mine." Looks like guys should be clamoring for equal rights with hormonal birth control.

Mary MMM

[delicata77.livejournal.com]

I posted the real #...I am very tired and blind right now, forgive me.

a variety of options.....

[iris-opal.livejournal.com]

a] No intelligent woman is going to trust the casual partners assertion 'it's OK, I'm on the pill'.

b] Men's biological imperative is to spread his seed as widely as possible, whatever the quality of the partner. A woman's is to get the best possible quality male to father her child, so is more likely to want to prevent conception with lower quality males.

c] Given the number of men who get squeamish about vasectomies, or even neutering pets, and the number that equate masculinity with virility I can't see male contraceptives being as popular.

These are generalisations of course!

Re: a variety of options.....

[puttysan.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's beginning to appear that the image of the "coy female" who chooses her mates carefully, while the males mate with anything that moves, is false. Females, both humans and animals, are just as sluttly as the males, and aren't necessarily choosey. Yes, kinda pushes some tenets of natural selection out the window, but it is what is being observed, and has been for some time. Ah, the joys of an academic advisor who is fascinated with human reproduction.

Re: a variety of options.....

[iris-opal.livejournal.com]

Thanks - always happy to learn more. I did Biology @ Uni, but it is probably a bit out of date.

Re: a variety of options.....

[xviragox.livejournal.com]

Given the number of men who get squeamish about vasectomies, or even neutering pets, and the number that equate masculinity with virility I can't see male contraceptives being as popular.

True that.

My boyfriend is very, very adamant about not wanting children, EVER. I feel the same, but he periodically asks questions to try to 'trick' me into revealing whether I secretly intend to reproduce. Yet, when I suggest that he get snipped someday, his response is that he'll be less manly and besides, what if we break up, he gets together with someone else, and decides to have children?

WTF?!!

Re: a variety of options.....

[iris-opal.livejournal.com]

LOL!
Oh boy is that a classic!

But yeah, that is a solid gold example of what I mean about men - OK, many of the lovely dears will bend over backwards and do whatever - but the only one I know personally who has had the snip has 3 kids already.

It can sort of work the other way - my mother had a mastectomy and maintained she felt less like a woman after that.

Its your own mental image of what you ought to be, and many men feel lessened if they know they are infertile, even temporarily.

[puttysan.livejournal.com]

Turns, it is a LOT easier to control a once-a-month occurence, the release of an egg, over the nonstop production of sperm. By simply elevating the hormones in the body to keep it in a states of pseusopregnancy, by way of chemical BC methods, or altering the state of the uterus making it inhospitable to implantation (IUD, Nuvaring), fertility in females can be controlled. In males, the hormones that lead to spermotogenesis are necessary to other male characteristics, and altering them affects more than just fertility. It is also very difficult to return them to their correct levels. There have been many attempts at male BC pills, but they can lead to permanent sterility, or at least long-term low sperm production. It is, medically, very simple to turn on and off fertility in females, just by the nature of the physiology, and very difficult to control it in males.

This, of course, has nothing to do with external methods, it's only the reasoning why there aren't BC pills or things like IUDs for men.

[amber-moon.livejournal.com]

my theory is that because women have the children...
and people seem to think that men are not that responsible for what they do...

but i think it's harder to control that much sperm compared to the 499 eggs...

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

YOu know, I've got to agree with the person who posted about not trusting guys with "it's ok honey, i'm on the pill" I've got a friend who trusted a varient of that line (it's ok honey, i'm totally infertile") and now has a beautiful two year old daughter. My friend is 21, a senior in college, and looking after her mother who had a stroke a couple of years back as well. That's not to say that i think all men would lie like that, or that i think women wouldn't sometimes, but i like to know that my pregnancy or lask thereof in in my own hands (for the most part.)

ok, end of poorly caffinated rant. more tea...

[dragon-spirit.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's an easy one! Men are lazy.

I never ever trust men even to have condoms around, and I *won't* get speared without one.