There's been "progress" every few years for decades. Male birth control is basically the medical equivalent of battery technology.

I'll believe it when a pill makes it to market.

It's really frustrating how often this gets framed as sexist, when it's a totally different problem. I get why people would equate them but they are very different biological processes. Producing a baby is a complicated process, and there's a lot of steps that we can intervene in to prevent it. Producing a million sperm is, maybe surprisingly, less complicated and it's harder to target a specific thing and produce easily reversible results.

Men have had vasectomy on the table for a long time now. It's just more serious than most forms of female birth control, in terms of implementation and recovery, still not foolproof, and not as easy to reverse.

Even more frustrating is that sexism definitely does exist and play a role. It's just more about the human parts of the process, like dealing with medical staff, dealing with insurance, dealing with local, state, and now federal governments that want to bar access to women. Looking at the pill side is misplacing the anger.

There are also medical benefits to female hormonal birth control besides not getting pregnant.

We do have to remember that "First do no harm" is not a universal law of ethics or anything, it's just the way the powers that be think about things.

I think men should consider the potential harms to their partner in their calculus. If a man participates in causing a pregnancy that results in serious complications or death, I would sincerely hope that he would be as devastated by the loss of his partner as he would by suffering the harm himself. If men can't empathize with their partner enough to consider the risks to her, then he shouldn't be having sex in the first place.

So far, there’s no male birth control pill on the market. But there are two types of birth control pills in the works: YCT-529 and dimethandrolone undecanoate. YCT-529 is a hormone-free male birth control pill that aims to stop your body from making sperm by targeting the vitamin A signaling that makes sperm production possible.

Researchers studied the effects of this male birth control pill on animals. They found that in mice, after four weeks of use, it was 99% effective in preventing pregnancies. In primates, sperm counts dropped in just two weeks of use. Researchers also completed a phase 1 human study to test how safe and tolerable the drug is. Now, they’re recruiting participants for a phase 1B/2A study, but more research is needed before this drug can hit the market.

The other male birth control pill, dimethandrolone undecanoate (DMAU), may also be available as an injectable. This one is a hormonal birth control, meaning it impacts your male sex hormones, causing them to temporarily stop your body from making sperm.

In a phase 1 study, participants took DMAU for 28 days. But the participants weren’t relying on DMAU for birth control, so more research is needed. Even though a phase 2 trial is in the works, it’s not complete.

https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/male-contraceptives

Huh. I thought the trials had been completed, but I guess not. Feels like I remember hearing about them like 4-5+ years ago.

I know I should use them but I really don't like using them.

Condoms are horrible for birth control.

Yes, but even when used correctly the chance of pregnancy is still significant.

And many people do not know how to use them correctly.

This is a yes and situation. (You should use condoms regardless of other contraceptives, for sexual health reasons)

Basically. There's no biological advantage for men to shut down sperm production, so evolution never pressured a mechanism to do so.

It's more that there's not any reason for the body to have developed a mechanism to stop sperm production.

Success in evolution is largely accomplished by reproducing better than those without your mutation. Shutting down sperm production does the opposite.

More like trying to root a Samsung phone with Knox (for men)