[Miscellany]

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

The One About The Pill

I woke to the grand news that the contraceptive ring was finally going to be on sale in Australia. Personally um..I don't quite understand where exactly it's going to reside, how it interferes with sex and tampons and does it disolve or does one have to somehow fish it out after three weeks?

Anyway, while women rejoice their heads off because we don't have to take a pill everyday if we don't wanna, I wonder why the HELL is it is always us women who have to have OUR hormones fucked around with? The last time I checked it takes two to make a baby - one of which happens to make sperm and have a penis. Why can't men have their testosterone levels altered to the point where they don't produce sperm and get headaches, moody and don't function normally? Why should we women have our hormone levels altered to the point where we don't release eggs and where our periods aren't actually periods? One may argue that if women don't want to get pregnant then women should take care of it - but in the same vein if men don't want the babies shouldn't men take 'care of things' too?

I'm on the pill (obviously not for tumbleweed reasons) but I wonder what the fuck it's doing to my body sometimes. Women go on the pill for a whole host of hormonal reasons, some of which have nothing to do with pregnancy and surely doctors prescribe the pill to treat a number of female related ailments, but why? Of course, I know the reasons why - but culturally why is it desirable for women to alter their hormones so dramatically when things go wrong? Are we so imperfect as we are? Would men even TAKE a male contraceptive pill? Would women trust them to?

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