My girlfriend and I have stopped using hormone-based contraceptives, for nearly 2 years now, I believe. The main reason is that the hormone-stuff had really messed up my girlfriend, and at some point, we were actually starting to get worried about not having the opportunity of having kids.
When we met, she had an IUD (with hormonal stuff), which was uncomfortable to me, so she switched to an implant. The next nearly two years were fairly difficult because she would have extremely irregular periods (for up to two months at a time, in one case), and it messed with our relationship in more ways than one.
At our request, her gynæcologist removed the implant, and she switched to the pill. This helped stabilise things, but it was still messed up. In the end, we decided to stop any hormone-based contraceptive, and decided to use condoms. Yes, it's annoying, and everything you want, but it's still a lot better than whatever we had before.
The reason I'm telling this, is that I don't really understand the taboo around it. It's a normal part of a normal relationship---there's no point in pretending we're farting rainbows all the time. I'm also fairly annoyed at the fact that women have to put up with this, whereas us men get the sweet end of the deal. We don't have to pay a luxury tax for something which really is essential for most women, we don't have to worry about whether something works or not, or whether getting laid is worth having trouble at that level for the next 6 months. Note that I'm saying "oh poor women, you have to deal with periods," I'm only discussing the technical/monetary aspects of this.
I understand that there's very little interest by most men to have a male contraceptive, but I for one would love to have one. Not necessarily hormone-based, and preferably not something that requires having that part of my body be approached by a scalpel. I seem to remember reading an article some time ago explaining why there was no male contraceptive available to those who wanted it. If I remember correctly, according to the labs/vendors, there was simply no market for it. The products existed, but either they're making too much money out of the female variants, or the male variants simply wouldn't sell.
In any case, the situation is messed up.