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BC has side-effects, so currently the burden is placed on women. It's the path of least resistance simply because it is the status quo, but that's no argument for why it should continue that way.

Look, let's be honest. It falls to women because they have the most to lose. They are the ones who get pregnant. Of course men should be responsible. But the biological reality is what it is.

Let’s be honest. It’s difficult to argue that it doesn’t fall to women at least partially because this has historically been a men’s world and men cannot be bothered with researching male contraceptives if contraception has already been made Someone Else’s Problem. A male contraceptive with all the side effects of the pill would never become popular.

The reasons commonly reported by heterosexual men to not use condoms are not much different to the reasons reported by homosexual men, so I think there's something other than burden-passing at play here.

Hm, I don’t see how that follows at all. Gays don’t have the pregnancy issue so there’s no burden to pass.

The burden is largely on women because they suffer the larger (and more immediate) share of the consequences. How many women who don't want those consequences would trust a casual hookup who assured them that they are sterile, to the point where they'll not use their own birth control?

Ideally, both parties will use birth control.

>Ideally, both parties will use birth control.

This is what many people see to be missing. No method of BC, beyond total abstinence, is 100% effective. Mixing methods lowers the simultaneous failure rates to minuscule levels.

I didn't make an argument saying that the way it is, is the way it should be. I just said it is the way it is for reasonable reasons and I don't see how this new way could gain traction. Pushing up hill isn't a great strategy.

There are many women who are reluctant to take hormonal birth control pills for a variety of reasons. It makes some gain weight or breast size. It makes some more emotional. It can increase risk for certain cancers. Among smokers it increases risk of blood clots and strokes. Some women believe (correctly or not) that taking the pill will affect fertility later in life. Mucking with one's endocrinology is serious business, and it's a serious choice for every woman thinking about getting on the pill. If there's this "perfect" side-effect free birth control for men, I know a lot of women who'd rather opt for that.

On the other side of it, condoms (and hormonal birth control pill for that matter) are not infallible. Plenty of guys want to have consequence-free sex with relative strangers and not have to worry about a condom breaking or b.c. pills being left in the hot sun too long or an unscrupulous woman turkey-bastering his sperm from a used condom or a blowjob.

I anticipate this being immensely popular if it's made available.

You missed a big reason for women not to take hormonal BC. Reduced or absent sex-drive. That's a large issue for a woman in a relationship and probably a large issue for single women as well.

I didn't bring it up because it's not a reason to prefer vasalgel over hormonal BC.

> There are many women who are reluctant to take hormonal birth control pills for a variety of reasons.

Your list had nothing to do with preferring male over female BC. It was talking about reasons women could be reluctant to use hormonal BC methods. I was simply adding a very large side-effect to the list of reasons a woman might skip a hormonal BC method.

Oh! Sorry, I totally misinterpreted your original comment. I thought you meant that women who have a pre-existing condition of low sex drive don't want to take the pill because they have no interest in sex and hence contraception. While true, it didn't make much sense in context. It being a side-effect of the pill makes much more sense.

In contrast, every woman I've been with, with one exception, has been unable to take hormonal birth control without crippling side effects re: mood and mental health. I can't comment on what it feels like, but the side effects are emotionally taxing for male partners and are really good at killing relationships.

> So women will use BC in both phases because it's the path of least resistance.

I could see it from womens point of view as you can't always trust the other party (someone you just met) that they are indeed "on the gel", and you are the one getting pregnant if it's not the case.

This might be the big/determinant factor, but apart from that it's definitely not "least resistance" when factoring in side effects. It's tradition, but it doesn't have to be.

Condoms for STDs will always have a place, I agree.

Female hormonal BC can have a lot of bad consequences on the health (I know someone who died, one other who lost a lost of her hair, my girlfriend gets depressed, etc.) so I hope more couples would consider that.

Its interesting to think how hormonal BC has only been around for less than a century. What effects will the mothers (& grandmothers, since technically the mother's egg is already formed in the grandmother at birth) carry onto their children over further generations? I like to think we got a nice ancestry line happening from the last 2000 years with lots of physical activity and exposure to nature.

You seem dubious about the market size of this.

> This gel does nothing for people who just want to hookup because of the risk of STDs. So you still have to use a condom anyway so why get the gel injection?

Aside from the hookup crowd being the minority of the available market, this further reduces the probability of accidental pregnancy even for them.

> So women will use BC in both phases because it's the path of least resistance

Maybe, maybe not as sibling comments stress. Besides, this further decreases chances of pregnancy beyond female birth control alone.

> I could see this working best as an alternative to vasectomy for a couple that is done having kids

It's quite reversable (at least according to this article), so its market is reasonably far larger than that of a vasectomy.