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Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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