Hippocrates wrote around 400 years BC: ‘When a woman has intercourse, if she is not going to conceive, then it is her practice to expel the sperm produced by both partners whenever she wishes to do so.’
This set the tone for men’s thoughts on contraception ever since: basically, it’s up to women, using whatever witchy magic they have down there. ‘Oh, and it’s not just our sperm, it’s your sperm too, darlin’, sort it out.’
Of course, there has been some male responsibility in this area: we’ve had condoms since before even Hippocrates’ time, which have been marketed to men since the 18th century when pubs and barber shops sold bladder or intestine ‘skins’ — sexy. Then there’s vasectomies, although this is purely seen as an option for middle-aged men with six kids under their straining belts. Or there’s the withdrawal ‘technique’, a particular London favourite if the rising STI rates are anything to go by, but this has a failure rate of between 18 and 27 per cent.
Mostly though, it’s been up to the ladies: the diaphragm, the contraceptive injection, the IUD ‘coil’, the female condom (remember them?), and above all, ‘the pill’. When it hit the market in 1961, the pill instantly sparked a ‘sexual revolution’, liberating women, allowing them to work more and explore their sexualities — with plenty of Radio 1 DJs encouraging them from the sidelines. But the pill has always had negative side-effects and has always begged the question: what about a pill for men?
Aside from the offensive and understandable snipes that women wouldn’t trust men to take one, the truth is that there have been plenty of male ‘pills’, it’s just they haven’t made it to market for reasons often based on patriarchal prejudice, eg the side effects were considered too much for men to bear. For instance, in 1968 a man taking thioridazine for schizophrenia reported ‘dry orgasms’. Nothing came out. But after years of development, it was concluded that men would find this ‘emasculating’.
Now, though, there is an enticing breakthrough: a male contraceptive gel that is rubbed into the shoulders.
Professor Richard Anderson from the University of Edinburgh is heading up trials in the UK, which are part of a big international trial set up by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. ‘It’s a big deal,’ he tells me, ‘and is related to a testosterone/ Nestorone gel. The key is the Nestorone — it is a progesterone-type drug that switches off the hormones that drive the testes. That stops sperm production but it also reduces your testosterone production. So the testosterone in the gel just replaces that. It’s analogous to the combined pill for women.
It has proved highly effective for the hundreds of couples in the trial. ‘It’s a daily treatment, and it takes a while to work — for some, its weeks, for others, months — but the trial protocol says everyone needs to be suppressed within six months, and almost everyone has succeeded in that. Most guys get down to a zero sperm count.’
If successful in the final analysis, it will be followed by a broader trial before it is ready for market, so we’re still a few years off. But the reason it’s causing so much excitement is that, unlike previous injection-based treatments, it’s self-administered and will fit nicely into a man’s routine: shower, shave, contraceptive gel, splash of Brut.
As to whether it will cause another sexual revolution as legions of slimy, sperm-free men hit the streets, well… no, it’s more likely to cause a social revolution, one in keeping with our era. ‘It’s got to be a positive thing,’ says Anderson. ‘It’s about mutual respect. Our trail has lots of couples in their 20s taking part and there’s a recognition that contraception is not a female prerogative. Times have changed.’
