Why nearly every contraceptive risk falls on women, not men

In 1974, a satirical announcement circulated describing a bold new male contraceptive called the Umbrelly, a tiny folded device inserted through the penis into the scrotum, tested, the piece claimed, on hundreds of unsuspecting graduate students, several of whom developed infections, cancer, or depression severe enough to affect their ability to have an erection. The parody, written by Belita Cowan and reproduced by Toni Weschler, is obviously absurd. It is also, Weschler points out, barely more absurd than the real risk profile many women have simply accepted for decades from methods marketed to them: increased risk of blood clots, strokes, and breast cancer from hormonal methods, pelvic inflammatory disease from IUDs like the notorious Dalkon Shield, and a long list of smaller but still real complaints from diaphragms, sponges, and spermicides.

Weschler lays out a simple observation that most people never quite stop to examine: men are fertile every single day of their lives, while women are only fertile for a handful of days each cycle, and yet almost the entire catalog of contraceptive options, and nearly all of their side effects, has been built for women to use. As the writer Dora Russell put it, in a line Weschler quotes, people deserve far better reasons for having children than simply not knowing how to prevent them.

Against that backdrop, Weschler tells the story of Susan and Joe, a couple who took her seminar after years of Susan enduring nausea and headaches on the pill. Three years later, the routine had become second nature to Joe: every morning the alarm rings, he gets up, puts the thermometer in Susan's mouth, brushes his teeth, comes back, removes it, and records the reading on her chart while she stays snuggled in bed, symptom-free. Weschler doesn't present this as a chore Joe grudgingly accepts. She presents it as evidence that a method built on shared knowledge, rather than one partner's chemistry or one partner's hardware, opens up contraception as something a couple actually does together, instead of something one of them simply endures.

Start by taking an honest look at who in your relationship currently carries the physical weight of contraception, the side effects, the daily tasks, the doctor's visits, and name that division out loud rather than letting it sit unexamined. If it makes sense for your situation, invite your partner into the actual mechanics of charting, handing over something as simple as taking a morning temperature and recording it, so the responsibility isn't resting on one set of shoulders alone. Talk specifically about costs like headaches, mood changes, or discomfort instead of treating them as an invisible tax someone is just expected to pay. And if you're weighing your options, consider the Fertility Awareness Method not only for what it avoids chemically, but for how naturally it turns contraception into something both of you can understand and act on together.