If you ever have the desire to get yourself downvoted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, here’s one sure-fire strategy: Write a sensible comment suggesting that birth control benefits people with penises as much as people with vaginas.
Here are the two top replies to this comment:
I was going to point out some of the ironies inherent in Men’s Rightsers getting mad about women getting “free” birth control, but I suspect you can figure those out on your own.
This is why the so-called Men’s Rights movement is not so much a rights movement as a take-away-other-people’s-rights movement.
LOLLERSKATES! How’s that working out for you?
As for birth control, I’m all for dudes having more options that are more akin to the options women have. I know morons like AntZ think Zombie Betty Fredain (and thus all current, non-zombie feminists) will fight to the death to limit men’s reproductive choices, but it’s just not true. Thinking we don’t want more birth control options for men is silly and seems like some pretty fierce projection. Not everyone is a small minded asshole who has “as long as it hurts THEM” cutting off the nose to spite the face logic. Even from a purely selfish perspective, it makes no sense for men to be against women getting better access to birth control unless they literally want to make babies every time they have sex. Seriously dudes, if you want to be having sex with women, but don’t want to be making babies, you should be clamoring just as hard for free birth control as feminists do. Otherwise it’s either not having any (waaahhhh! The poor incels!) or getting stuck with child support. And we all know how MRAs feel about those options. Not that better access to birth control is any guarantee they’d get laid anyway, considering the fact that being a blatant douchebag is generally unattractive, which I suspect is what pisses them off about trying to get better access to begin with. I suspect a lot of sour grapes in this, they’re pissed off that women can control their bodies AND get to decide if/when/who they fuck.
Chiming it on the IUD question:
I tried the Mirena. I have long, severely painful periods (PCOS and endometriosis) and after a couple of months with the IUD, I no longer had periods and I really didn’t have an side-effects, either. Loved it, figured I had finally found the solution to my problems–until it decided to go on a little trip and puncture my uterus. After nearly hemmoraging to death, I’m not allowed to have another one. 🙁
I was on Lupron for six months (you do not want to try that unless your only other solution is a hysterectomy…INSTANT menopause, with horrible night sweats, mood swings, hot flashes, yuck) and then my doc started pushing me to consider a hysterectomy because I was ending up in the ER once a month or so to deal with ruptured cysts and extreme pain from the endo (we think).
Got a second opinion, because I was 25 and haven’t had a kid yet so I didn’t want to have the hysterectomy unless there was no other option. The new doc was a young woman from Philidelphia (I’m in San Francisco) and she recommended Implanon, says everyone uses it on the East Coast, but no one has even heard of it out here. I certainly had never heard of it. Five minutes to insert it in the office (and while there was a little pinch, it was NOTHING compared to how painful the IUD insertion was), and it’s been pretty great. I did bleed for about four months off and on, but I haven’t had a period in a while, now, and the pain is gone. Again, no real side effects that I can tell, maybe a little grumpiness. Oh, and I have heard people say it kills their sex drive, but I was functionally asexual before I got the Implanon, so I can’t really speak to that,
because nobody wants to move to a system where you fill out an insurance claim every time you buy a pack of condoms.
“Don’t they have those in Sweden already?”
It’s Europe. No two toilets work the same way over there.
“because nobody wants to move to a system where you fill out an insurance claim every time you buy a pack of condoms.”
Why not just sending in the receipts, or sending a claim once a year and then you can pick up your condoms when you like.
”
“Don’t they have those in Sweden already?”
It’s Europe. No two toilets work the same way over there.
”
Yes of course there are functioning urinals. Personally I think it is bad manners to stand up at other people’s home toilets if you are not sure it won’t spray.
yeah and we can do the same for toothpaste, because that’s preventative care, right?
barriers to condom access are real and they are a problem, but theyre not symmetrical with barriers to birth control access in a way that makes what youre proposing an effective or necessary solution
Because they are OTC, and insurance doesn’t cover OTC items. Very few people find “I don’t have to take off work and go to the doctor and pay a co-pay and endure a really embarrassing and sometimes painful physical examination in order to use these, I can just go to a gas station or a drugstore and buy them whenever I feel like it” to be a downside, y’know?
What about a system where you pay insurance through your taxes and get both preventative and curative health services free at point of use without having to fill in claims forms – oh, and it is possible for teens to get condoms on the NHS if they wish?
They’re just not very nice condoms.
*smug British*
So why should hormonal methods be covered but not condoms, and why don’t you think the barriers are symmetrical. Don’t you think economy is not a factor in condom use? Maybe some people would prefer to use condoms but have to go with hormonal methods because of economical reasons ( with resulting increased,risks of STDs hormonal side effects)
If you have insurance and enroll in a flex account, you can use your flex account money to buy condoms and spermicides. At least then you are using pre-tax money for your purchase. So if your deadline is almost up and you have some money left, go stock up on condoms and whatever other drugstore items you need, like sunscreen or OTC drugs. You can also use flexible account money for copays and deductibles.
I actually wouldn’t mind it if condoms were covered, or at least subsidized, by health insurance. But thins you can get at the grocery store != medication that requires a prescription and which my doctor is telling me I need to come in and get a pap smear before they’ll give me more of. (For reference, I’m away at college until Thanksgiving weekend.) Also, condoms are something where the more sex you have the more you use, unlike bc pills, so you might run into problems about how many you are allowed to use.
Speaking of colleges and condoms, the one I attend has condom bowls in the bathrooms of all the dorms along with instructions for how to make a dental dam, but you aren’t supposed to take more than 1 or 2. My cousin attends a college where you get in trouble if they catch you having sex (it is Pepperdine College, for reference).
I have no problem with people having easier access to free condoms. Planned Parenthood offices provide them already, so the best way to help people get condoms is to support PP either financially or politically. It also helps to speak up to our elected officials and school boards and demand that schools use evidence based, comprehensive sex education rather than the abstinence only sex ed propaganda. But as far as access to birth control goes, it is already much easier to get condoms. The bigger battle here is making sure people can get the pill, IUDs, or any other type of prescription only contraception.
Although it might actually be better to say that condoms vs the pill and other methods of birth control are kind of like aspirin vs. prescription pain killers–nobody says that since asprin and tylenol aren’t covered by insurance that vicodin shouldn’t be, either.
bionicmommy:
Co-pay and deductibles are still covered with flex pay, but OTC anything isn’t unless you get a script for it. That’s a new rule, and it blows.
Talacaris, you’re just being cute, but you don’t have to go to the doctor’s to get condoms, that’s why the barriers aren’t symmetrical. Jesus.
as has already been pointed out, because condoms don’t require a prescription, are vastly cheaper, can be and are literally given away for free, and are available from the same store that will sell you beef jerky by the pound.
i don’t think i ever said it wasn’t? are you sure you read what i wrote?
i guess it’s poooooosssssible that somebody somewhere is forced for economic reasons to use birth control instead of condoms (maybe the nearest place that sells condoms is like way far away?) but i don’t tend to set policy based on remote and unprovable speculation.
also a lot of barriers to condom access involve social stigma that you can’t really fix by subsidizing them, only by changing people’s attitudes about sex and condoms
…condoms … are available from the same store that will sell you beef jerky by the pound.
I feel like these are concepts that need to be merged (in the unlikely event they haven’t already).
Now I checked the prices.For adults a yearly pill subscribtion seems to cost around SEK 300- 400 ($45 -60) (source fass.se) while a yearly condom usage , calculated on 1 intercourse /day will cost around SEK 2000($ 300) (source rfsu.se, 60-pack). So I think economy is a barrier to condom usage.
Winning is secondary to the entertainment value of a feminist tantrum. This is especially true with manginas whose spastic, caps locked nerd rage is a delight to behold. Sadly, despite all their white knighting efforts, these chumps couldn’t get laid in a women’s prison with a fistful of pardons.
Best OKCupid profile ever.
Given that Amazon sells condoms (and at rather good prices, too), it’d have to be somebody who does not have access to any form of postal service. So, I guess if you do not have access to mail, but DO have health insurance and access to gynecologists and pharmacies (special condom-free pharmacies, obviously), that could totally be a relevant problem!
do you have any evidence-based justification for using for going with sex once per day as your baseline or did you just decide you were gonna baldly game the parameters and pray nobody called you on it?
i have never seen one of you dudes just come out and admit you were a stupid child looking for attention before.
the honesty is kind of refreshing.
“I’m better than you because I hate women and also you probably don’t have sex!”
Yeah, bro, you’re a shining example of the staggering intellects the MRM has to offer.
it’s also kind of funny coming from the dude who shows up just to remind us he’s still furious about puas getting made fun of.