Some men know a great deal about birth control. My fiancé became intimately familiar with its many iterations when I decided to go from the pill to the ring to an IUD.
However, if we can agree that the guys in this video represent men in general, then the vast majority of them know very, very little. This is quite disappointing, because female birth control affects men (well, at least heterosexual men) just as much as it does women, even if they’re not the one directly dealing with it.
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Women are taught to be super attentive to their reproductive health from an early age, because a lot happens to our bodies during puberty. Sure, stuff happens to guys too, but nothing that suddenly makes them able to grow a baby in their belly. As such, when teenage girls start to become sexually active, they’re keen to study up on all the ways they can prevent pregnancy.
At the beginning of this video by BuzzFeed, the woman on the street flat out says she doesn’t think the guys she’ll interview will know much about birth control (at least hormonal birth control). Sadly she is correct, but the joke of it stops being funny after about 30 seconds when you realize only 1 in 5 guys knows you need a prescription to get birth control.
Kind of scary, right? It’s not like when a girl politely asks which teams are playing the Superbowl this year, then giggles awkwardly. This lack of knowledge on guys’ parts is shameful, and guys who are reading this and didn’t know the answers to most of these questions, you should be embarrassed. What it says is you’re fine to leave all this up to the ladies you sleep with, because if they get pregnant, it’s not your problem. If you actually saw reproductive health as your problem too, perhaps we wouldn’t be losing Planned Parenthoods left and right.
More: Women weigh in on the problem with male birth control
Worst part of this video — none of these guys knows what an IUD is! OK, one of them did, but that’s just frightening considering that IUD usage has increased by 83 percent in the last decade alone. It was also surprising to hear how few of them would consider having something similar implanted, especially since one of them was wearing a large metal earlobe expander. That’s just hypocritical, dude.
However, there was one redeeming moment at the end when all the guys interviewed said they’d definitely try male birth control once it became available. So they at least have sympathy for women who spend a large chunk of their lives manipulating their hormones to have protected sex. That said, one guy did say, “As long as there’s no crazy side effects.” Guys. There are plenty of possible crazy side effects, but we use it anyway, because we accept the risks along with the benefits. That’s what you do for love. Or one really great night of sexual escapades.
So men, go crack open those old sex ed books from high school, and get learning, because once you jump into bed with someone, you’re in this reproductive game together.
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