Among the slew of problems associated with gender dynamics and male chauvinism, we can now add birth control to the list. Due to the advent of sexually transmitted infections like HIV/AIDS, huge public health measures over the last decade have increased awareness on serious concerns for everyone who has sex. Out of this debate has risen the increased need for more technologically advanced methods of contraception. This initially took the form of the condom and the diaphragm. Next, there was the arrival of hormonal methods of birth control, namely, “the pill.”

But while the diaphragm and the condom present equal measures for women and men to retain control of reproduction, the pill is a one-sided alternative. Women are expected to take on the responsibility of an everyday pill that could cause an array of negative side effects. WebMD lists nausea, weight gain, sore breasts and mood changes as less serious side effects. Among the more serious are high blood pressure, stroke, blood clots, headaches and eye problems like blurred vision. While these symptoms in their most extreme form do not affect everyone, most women experience some side effects. And the pill comes in so many varieties that women have to try each one for a minimum period of three months before it can be conclusively determined that the negative effects will not subside. A woman could go through a seemingly endless time period as her own guinea pig — having to subject herself to various pills, their side effects and a hampered lifestyle. It is a rather bleak picture.

Not to say that women shouldn’t use oral birth control. The ability to control reproduction is invaluable, but that power and responsibility shouldn’t rest solely in women’s hands. And thanks to progress in modern science, it doesn’t have to. Male oral contraceptive has been successfully tested in humans and could easily become an option for men who would like to control whether their genes are reproduced. In a 2009 Chinese study, it was shown that testosterone based male contraceptive could “provide effective, reversible, acceptable, and readily delivered contraception for most healthy Chinese men without serious short-term adverse effects.” Having been researched for decades, the technology for male oral contraception is on the verge of becoming a marketable reality. The medical community had even begun to consider regulations for licensing and distributing such a drug, according to Eberhard Nieschlag, a professor at the Institute of Reproductive Medicine in Germany. But then the push for male oral contraceptive was robbed of momentum. Nieschlag explains the shift in his article, “Male Hormonal Contraceptive; Love’s Labour’s Lost?”: “However, these hopes were suddenly intercepted when the two companies (developing the drug) were bought up by larger players in the field who neither realized the potential of a male contraceptive nor felt any responsibility to develop it.”

Why is it that the fervor of the pharmaceutical industry has been levied behind the female oral contraceptive but not a male counterpart? Like any business decision, it must have come down to money. If pharmaceutical companies don’t believe that enough men would go in for a daily oral pill to make the drug profitable, then they aren’t likely to market it even if it would mean a huge step forward for individual reproductive self-control. While pharmaceutical companies rarely make statements about research and development decisions, Nieschlag speculates that is due in part to a lack of advocacy groups calling for the drug as women’s health advocates had done for female hormonal contraceptive. But even though there isn’t a united voice expressing interested in male oral contraceptive, research shows that men wouldn’t be opposed to trying it out themselves. A 2004 study in the journal Human Reproduction found that 49 percent of American men would be willing to use hormonal birth control, with 34 percent on the fence about it. Participants from many other countries stated even higher difference — the survey found more than 60 percent of men were willing in Germany, Spain, Brazil and Mexico.

If the drug was made commercially available and men educated about the science behind it, those numbers might even grow. To explain how male contraceptive would act in the body, here’s a short recap of sex education. In the complicated picture of human reproduction, the male’s role is to fertilize the egg with sperm. Sperm, once they enter the somewhat antagonist vaginal tract, have to overcome an acidic environment and use their flagella to reach the egg. Male contraceptive targets the production and mobility of sperm in order to decrease fertility. Hormonal methods would halt spermatogenesis (sperm production) itself, which would still allow the male to orgasm and ejaculate as before, but without the presence of sperm and thus the ability to reproduce.