Finally!
This news is exciting: researchers at the University of Kansas and the University of Kansas Medical Center are working to develop a similar contraceptive for men.
It's about time! The politics of research development around sex-related drugs are interesting: why so much funding for erectile disfunction but not for female sex-related problems? Why did it take four decades to develop a drug that would give men the same level of contraceptive (is that an adjective?) responsibility as women? Well, I guess it'll take a while to break down the gendered notions of pleasure and responsibility in sex. I guess, now that I think about it, the politics around it are same old, same old.
I think Carolyn Schwartz's stunt yesterday was actually pretty brilliant, despite my position on the smoking ban. She introduced an "alcohol ban" using the same arguments that smoking ban proponents use. I doubt it will really have any effect on proponents of the ban, but it made her point extremely well: it's not within the government's bounds to prohibit people from taking part in legal activities on private property. I also like how it makes a mockery of the vitriolic posturing that the debate is encouraging both sides of the argument to take, such as the disingenuous "health of workers arguments" (which is only disingenuous because very few workers themselves have publicly taken this side...), especially as she is the sponsor of some moderate, compromise bills. I haven't changed my position, but I also can't say I'm about to get out in the streets with signs for the ban either. No matter what happens, I'll keep going to bars, but it's amusing to see how worked up everyone (if by everyone I mean my friends, the writers of a few blogs I read and people I talk to drunkinly in bars) is about this. Carry on!
It's about time! The politics of research development around sex-related drugs are interesting: why so much funding for erectile disfunction but not for female sex-related problems? Why did it take four decades to develop a drug that would give men the same level of contraceptive (is that an adjective?) responsibility as women? Well, I guess it'll take a while to break down the gendered notions of pleasure and responsibility in sex. I guess, now that I think about it, the politics around it are same old, same old.
I think Carolyn Schwartz's stunt yesterday was actually pretty brilliant, despite my position on the smoking ban. She introduced an "alcohol ban" using the same arguments that smoking ban proponents use. I doubt it will really have any effect on proponents of the ban, but it made her point extremely well: it's not within the government's bounds to prohibit people from taking part in legal activities on private property. I also like how it makes a mockery of the vitriolic posturing that the debate is encouraging both sides of the argument to take, such as the disingenuous "health of workers arguments" (which is only disingenuous because very few workers themselves have publicly taken this side...), especially as she is the sponsor of some moderate, compromise bills. I haven't changed my position, but I also can't say I'm about to get out in the streets with signs for the ban either. No matter what happens, I'll keep going to bars, but it's amusing to see how worked up everyone (if by everyone I mean my friends, the writers of a few blogs I read and people I talk to drunkinly in bars) is about this. Carry on!
posted by Brynne at 5:32 PM
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