The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men

I intended to imply disagreement with your claim, mostly due to the one-sided nature of it (as my parent reply suggested). I imagine the downvotes are due to the fact that your phrasing seems to imply that the male should have no say in the matter.

It's not that women should not have control over the process (perhaps even most of it), but that both parties need to have the ability to say, finally and without being overruled, "no this will not result in a child."

That was the purpose of my comment, it should be a

  (she->wantsChild() && he->wantsChild()) makeChild();

  (she->wantsChild() || he->wantsChild()) makeChild();

EDIT: "Its as if most people think that the pill would have been as revolutionary if it were for men instead of women."

I think you've hit it right on the head here, though. The advent of the pill allowed for equality of sexes in the manner suggested above. Had it been for men, I don't think it would've changed much at all.

However, now that that is the case, we've kind of got a situation where women can choose to have relations without getting pregnant regardless of what their partner is doing, whereas for men the options are both limited and uncomfortable. A woman on the pill can have sex without protection (though there are obvious caveats, of course, know/trust your partner, etc. etc.) and still be assured of results, whereas for a man he pretty much has to either be wearing a condom (uncomfortable) or have had a vasectomy.

This would be another round of equalization, better for everyone.

Most of the time, men trust women when they say they're on birth control. Women get pregnant--a big deal. It's less likely (but not unheard of) that a woman wants to get pregnant and then lies about birth control.

Men, on the other hand, would love to not use a condom. And men don't get pregnant. So saying "yeah baby, I've had my shots" would probably be a lot more common.

You'd need to market this to couples. Relationships with trust--not teenagers. Or, as an "and-1", extra step prevention. Not as a first line of defense. Then, the low cost would be more of an extra procedure that would get them thinking more about being safer. You wouldn't hang your business model on it but could actually do more business by offering it.

Lastly, being a man, the idea of someone putting forceps in my scrotum gives me the willies. Just sayin'.

For a single person considering the question on their own, the best choice is limited to what's available to them. Since there are (approximately) equal numbers of men and women considering this, neither population affects the universal rankings.

But for a couple considering their birth control options, it doesn't matter on which of them the responsibility and direct benefit fall. What matters is the effectiveness and side effects. So they can agree on which is best without worrying about who holds the responsibility, etc.

So, for example, the pill is better than condoms, because it has a lower failure rate and doesn't have the side effect of severely reduced pleasure. The fact that a single woman can't depend on condoms and a single man can't take the pill cancels out, because there's one of each of them, and the couple is making the choice for both of them.