"The Pill" and mate selection

I saw this and despite the source of the report (LiveScience, aka JunkScience) it reminded me of some comments in The Decline of Males. Among other things he speculated that rendering so many women "biologically pregnant" may have unpredictable effects on men, both physiologically as well as psychologically. While plenty of studies exist reviewing the effects of BCPs on women's bodies, I am unaware of any that discuss the effects of having the natural phermonal balance from women's bodies altered and how it might affect men. Excerpt:

'Based on the work by Claus Wedekind, a University of Lausanne researcher who preformed similar studies in the 1990s, Roberts suggests a likely reason for the pill's effect on a woman's odor preferences. The pill puts a woman's body into a hormonally pregnant state (the reason she doesn't ovulate), and during that time there would be no reason to seek out a mate.

"When women are pregnant there's no selection pressure, evolutionarily speaking, for having a preference for genetically dissimilar odors," Roberts said. "And if there is any pressure at all it would be towards relatives, who would be more genetically similar, because the relatives would help those individuals rear the baby."

So the pill puts a woman's body into a post-mating state, even though she might be still in the game.

"The pill is in effect mirroring a natural shift but at an inappropriate time," Roberts told LiveScience.'

By the way, I am not advocating the end of BCPs, far from it. Just saying that the range and scope of birth control studies has traditionally been limited only to its effects on women, and that it is likely not just BCPs but other factors have a significant impact on men, and that this avenue seems to have been completely ignored by medical science.

Countdown to a male BCP continues... but be aware, there are forces at work that don't want to see it come to market. Read some on this here. Is it any surprise though? I feel that lobbying for and defending the MBCP should be, along with fathers' rights, a primary focus of MRAs, as it will have as significant if not more significant an impact on men's daily lives and relations with women as the FBCP did. Excerpt:

"In fact, a strong case can be made that the delay in the male pill has been caused by an underdeveloped male social movement. The sense of urgency to develop a MBCP has been quelled by the dissenters and the disconnected. Men need to be aware of those forces that work to prevent the advent of not just the male pill, but a cohesive and powerful men's rights movement itself."