Skepticism About Pill Scare Stories

Samantha, any time I see yet another story about the potential evils of the pill, both my eyebrows shoot straight for the ceilling. Science stories, like any other stories, get promoted because they have a hook, be it a counterintuitive one or a confirmation of people's ugliest impulses. Scare stories about contraception and STD protection—the latter reaching a fever pitch with the scare stories about the HPV vaccination—gain attention because the technological and cultural shift towards a world where women can enjoy sex without dreading the consequences makes many Americans uneasy.

Sometimes these studies on how the pill influences women's choices and attractiveness seem based on very thin evidence. Jezebel linked what may be one of the most comical science!-scare!-pill!-unnatural! stories I've seen in a long time. MSNBC reported that the pill might influence your mate choice toward more domestic kinds of fellas. The theory is that women that near ovulation are more likely to pick "bad boys" who will love 'em and leave 'em, but during the rest of the cycle, women are drawn to men who would make good fathers. But because the pill works essentially by keeping your body at even keel, hormone levels to prevent ovulation, women on it don't go for the bad boys, right?

The evidence MSNBC reports seems like a stretch. Researchers based these bad boy/nice guy conclusions on the fact that women who were close to ovulation chose pictures of men who looked more "masculine" and women on the pill or in different points in their cycle chose pictures of men who looked more "feminine." Their conclusions only make sense if you think that a strong jaw in a man makes him a cad who loves neither women nor children. The casting tropes from John Hughes movies do not, in my opinion, make a very good base of evidence to build scientific hypotheses about human biology. I'm also sure lesbians in the audience will be amused to hear their hormones direct them to this man or that, depending on their cycle.

It's really too bad that this study doesn't seem to amount to much, because part of me enjoyed imagining the anti-choice right getting befuddled because the hated birth control pill might incline women towards monogamy. Of course, knowing right-wing pundits, they'd probably bend this to argue that the pill encourages men to be effeminate; already the Vatican has released unscientific articles insinuating that the pill robs men of their masculine virility. Because even though the pill has been with us for two generations now, it still symbolizes female sexual independence, and that creates a demand on the right for a continual supply of half-baked evidence with which to denounce the pill.

 

Tags: birth control pill, evolutionary psychology, health, Science

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Amanda Marcotte Amanda recently moved from her home state of Texas to Brooklyn, NY. She blogs at pandagon.net and rhrealitycheck.org.

Comments

Right on

By: Majesty | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 20:06

I agree with Mahgara -- at least with the last part of it. Because the pill has become 'normal' and many women use it, it seems to be that people start to think that one HAS to find it normal as well. But I never wanted hormones in my body, just for having safe sex, and women who think the same should be respected for it and not questioned.
I'd rather use a condom. Now, I have to take the pill because of adenomyosis (otherwise I couldn't have sex at all) but I totally agree that it is NOT a cure for all. I can have sex now but since I use the pill I actually have less need for sex, no matter which pill I use (I've tried many). A weird paradox.
By the way, some men actually do have the vasectomy, like my father did after my sister and I were born.

I disagree, Pampl...

By: nagatuki | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 09:25

You write: "If you want to look at it in a slightly paranoid way, you could consider motives- there's no obvious profit to be had scaring women away from safer sex"
~~~~~~~~~~~

It may not be clear cut if you look at it as "safer sex," but the overall motives in this country are far clearer: conservatives do not want women to have unmarried sex, and if they get pregnant, they want her to pay - first it was keep the kid and pay for the stigma of getting pregnant unmarried, and when generations grew up and there was less stigma it was still at least have the kid, and now that women can actually abort safely (because they always have, just not always in a medical facility) they've got no reasons left to argue that women shouldn't have premarital sex.

The entire movement on the religious front about contraception has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with numbers: the Catholic church wants people in the pews, and what better way than to disbelieve any safety in contraception? Or to argue that it interferes with "God's plan" to use BCPs?

And that's just an obvious one b/c they're so vocal; I think churches across the nation want to make sure they keep their numbers up and to keep linking sex with sin.

To then argue that, on top of it disrupting the order of things, BCPs can harm your reproductive health, etc, it adds those seeds of doubt to women who are, let's face it, very young - they're not targeting 30yos, but the 16yo or 20yo - and who will decide that it's easier just to not bother.

I don't buy the claim that

By: pampl | Fri, 10/09/2009 - 07:10

I don't buy the claim that "the technological and cultural shift towards a world where women can enjoy sex without dreading the consequences makes many Americans uneasy." There aren't any stories about female condoms and lesbian sex that are getting people freaked out. There ARE uncountable stories about other vaccinations and modern medicine that are freaking people out. I think it's more plausible that scaremongering about the pill and the HPV vaccine is a subset of scaremongering about medicine in general, not a subset of (otherwise largely non-existent) scaremongering about female sexuality.

If you want to look at it in a slightly paranoid way, you could consider motives- there's no obvious profit to be had scaring women away from safer sex, but there is already billions of dollars being made scaring people away from medicine toward untested and unregulated "alternative medicine".

Re: HPV vaccine

By: once | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 23:12

To a previous poster:

The HPV vaccine is equally safe for men; it just doesn't prevent them from getting cervical cancer. Those of you that have the anatomy knowledge that I expect in a 12 year old will realize that this is because men don't have a cervix and therefore are unable to develop cervical cancer.

There are some (mostly gay) men that have requested the vaccine to reduce their tiny odds of getting penile cancer (which is what HPV does to men) and their slightly greater odds of anal cancer (which is what HPV does to men that have receptive anal sex), but these are fairly rare complications, especially compared to cervical cancer.

The pill is a serious drug

By: rcd | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 18:06

I was on it for 16 years, so I'm not someone who thinks its evil. It worked well for me. But let's not act like its not doing something to you. The articles on the study were messily written, but they were fundamentally talking about whether the pill interferes with your attraction to someone who may be a good mate (genetically), not whether it interferes with attraction to someone who might be a good mate in all other respects. By mating for love rather than for lust, we do throw a wrench into nature's way of making sure that genetic diversity stays high. It makes sense that a woman on the pill would be more able to discern love from lust. That's not anti-woman. Its just a recognition that humans are animals, just like the rest of the animal kingdom.

Not for me either

By: linzonein | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 17:20

"Let's accept that for some of us, taking a pill that has significant side effects may not be worth it just to be able to forego a condom." Definitely. I know plenty of women on the pill who are happy with their choice, but I've tried several brands and have the same reactions each time: mood swings of extreme depression and near-psychotic rage at the least provocation. I haven't been on the pill in 5 years and I don't ever plan to try it again.

I hate pill scare stories too

By: arkb | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 17:05

I have read several similarly ridiculous studies. Was on the pill from 15-25 for hormonal reasons and met, fell in love with, and married my husband. And when I quit the pill, guess what, I still loved my husband! But their are some of these stupid studies that said that I wouldn't like how my husband smells or some other crap like that after I quit the pill. Total crap. All of it. You meet the right guy and fall in love and that's what matters. I don't care what some 20 years olds sniffing dirty t-shirts in a lab thought, if you are in a relationship for the right reasons, I hardly think that a contraceptive will change how you feel about each other.

HPV Vaccine

By: vim876 | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 16:45

There is not necessarily a connection between anti-pill scares and concerns about the HPV vaccine. It is often two different sets of people entirely. There's no reason men shouldn't be able to take the HPV vaccine if it's safe. When they do, I'll sign up too. Until then, big pharma's pushing a little too hard for me to be comfy with it, thx.

Scare Stories

By: mahkara | Thu, 10/08/2009 - 16:03

I do rather agree that "oh, no, the pill is evil" is an over reaction (I know plenty of people who can't live without it). That said, my reaction is close to narcolepsy (I become exhausted all the time when on it), and many members of my family are convinced that the use of it led to breast cancer in two of my aunts (and an early death in one case). (Hard to tell, but one was diagnosed shortly after being put on an earlier, high dosage version AND the cancer was successfully regulated in the younger aunt who survived by some sort of medication that blocks hormones, so it seems at least plausible in this case.) So I become more than a little annoyed when either: a) doctors explain to me how the pill is the best thing ever, and why don't I just try it again? (maybe becuase I like being able to stay awake in meetings?) or b) boyfriends just don't get why I'm not willing to do this "for them". (Blah, would they get a vascetomy for me?) So I do like it when it's noted that this may not be the cure all. Yeah, it's great for some people. Not for others. Let's accept that for some of us, taking a pill that has significant side effects may not be worth it just to be able to forego a condom.