Stand by Your Manhood (10 page)

He has a point. Rarely is a wedding driven by a man who wants a big day and a slow-dance to Westlife.

So, what’s the answer? ‘Being honest with yourself,’ says Blews.

‘Let me put it another way,’ he enthuses.

Needless to say, as far as proposals go, that’s not an attractive one.

See, calculated risks are one thing – that’s what life, love and the best relationships are all about – but marriage isn’t integral to any of them. It’s just an expensive, unnecessary bolt-on.

Besides. at a time when we’re more fashion-conscious than ever, rings on fingers aren’t just a thing of the past, but also a thing of the passé. A bit like those old-fashioned VHS tapes.

And, seriously, who’d give up what they have now for one of those?

WHEN I ENTER PROFESSOR LEE
Smith’s office at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Reproductive Health, two things strike me: the stack of scientific papers on his desk and the mouse-shaped clock hanging from his wall.

‘It’s bespoke,’ he says, pointing to the latter. ‘You won’t see many of these about.’ Quite. The pendulum below it, swinging furiously from left to right, is designed to look like a pair of testicles. Not something you’d expect from the local Chair of Genetic Endocrinology, but, somehow, it fits.

‘There’s plenty of scope for fun in here,’ he says, drinking coffee from a mug bearing the legend ‘World’s Best* Advisor’ (note the disclaimer asterisk). There’s also a Viagra stationery holder with very erect pens.

Science, it seems, has developed a sense of humour. And Smith, for all his myriad qualifications and breakthrough discoveries, is less boffin, more everyman – which is reassuring given that he holds our sperm in his hands – albeit metaphorically, thank God.

At just thirty-nine, Smith, with the help of his team – scientists from Scotland, England, France, China and Taiwan – has found new scope for a male pill by safely blocking a vital gene called Katnal 1, which controls an early stage in semen development. ‘We work on the wider issue of male fertility and testosterone’s role in the body,’ he says, framed by pictures of his two children. ‘But when we inadvertently found a faulty gene that made men infertile, we suddenly had the basis for a contraceptive.’

Strange how it’s always little things that make big things happen.

Smith started his career in Oxford University during the late 1990s, where he worked on testes development and early sex determination – essentially, whether parents end up with a boy or a girl. Several years later, he was headhunted for his current role in Scotland, where he now controls a £4.1 million grant from the Medical Research Council. Twenty-four months into his five-year tenure and he’s already pioneering knowledge where others failed.

‘One of the key issues surrounding previous male contraception was the need to reduce testosterone in order to block sperm development altogether,’ he explains. ‘This can lead to unwelcome side effects such as acne and mood swings. Therefore, our non-hormonal approach, which prevents sperm development without changing testosterone levels, is a significant step forward. We now have an incredible advantage over drug development programmes.’

Reassuringly, Dr Smith’s pill would allow sperm to be produced as normal, but would just inhibit them from maturing properly. Because this biological tweak is to a specific gene and not men’s overall hormone balance, it would also be side effect-free (which is a marketing masterstroke as much as a medical one).

For a closer look, we enter the lab. ‘There are some funky machines in here!’ he says, proudly. Inside, it’s packed with white coats, test tubes and very expensive
equipment – including something called a genotyper, which spins very fast to ‘run a chemical cycle that monitors gene changes’. It’s everything you’ve seen in films, but real.

‘Here’s the viral suite. Don’t go in there!’ he warns. ‘That’s where we take the DNA out of viruses, swap it for something we want, then use it to infect cells. We did this recently with our mice; it switched off certain genes in their testes, so we know how to make them infertile.’

As we navigate it all, the obvious question is: why mice? ‘They’re a model. An inexact model, but a model all the same,’ he says. ‘Men aren’t going to donate a testicle, but mice have the same cell types as men, the same hormones targeting certain cells and they also produce sperm. There are some structural differences, but – for the vast majority – it’s a good model.’ OK, fine. But how successfully could the findings repeat in us? ‘In our studies with mice, we reduced sperm numbers by 89 per cent six weeks after beginning treatment – and of the remaining sperm, only 5 per cent were mobile,’ he says, confidently. ‘This timeframe can be doubled for men as their sperm development is slightly slower. Twelve weeks from starting treatment would be a good ball-park figure – pardon the pun. From this point, the patient wouldn’t be able to father children until he stopped taking the contraceptive. Then, full fertility would resume within two months.’

Boldly, Smith then predicts the drug could be on the
market within a decade – initially as an injection, then modified into gels and oral tablets for maximum global consumption. However, this isn’t a one-man race.

‘There are 200 papers a day being printed on what we’re doing, so it’s very much the first to publish…’ he adds. ‘It’s like a journalist breaking a story. We’re all running towards the same finish line.’

Four thousand miles away in India, scientist Sujoy Guha has spent the past thirty years developing Vasalgel; a one-off injection to a man’s vasa deferentia, the ducts which carry semen from the testes. This coats the inside of each tube, killing sperm as it passes through them. One shot is effective for up to a decade and can be reversed with a second jab at any time. It’s now in the final stages of Indian medical and governmental approval and is on the cusp of FDA endorsement in the United States too.

Meanwhile, in a lab at Australia’s Monash University, scientists are working on the mutation of a gene called RABL2. This causes sperm to grow tails that are roughly 17 per cent shorter than average, meaning they’re unable to propel themselves towards a woman. ‘There’s truly a desperate need for more contraceptives,’ says Moira O’Bryan, who’s leading the study. ‘Personally, I want to see a situation where every child is wanted. For many people, current contraceptive options aren’t enough or don’t fit their lifestyles. It’s a problem.’

For men, this is particularly true. Whilst women enjoy the lion’s share of choices, we have just three: condoms, vasectomy and abstinence. No prizes for guessing which comes out on top. Even then, condoms are rarely the practical ideal. They vary in comfort and fit, they can be difficult or embarrassing to get on – risking erection loss – and, crucially, they can puncture – either literally, or the romantic mood. In comparison, the female pill has been a monumental success since its launch in 1960, now being used by more than 100 million women worldwide (making a small fortune for drug companies along the way – you do the maths).

So why is our version taking so long?

Whilst the latest developments may be new, the general concept is not. In the 1970s, Brazilian endocrinologist Dr Elsimar Coutinho developed one of the first ever male pill prototypes. Made from all-natural cottonseed, it didn’t go down too well with pharmaceutical companies for obvious reasons (hardly a money-spinner if the local health shop can produce a no-frills version for half the price), but it also suffered social resistance. When launched at the 1974 World Health Conference in Budapest, religious groups voiced concern and feminists staged a boycott, storming Coutinho’s presentation and demanding that only women – not men – should be making choices about parenthood. How retro. Despite some compelling
evidence, his vision – a bit like the Sinclair C5 – just didn’t take off.

Things picked up in the mid-1990s when two pharmaceutical giants, Organon and Schering-Plough, ran their own self-financed studies, but these got sidelined when they were bought out by competitors with different agendas. It all suffered a major retrenchment until recently. So, why the resurgence?

‘Every now and again we reach a dam of knowledge,’ Smith says of the industry. ‘Then, as more information comes in, it clicks and, together, we take a step forward. That’s how science works.’

Fortunately, one previous sticking point – religious objection – has since relaxed. ‘There’s no reason why men would be any different to the 98 per cent of Catholic women in America who ignore the bishops’ ban on birth control,’ says Jon O’Brien, President of Washington-based faith group Catholics for Choice. ‘The people who head the Catholic Church are obsessed with the pelvic zone,’ he adds, in his ocean-hopping Irish-American accent.

‘That’s why our organisation exists. So when they’re lobbying a UN official over family planning, we remind people to listen to the sixty million Catholic Americans who live in the real world, not the 350 US bishops who make the rules but are largely ignored.’

Now, the bigger consideration is what a pill could offer the brotherhood. For most, the answer is obvious: limitless, no-strings sex. For the first time since Eve tempted Adam with that damn apple, men would truly be empowered to control the outcome of their sexual encounters, only becoming fathers when they wanted to.

Yes, accidents happen, but the unspeakable reality of men being ‘trapped’ would also end overnight. Those such as Liam Gallagher, Jude Law, Hugh Grant, Steve Bing and Sacha Gervasi – the screenwriter who was stunned, then snubbed, when he got Geri Halliwell pregnant after a six-week fling – would no longer find themselves becoming fathers when all they wanted (and agreed to) was a quick shag. No more shotgun weddings, no more duped daddies, no more surprise calls from the Child Support Agency.

That said, a male contraceptive would also be good for women. The original pill is highly effective, but packed with side effects that include weight gain, DVT threat and, rather ironically, reduced libido. To offer women respite from this is, at the very least, good manners.

Contemporary US feminist Ariel Levy gave her slant. ‘I would welcome it, absolutely,’ she says from her Manhattan home with an east coast purr. ‘I disagree with critics who claim it infringes on women’s rights: I’d say it expands their options. Men and women should share the burden of contraception. The tricky thing is that
we’re still the ones who get pregnant, so for a woman to rely on the male pill as her only form of birth control, she needs to be in a relationship with a man she trusts pretty completely.’

True. But hang on, don’t men have to trust women who say
they’re
on the pill? Yes, women may carry the child physically, but it’s men who carry it financially. Besides, if everyone took responsibility for themselves, wouldn’t it simply mean that all pregnancies were planned by both parties – all the time?

When journalist Liz Jones famously revealed she stole her boyfriend’s sperm from a used condom, despite his assertions that he had no interest in becoming a father, the nation was shocked and appalled – but only because it was finally out in the open. Let’s not pretend this shit hasn’t been going on for years. Fortunately, there was no baby, but her behaviour is neither new nor rare. It’s a tactic of many who want a child at any cost – well, except the cost of actually going it alone.

Britain’s Got Talent
judge Amanda Holden recently confessed to deceiving her husband into fatherhood. Speaking to
OK!
magazine, she said, ‘I’ve always been practical – a fixer … I had to have another baby. I know I may get criticism, but it was about survival … Men don’t understand. Tricking Chris was devious – but I had to have another baby.’

Now imagine a twist of science where a man says that exact same thing about a woman’s eggs. Let’s assume, say, Johnny Depp sleeps with Vanessa Paradis one last time and nicks some of her eggs – then fertilises them with his semen in a lab. She then gets a legal letter outlining all the child support she’ll need to provide for the next eighteen years, whilst the world puts pressure on her to ‘be a real woman’ and play an active role by embracing servitude – regardless of the fact her choice has been, for want of a better term, violated.

Would everybody be so laissez-faire? Would the media celebrate? Would they side with Depp as the sympathetic character – and against Paradis for not voluntarily granting him the child he so passionately craved? No way. So, if that’s the case, why is it any different when it happens to men? Is it perhaps the outmoded, entitled assumption that men should simply provide, exponentially, forever – no matter what the circumstances?

Even Holden’s boss, Simon Cowell, was involuntarily thrust into fatherhood thanks to Lauren Silverman. Sure, he may be happy now, but his entire life was changed by somebody else’s decision. The ability to afford men control over this with a centimetre-wide tablet is nothing less than revolutionary. After all, a woman’s desire to have a child is no more valid than a man’s not to.

Paul Elam is a men’s rights activist from Texas and the
founder of A Voice for Men. He argues that men have as much riding on pregnancy as women do in the long term, but not nearly as much control. ‘The arrival of a male pill would mark the first time in history that men will be empowered to see themselves as near full participants in reproductive choices,’ he says.

When I put this to Rebecca Fleming, head of press at London’s Family Planning Association, I hold the phone from my ear and expect fireworks. ‘We actually agree with him,’ she says, simpatico. ‘When we talk to men, they are ideologically very supportive of contraceptive methods and managing their paternity.’