Development of a male contraceptive analogous to the oral contraceptives familiar to American women should be welcome news for the large numbers of sexually active college students. If researchers are able to produce an effective and safe pill or patch for men, responsibility for birth control can be shared in a much more equitable way between two partners in a relationship.
This even distribution of the baby burden is a promising scenario for a woman who might feel frustrated with the pill she's taking or by the simple fact that her boyfriend doesn't have to go on monthly pharmacy runs.
But what the hypothetical male birth control will probably not do is revolutionize sexual relations in the same way that "the pill" did last century. Women will always be the ones bearing the ultimate responsibility of a pregnancy - and so they will always have more of an incentive to pay for the birth control and to take it on time. In a culture which glorifies the "random hookup," a woman does not have much reason to trust that someone she met a few hours ago is indeed being honest when he says he's on the pill.
Hopefully the changes brought on a male pill would be more subtle: if men are taking hormones to reduce the potency of their sperm, they will soon realize that the drug can do more than that task. As many women currently know, artificial hormones running through your body can have any number of unintended side effects, from a changing appetite to disturbances in a mood pattern to different skin conditions. Birth control for women is a monthly, if not daily responsibility that can have biological effects reaching beyond a Saturday night hookup. In an ideal world, men would have to come to more intimate terms with these considerations.
Our current world is one where both men and women frequently wait to get married until long after they have become sexually active. Those who advocate abstinence-only education are not honestly coming to terms with this phenomenon, and it is probable that advocates in that camp will not welcome the development of a male pill.
Ultimately, though, adding such a pill to the smorgasbord of birth control options can only be a positive development for sexually charged 20-year-olds, resulting in more frank, honest discussion between the men and women about sex.
