Ultrasonic Teabag Warhead

September 22, 2021 10:02 PM

Is Steeping Your Balls the Future of Male Birth Control? A new male contraception prototype called COSO Contraception could provide a form of long-acting reversible birth control for men. German design graduate Rebecca Weiss won a James Dyson Award for conceiving the device, which uses ultrasound waves to temporarily halt sperm regeneration.

Here's a relevant piece on male contraception in general from the same website as the first link: The Real Problem With Male Birth Control: We're inching closer to a viable contraceptive for men. Whether they'll actually use it remains a question.

And here's a relevant piece on the history of research into ultrasound for contraception, which dates back to the late 1970's: Ultrasound male contraceptive, overlooked for decades, confirmed to work

And here's a piece on another non-drug approach: Forget Vasectomies, Dick Magnets Could Be the Easy, Reversible Male Birth Control You Need: You’ll have to heat up your balls and inject nanoparticles into your blood, but at least no one will be calling you ‘daddy’

posted by homunculus (26 comments total)

I generally keep a glass of water on my nightstand.

All I'm saying is, when I wake up groggy and thirsty in the middle of the night with the lights off, it's easy to mistake one container for another...
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:18 PM on September 22, 2021 [6 favorites]

I'd love to get excited over any male birth control options, but I did a term paper on such about 20 years ago and literally none of those have ever become public options.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:24 PM on September 22, 2021 [11 favorites]

"[...] it's easy to mistake one container for another..."

Not the first time that concern was raised on the blue.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 10:35 PM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

Ken Marino had some thoughts like this in the 90s.
posted by zardoz at 10:41 PM on September 22, 2021 [8 favorites]

Finally a clear and concise answer to the age old question, Fuckin Magnets man, how do they work?

dip
posted by mannequito at 11:12 PM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]

There's a hacky joke in there about a male contraception contraption winning a dyson award, but I'm not going to try it - it would probably suck anyway.
posted by dominik at 11:46 PM on September 22, 2021 [13 favorites]

...which uses ultrasound waves to temporarily halt sperm regeneration.

Apple today introduced its new iNad line of lifestyle bluetooth contraception ballbuds. They are available in three versions, the standard iNad, the iNad Pro, and the iNad Mini.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:08 AM on September 23, 2021 [25 favorites]

Hmm, yeah. I'm as excited as anyone about the possibility of simple male birth control, but... this is a project by a design student, and doesn't appear to be in clinical development. The first link describes a "prototype" but doesn't really seem like there is any such thing. This looks like just a design concept, which is nice and all but kind of putting the cart before the horse without any studies having tested if this actually works safely in humans instead of just animal models. And indeed, the COSO website ends with the statements "COSO is still a hypothesis" and "The procedure is currently not transferable to humans", and then encourages the reader to petition the German government to fund research into the technique. Which, yeah, I think that's worth funding! But it means that an actual clinically-tested device, if it's possible at all, is still many years away, and almost certainly won't be much like this design student's concept art.

To be clear, I don't fault the design student. This is what they do as part of their training: come up with ideas for consumer products (possibly impossible ones) and put together concept art to help communicate the ideas. This is a compelling design, and the pivot to encouraging people to think about research policy and priorities that would facilitate such a design is reasonable. But InsideHook is reporting this as if it were an actual product in development, which it really doesn't look like it is.

If it turns out I'm wrong and there really is a prototype (and not just concept art or a physical mock-up) that someone can share a link to, I'll be thrilled to eat my words.
posted by biogeo at 12:53 AM on September 23, 2021 [22 favorites]

pepsi blue balls?
posted by lalochezia at 3:11 AM on September 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

Okay, but can we weaponize this?
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:59 AM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

First-time use of the device would be overseen by a medical professional, who would determine the appropriate water level based on the user’s ball size.

So the water level range will go from Large all the way to Extra Large then.
posted by saladin at 4:05 AM on September 23, 2021 [11 favorites]

What biogeo says, and in addition: what jenfullmoon does. The effort, money, and time that must be put in to bring a product like this to market is substantial, and the people who control whether those resources get invested into bringing the product to market seem to be more than a little dubious about how much men as a whole want to invest in long term reversible reproductive control.

Condoms are more effective for short term use with a variety of partners because they also protect against STDs, which this device doesn't. So this thing exists instead in the same universe as family planning. There the market is usually envisioned as two reproductively compatible people who want to delay pregnancy but maybe not permanently forestall it. Established, currently marketed technology does exist for ovarian bodies to do this but not for testicular ones, but vasectomies are more permanent and less invasive once you've had the children you want... so the envisioned market for this thing, if potential buyers are imagined to be fluid bonded reproductively compatible couples, is probably limited to the set of those in which hormonal contraception doesn't work effectively for the ovarian partner.

I think it would be really good to have consumer technology to do this, but from the standpoint of attracting investors to a potentially expensive research-profit product, I don't know how successful these various attempts really are out have been.

sure does make me idly think about my favorite Weird Testicular Fact, though--at least in mice.
posted by sciatrix at 5:22 AM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

This sounds much less involved or dangerous than long term reversible birth control for folks with uteruses, which happens to be way more popular than the equivalent short term contraceptive devices for such folks (known as the female condom - which also protects against stds, unlike the long term options).

Design and marketing do seem to be relevant factors in that. In addition to shitty, shitty patriarchal power dynamics, of course.
posted by eviemath at 6:14 AM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

Finally, a use for that silly sous-vide wand!

Something something boil-in-bag …
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:21 AM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think this essay by McMansion Hell about Coronagrifting is relevant here, even though it's not quite the same. They're writing about how design blogs are set up to churn out endless headline-grabbing news stories about impossible solutions.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:36 AM on September 23, 2021 [8 favorites]

So the water level range will go from Large all the way to Extra Large then.

With intermediate sizes like "Lord Humongous" and "third leg."

As a concept this is interesting, but at an interpersonal level people would have to negotiate the trust issue -- is he really steeping his nuts like he says he is? We take lots of other things on trust and people figure it out, but I can imagine a lot of situations where the guy saying the he wants to raw dog because he uses the nut-soaker won't ring true.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

for what it's worth, the original paper (on rats) includes the phrase "If the method proves to be reversible"

if
posted by BungaDunga at 7:05 AM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can see a market for better birth control for men and if I were a guy I would wish for some since I do not want kids and options are poor, but if I as a woman was ever in a relationship, I would not skip my own BC to trust a guy's.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:12 AM on September 23, 2021 [7 favorites]

The people at Testicuzzi would like to have a word.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 7:37 AM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

“potential buyers are … probably limited to the set of those in which hormonal contraception doesn't work effectively for the ovarian partner.”

Hormonal contraception doesn’t work well for many ovarian users- it is merely the main choice.

If my partner has to sous vide his balls so I don’t feel like ‘everything is wrong in the world’ on a regular basis, then ball dip it is.
posted by Monday at 8:48 AM on September 23, 2021 [9 favorites]

Days of yore: Workaday tighty whities, hot tub + weed weekends

Dazzling modernity: Parboil your balls
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:25 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

There's a pill for men in trials. Given the gender gap in Covid vaccine hesitancy, I expect a total shitshow if approved. Despite that in any sealion Dawkins species-level rationalist mode, you'd expect it to make more sense to accept risk to a set of testes than a uterine system.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:14 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'd love to get excited over any male birth control options, but I did a term paper on such about 20 years ago and literally none of those have ever become public options.

Yeah, here's a breathless article about how reversible male sterilization is right around the corner. That was written ten years ago and Vasalgel is still "under development".
posted by jackbishop at 12:53 PM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

"The block in fertility has been demonstrated to be reversible, lasting from about 5 to about 11 months after a single intra-vas injection of neem oil." (1993)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:05 PM on September 24, 2021

FWIW, the hype on the current trial suggests its made it past the point previous attempts failed (on side effects).

I sure hope so, bc blocking the hormone associated with hair growth (and so baldness) is potent meme fuel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:09 PM on September 24, 2021

That was written ten years ago and Vasalgel is still "under development"

There was RISUG® [Vasalgel] news at the end of 2019, 2020's RISUG as a male contraceptive: journey from bench to bedside, and lately, after 3 - 4 decades of research... trialing the substance in rats with fallopian tubes. Study concluded RISUG is "suitable for single intervention, intratubular, reversible contraception in female rats." Set your watches.
posted by Iris Gambol at 9:48 PM on September 25, 2021 [2 favorites]