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One for the ladies: Educate yourself about the risks of hormonal birth control
Vanity Fair once called me “the masculinist health guru,” which is kind of cute, I guess. I suspect the outlet really wanted to call me “the misogynist health guru” and to lump me in with the Andrew Tates of this world, with their rented sports cars, Freudian cigar obsessions, and poorly tailored suits whose trousers end three inches too short above the ankles.If you’ve actually followed my work for any length of time, you’ll know that large amounts of the advice I give to men apply equally to women. I take pains to say this.Researchers recently showed that hormonal contraceptive use shrinks the brain. Yes, that’s right: The brain gets smaller.With regard to the harmful effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals, which are simply everywhere today, I say, “The end of men is the end of women.”Estro-gentlemanWe might like to think all those estrogenic chemicals are only a danger to men — because estrogen is the female hormone, right? — but actually they’re just as large a danger to women. Women can have too much estrogen in their bodies as well, and overexposure has a range of very nasty effects, from menstrual disruption, endometriosis, and polycystic ovarian syndrome to cancers of the breast, vagina, and uterus.I also give advice specifically to women too. For example, I’ve written about the dangers of sanitary products, which have been found to contain massive doses of harmful chemicals and heavy metals. What’s worse, because sanitary products are in contact with sensitive vaginal tissue, greater quantities of these chemicals are absorbed by the body.Vaginal and scrotal tissue is many times more absorbent than the skin on your stomach or hands, which is why the vagina and scrotum are often used as routes for drug delivery. Substances that enter our bodies through the vagina or scrotum also evade a process called “first-pass metabolism” in the gut and go directly into the bloodstream. Not good.So while you won’t find me proudly sporting an “I’m with her” T-shirt or one that says, “The future is female,” nor will you ever find me donning a pink p***y hat or reading E. Jean Carroll’s autobiography, I do care about women.Haphazard endocrinologyAnd it’s in that spirit of love for the fairer sex that I offer this week’s tidbit of advice for women only. It’s also unusual because it’s not a recommendation for a beautiful organic-wool pillow or the finest Mangalitsa pork or a red-light machine to tan your undercarriage.I want you, ladies, to read a book.Endocrinology — the science of hormones — has a deep history. Man has been fiddling around with hormones for many thousands, probably tens of thousands, of years, even if he had no idea what a hormone was until the beginning of last century.The first castration was the first hormonal therapy, the first bloody flash of awareness that certain tissues within the body hold the key to sexual development and expression. A bull without testicles is no longer dangerously aggressive and uncontrollable — and the same goes for a poor unfortunate slave. A castrato’s voice remains angelic, like a child’s, until his death.A kind of haphazard endocrinology went on for thousands of years. In some places, like Imperial China, where eunuchs had important roles to play in the imperial court and bureaucracy, castration took place on an almost industrial scale. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), there may have been as many as 100,000 eunuchs in the imperial service at any one time.But it wasn’t until the 20th century that endocrinology emerged as an actual science, with the discovery of hormones and experimentation with new forms of therapy at a far less crude level than hacking off the testicles with a sharp piece of rock or a knife. Particular kinds of hormonal intervention could now create a whole new way of life.Tough pill to swallowOf course I’m talking about hormonal contraception, the invention of which, to my mind, constitutes the most significant hormonal intervention in human history. No hormonal contraception, no sexual revolution — with everything that counterfactual movement entails.The scale of this intervention in the hormonal lives of women is staggering. It’s estimated that 39% of female contraceptive users in the U.S., or almost 18.5 million women in 2018, were using hormonal methods (pills, intrauterine devices, implants, injections, rings, or patches). A 2013 study claimed that 80% of all sexually active young women ages 25-34 in the U.S. would try hormonal contraception at some point.When hormonal contraception was invented, nobody fully understood the biological consequences, let alone the social or political consequences, of fixing tens of millions of women in the luteal phase of menstruation for as long as they choose.The truth is that we still don’t — not really. While we’ve got a better idea of some of the social outcomes, much of the biology remains a mystery, and there are powerful vested interests that prevent an honest investigation or discussion of them. Pharmaceutical companies make no money from abstinence or the rhythm method, and attacks on hormonal contraception are also perceived as a threat to women’s freedom and sexual choice, which, in an obvious sense, they are.Ick trickIn recent years, with the advent of social media, there’s been growing backlash against hormonal contraception, as women — especially young women — share their experiences of weight gain, mood problems, and even falling out of love with their boyfriends and husbands when they stop taking it.Yes, that’s a well-attested effect of taking hormonal contraception. Women’s sexual preferences change during their menstrual cycle. Women find classically masculine men — men whose appearance and bodily cues scream “TESTOSTERONE!” — more attractive when they’re ovulating and ready to make babies, for reasons that aren’t hard to imagine. And so if you meet your boyfriend or husband when you’re on hormonal contraception and your brain is telling you to find Timothee Chalamet types attractive, going cold turkey might cause you to stop finding your boyfriend or husband attractive. You might even find him disgusting.This really happens, and people really do get divorced because of this.An open bookI’m not going to read you the litany of negative health effects or roll out dozens of studies to convince you to think very carefully about the benefits and deficits of using hormonal birth control. Instead I’m going to tell you to buy the book "This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything," by Sarah E. Hill. This is the most comprehensive look at the biological changes that happen as a result of taking hormonal birth control, the changes you or your sister or your daughter won’t be told about when you go to the doctor to get a prescription. The changes that won’t be on the medication’s insert either. It’s a readable, accessible book, but that makes it no less shocking.RELATED: Hormonal birth control: As bad for you as smoking Brain drainI will talk about one worrying recent study, though. Researchers recently showed that hormonal contraceptive use shrinks the brain. Yes, that’s right: The brain gets smaller. Scientists used MRI imaging to look at the brains of users and non-users, as well as men, and they found that a key region of the brain, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, was noticeably thinner in women on hormonal birth control.This could have far-reaching implications for women’s behavior, and that includes their political behavior. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is involved in fear regulation and emotional processing. As I suggest in my forthcoming book, "The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity," the thinning of nearly 20 million women’s brains in the U.S. could be helping to drive political polarization in the U.S., as women veer ever farther off toward the radical left and policies that endanger their own safety and well-being, while men cleave desperately to the center-right. I’m not joking. There needs to be more research, pronto.Thankfully, the changes to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex appear to be reversible: The brain returns to normal thickness once women stop using.Depression riskHowever, other studies suggest that some alterations to the brain might not be reversible. While on hormonal birth control, women have a higher risk of depression. If a woman starts taking it in her mid-20s and then stops, the risk returns to normal levels. If, however, a woman starts taking it in her teens, she retains an elevated risk for the rest of her life. This is clear evidence that hormonal contraception causes permanent changes to the developing teenage brain. If you know anything about hormones and the kind of changes they can make in the body, this should come as no surprise.Ultimately, it’s up to you. Your body, your choice — as the old feminist mantra has it. But the best thing you can do, the thing you owe to yourself as a (semi-)rational creature, is to be in possession of the right information so that you can make a fully informed choice.So do yourself a favor: If you are using hormonal contraception or thinking about it, or if you have a daughter or other female member of your family who is or might, buy that book.Expand your brain before you decide to shrink it.
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