A new contraceptive for men? That prevents pregnancy after 15 minutes and lasts for 10 years? That’ll not only kill your baby-making potential but also HIV? Sounds too good to be true!
Because—well, it may be.
RISUG (Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance), “the new male contraceptive,” has been blowing up my Facebook wall this month. It’s a simple procedure: guy walks into doc’s office, doc pokes a tiny hole in guy’s scrotum, inserts a pair of baby-tweezers to pull out guy’s vas deferens tubes (aka sperm superhighways), injects a polymer gel into each one, then tucks the tubes back in. Doc slaps on a Band-aid and after three days, guy is fully equipped to ride on latex- and pregnancy-free for the next decade.
Though this procedure deals with the same vas deferens tubes that are snipped during a traditional vasectomy, the far superior RISUG process is scissor-free and completely reversible. During the 72 hours post-RISUG injection, the polymer gel thickens, lining the vas deferens tubes while still allowing sperm to pass through to prevent painful buildup. As your swimmers go along their formerly fertilizing, merry way, the two main components of the gel act like a magnet with contrasting negative and positive polarizations that rip the spermies apart!
Then when you graduate, get remarried or are called upon to donate to your lesbian friends (thanks, guys!), you can choose between two reversal options, both of which will bring your sperm back to their original health in two or three months. The first is a scrotal injection of a solvent that flushes out the RISUG gel.
The second, clearly superior option involves, as the official RISUG research company describes it, a “combination of vibration, a low electric current and per rectal massage” to “dislodge the polymer” and move it through the vas deferens. Basically, a bangin’ prostate orgasm and subsequently powerful ejaculation should do the trick—something they’re quite sure of because, as they proudly boast, they’ve successfully executed this method in monkeys “several times!”
Our condolences to Trojan, who will surely be going out of business soon.
Well, not too soon. Though the mainstream media’s been snapping up the tastier tidbits of RISUG (renamed Vasalgel here in the U.S.), many have neglected to read the finer print.
RISUG has been going through research, testing and development for the last three decades, and only in India. A research group called Parsemus Foundation (parsemusfoundation.org) has recently received the rights to start RISUG/Vasalgel research in the U.S. Animal activists will be thrilled to hear that they are currently testing the safety and effectiveness of RISUG/Vasalgel on little bunny rabbits, cute monkeys and the less beloved rats. The only human men presently eligible for trials are healthy 25- to 40-year olds who have sired two or more brats and are local to specific study sites in India.
Clinical trials should have already started in the U.S. this year, but RISUG/Vasalgel won’t be available to the public until 2015, and even then it will only be initially allowed as an alternative to vasectomy, not as a common contraceptive.
If this procedure doesn’t permanently scramble the XY chromosomes of the aforementioned poor, wascally wabbits, what will this mean for us, really?
Well, the procedure is supposedly extremely cheap, especially if it’s not snatched up and exploited by the big pharmaceutical companies (which, c’mon, it will be). Women won’t be the only ones held responsible for fending off unexpected babies by taking daily hormone-bomb pills, shots, implants or other no-fun drugs, all the while being criminalized, demonized and (here’s lookin’ at you, Rush) called names like “sluts” and “whores.” If you don’t care about syphilis, gonorrhea or chlamydia, you can kiss those pesky condoms goodbye (and all the whining that comes along with them).
As for the rumors that RISUG/Vasalgel can also prevent sperm transmissions of HIV, this was simply an unsupported hypothesis misused from a journal named, no duh, Medical Hypotheses. I don’t know where you’re sitting, but from here, the Trojans are still looking pretty good.
