Tick Tock

I’d like to be a mother—someday. Now is not a good time. I’m 28 years old, unmarried, and trying to build a freelance writing business from a small New York apartment. I grew up in the wake of the feminist movement, and boy am I glad about that. Gender inequalities still exist, of course (ahem). […]

Sperm Waves

Some 40 years ago, researchers at the University of Missouri were searching for an alternative to the condom — a cheap, trustworthy and reversible form of male birth control. For their first study, published in 1975, they strapped anesthetized rats, face-down, to a plexiglass platform with a cut-out cup full of water for their dangling […]

Alcohol, Retinol and a 50-Year Quest for the Male Pill

Last Sunday, the day before the world’s population hit 7 billion, I went to a scientific meeting on the future of contraception. I had expected to hear, and did hear, about a slew of labs trying to develop a birth control pill for men. What I did not expect: one pill was shown to work in […]

Family Planning Made Entertaining

Happy Halloween! I want to tell you a scary story. A decade ago, the planet had six billion people. Today, according to the United Nations, we have seven billion. The UN has chosen Halloween as the symbolic day when the seventh billion person will come screaming into existence. Not scared yet? Maybe these words from […]