Erm, I think there may have been a bit of a misunderstanding in my attempt at some dry humor. :(

I intended to imply disagreement with your claim, mostly due to the one-sided nature of it (as my parent reply suggested). I imagine the downvotes are due to the fact that your phrasing seems to imply that the male should have no say in the matter.

It's not that women should not have control over the process (perhaps even most of it), but that both parties need to have the ability to say, finally and without being overruled, "no this will not result in a child."

That was the purpose of my comment, it should be a

  (she->wantsChild() && he->wantsChild()) makeChild();

not

  (she->wantsChild() || he->wantsChild()) makeChild();

sort of deal.

EDIT: "Its as if most people think that the pill would have been as revolutionary if it were for men instead of women."

I think you've hit it right on the head here, though. The advent of the pill allowed for equality of sexes in the manner suggested above. Had it been for men, I don't think it would've changed much at all.

However, now that that is the case, we've kind of got a situation where women can choose to have relations without getting pregnant regardless of what their partner is doing, whereas for men the options are both limited and uncomfortable. A woman on the pill can have sex without protection (though there are obvious caveats, of course, know/trust your partner, etc. etc.) and still be assured of results, whereas for a man he pretty much has to either be wearing a condom (uncomfortable) or have had a vasectomy.

This would be another round of equalization, better for everyone.

Thank you for the clarification and taking the time to respond. I did not mean to imply that men should not have a say in the matter. I think I might have placed too much emphasis and an overly broad definition of "best."

My point was that given the biological constraints females ultimately are the most impacted by pregnancy. As a male I definitely value improvements for male birth control. However from a societal point of view I think the best birth control is one that is either controlled by women or is verifiable by women.

Since you are being so helpful and I seem to be so hard-headed/clueless on this one. What do you think the general disagreement is with my "best neccesarily implies one or the other comment."?

With no reasoning given it's not a particularly valuable post in terms of contribution to the conversation, and it forces people to speculate about why you're declaring it to be "the best". There are any number of unflattering possibilities, which probably accounts for no small measure of the downvotes.

I think you are confused about the post I was referring to:

"Um, "best" neccesarily implies a "one or the other" proposition."

How can best be interpreted to mean anything other than a one or the other proposition.

> I think you are confused about the post I was referring to:

Whoops.

> How can best be interpreted to mean anything other than a one or the other proposition.

(Simplified)

You said: I think the best thing is X (vs Y).

He said: I disagree that this is an either-or proposition.

You said: Um, "best" neccesarily implies a "one or the other" proposition

He was never confused about the meaning of "best", he just disagreed that it applied.

You missed his point by a country mile, and got downvoted accordingly.

I reread your comment in light of the dry humor. But I am a little confused. A dry sarcastic reading of:

"Because men clearly are not as invested in the possible rearing of a child. Clearly."

Does not seem to mesh with this:

"It's not that women should not have control over the process (perhaps even most of it)"

I think men (especially "honorable/good" men) are invested in the possibility of a pregnancy/child, but they are definitely not equally invested/impacted by a pregnancy/child.