Short abstract:

A new male contraceptive device has been circulating in France since 2019 in self-help networks, supported by a feminist narrative critical of EBM. Here, I'll show how the imaginary developed around this device enables it to counter its institutional ban.

Long abstract:

The French contraception situation is marked by the very strong dominance of the pill (>50% of contraceptive use before 2010) despite the development of a feminist critique of hormones and the paternalism of institutional medicine. In this context, a new external, non-hormonal male contraceptive device developed and marketed outside current regulations has enjoyed widespread media success since 2019. Its promotion is based on the feminist criticisms mentioned above, and on imaginaries linked to the technical characteristics of the device, described as "natural".

The health authorities have nonetheless taken up the issue, which has led to numerous negotiations with the device's promoters, mobilizing political arguments critical of EBM to deal with reminders of the regulatory requirements. The way in which these agencies chose to appropriate the criticisms to promote a return to the EBM order is particularly interesting to analyze from an STS perspective, with two registers of discourse about the political character of medicine clashing in the same arena of controversy.

The question of the production of ignorance is also at the heart of the discourse, with activists blaming EBM promoters not only for discrediting the experiential and empirical knowledge they have built, but also for being responsible for their risk-taking as a result of the disinterest shown by companies and hospitals in non-hormonal contraception, which does not rely on women's bodies and actively includes the user in the practice.