On Its 50 Birthday, Scientists Would Like You to Know that the Pill May Make You Crazy

The Daily Mail, which published this information -- starting out with the enlightened sentiment that "Women can be distrustful of their men at the best of times" -- reveals that sex hormones in the pill may make women more possessive, jealous, and generally cray-cray. The pill can also change your sense of smell, make you "broody" (fuck you), and make you strangely attracted to "more androgynous" men like Zac Ephron (seriously?) and Johnny Depp (hell yeah) . Some women taking the pill also had bigger brains.

But on to the jealousy stuff:

Working with Dutch psychologists, Stirling University's Dr Craig Roberts asked 275 women a series of questions designed to gauge how much they trusted their partner. Topics covered included how they feel when their other half flirts with another woman, whether they were worried that he would leave them for another woman, and how possessive they were. The women, who were aged between 17 and 35 had all been taking various versions of the combined Pill, containing synthetic forms of oestrogen and progesterone, for at least three months.

The lesson of this study? If you're a guy whose significant other is being all "jealous and shit," you need only point out that her simulated hormones, which are preventing her (and you) from getting pregnant, are the likely cause. Which will make everyone happy, right?

See, here's the thing. The only thing hormonally worse than an allegedly jealous-on-account-of-birth-control-pills woman is a pregnant woman. And the only thing crazier than her is a woman with kids. Er, not that we don't love babies. But that's neither here nor there. Hey, in honor of the pill's 50 birthday, how's that male birth control pill coming?

We can think of a whole list of reasons a woman on the pill might be "jealous" and "possessive" that have nothing to do with her hormones, simulated or otherwise -- not to mention, the lack of a control group of non-pill-taking women in the study makes us question its veracity further. But if this information is to be believed, the higher the estrogen, the higher the crazy.

Still, most people shouldn't be taking a super-high-estrogen pill anyway, as they're considered more likely to have side effects -- so if you are, go stage a shitshow in your doctor's office, stat. We give permission. (And check to see if they're getting paid for prescribing that nonsense. Bad doctor.)

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