Amy Schumer Imagines a World Dominated by Male Birth Control
And while it's not necessarily accurate, it's still funny.
Amy Schumer, as she points out, has recently become rather “rich, famous, and humble” in recent years. Her new Netflix comedy special, The Leather Special, comes after relative fame garnered from projects such as her film Trainwreck and the critically acclaimed Comedy Central series Inside Amy Schumer. Schumer drinks from a nearly empty wine bottle throughout the special and carries on in her usual sloppy manner: somehow incorporating sex into a political statement on gun violence.
But sex is the main priority in The Leather Special, and Schumer spends a little bit of time exploring an imaginary world where male birth control is the norm.
“Imagine you go home with a guy, and you’re going to have sex with him,” Schumer says. “You get a condom out of your purse. And he just goes: ‘Ah! No! It’s cool. I’m on the pill.’ What? You’re on what?” Her volume skyrockets, and she stares at the crowd, wide-eyed and disbelieving.
“His phone alarm goes off, and he’s like, ‘Excuse me,’” Schumer says as she pantomimes a man shyly opening up a wheel of birth control pills and dabbing one onto his tongue.
For those who don’t get it, the joke is funny for some because the actions Schumer pantomimes onstage are so inherently female. Women are the ones who sometimes ashamedly duck off to the side to take a tiny pill in the corner that can be up to 99% effective if taken correctly. And while male birth control isn’t that big of a fantasy anymore — seriously, there’s a nasal contraceptive for men being tested out — the idea of not having to use a condom because someone in the relationship is “on the pill” ignores another joke Schumer makes in her special.
At one point in the routine, Schumer says that she’s had just about every venereal disease out there. The STI joke and the male birth control bit aren’t related, but maybe they could have been. Oral birth control doesn’t act as protection against STIs, and while male condoms aren’t 100 percent effective, they definitely do more than oral birth control.
But, y’know, it’s a joke. It’s often best not to get too literal.
Amy Schumer: The Leather Special is now available on Netflix.
