This article analyzes men’s contraceptive practices using data from the French 2013 Fecond survey. Results show that men’s use of contraception is structured by the French contraceptive norm, which was already observed among women. Moreover, we show that this contraceptive norm is gendered. In prescribing the switch from condoms to oral contraceptive pills when a relationship becomes stable, it also prescribes a shift from shared responsibility between the partners to exclusively female responsibility for contraception. Finally, the use of male contraceptive methods by men in stable relationships could be the result of strategies of “distinction” allowing the expression of different types of masculinities.
- men
- contraception
- contraceptive practices
- contraceptive norm
- distinction