Migraines, acne, breast tenderness, blood clots, appetite changes, bloating, nausea, weight gain, vaginal irritation, high blood pressure, increased risk of cancer, hair loss on your head replaced with increased body hair, reduced libido…
These are all side effects of hormonal birth control. You’re probably aware of these, and they suck. A lot. But what if we told you these are the tip of the proverbial iceberg and aren’t even arguably the worst?
Wait.
What?
Yes indeed, ladies. There’s a side effect of hormonal birth control that hadn’t been officially studied until recently, and it’s one that, perhaps, is most devastating. It’s an epigenetic side effect that changes your brain chemistry and in turn changes something as basic and inherent as your mate preference.
One of our most basic animal instincts as humans is to seek out a genetically strong mate to procreate with and ensure that dominant genes prevail, leading to the survival of the species. In women, estrogen plays a critically important role in mate selection based on natural attraction to a strong, alpha, complementary opposite. This has, in part, led to humans becoming the most dominant alpha organisms to traverse the planet. Evolutionarily speaking, sex hormones might be the most critical hormones in the genetic development that made us the most badass mammalian species ever. Pretty amazing, really.
But what happens when you mess with those hormones in the specific pursuit of NOT procreating? How does that affect our most basic mammalian instincts?
First we have to understand what historically constitutes a genetically preferential man. 2 words: high testosterone. Of course our ancestors didn’t have blood tests to measure hormone levels, but there are certainly physical and behavioral cues that point women in the direction of strong men who make strong babies, from scent, to facial and musculoskeletal structure, to displays of strength and dominance, to skills when it comes to procuring food. Men who did not display these traits had a difficult time attracting a mate and often did not procreate while the strong, alpha males tended to easily attract mates and carry on their genetic lineage. This happens with all species, of course, and it’s no secret, but one of the unintended consequences of meddling with hormones in women in the modern age is that this natural process of mate selection has become suspect at best. Very simply put, women who take hormonal birth control are typically attracted to weaker men than those who go au naturale. Often these women tend to shy away from traditional roles and and seek a mate that doesn't display a desire to fulfill his own roles of protecting, providing, and presiding over his dominion. This creates offspring who may not be genetically strong, can create a subpar household dynamic, etc.
Evidence in recent studies suggests that when women are not hormonally optimized and have less estrogen pulsing through their bodies, they perhaps do not as strongly pursue their natural, feminine dominance, and thereby do not inherently seek a mate who engages in his own masculine dominance. Instead they are genetically, hormonally modified to be attracted (with a lowered libido and less overall attraction) to men who do not display the types of behaviors and outward appearance that speaks to creating strong, resilient offspring. In fact, in some cases, they’re turned off by this. It’s likely no coincidence that the term “toxic masculinity” coincides with the abundance of available birth control in the general marketplace and population. Women on birth control tend to choose mates that are very average or less than average, hormonally speaking, just like they’ve modified themselves to be synthetically.
This sucks, of course, but you know what sucks MORE?
Studies are repeatedly showing that when women come OFF birth control, including when they decide they’d like to conceive children, they find themselves less attracted, or even unattracted, to their luke warm, weak, sub-primal mates. The rebalancing and optimization of hormones that occurs when they come off birth control raises their libido and they have an increased sex drive, but they’re largely unnatracted to the man they thought they wanted to conceive with. This leads to all of the things you might suspect, from strained marriages to divorces to infidelity, none of which are desirable to most.
The point? Synthetic hormones are not good for us, from TRT to steroids, to birth control, and the side effects can be life-altering and not in a good way.
One of the most important factors in becoming the most DOMINANT version of yourself is to become fully hormonally optimized and the secret to that optimization lies in the lifestyle levers. All 9 of them play a very important role in optimizing the production and balance of hormones.
For free 1 on 1 guidance when it comes to said lifestyle levers, email our fully optimized performance experts.