Image: Krisma Harja One of my favourite moments in the Jennifer Saunders sitcom Absolutely Fabulous is when they go to France and get drunk at a wine tasting. But there's also a great little scene where Gran mistakes Saffy's purchase of female condoms for fingerless washing up gloves "They don't put fingers on these gloves..." I think when that episode aired many viewers thought that by 2014 we wouldn't be so shocked or flummoxed by femidoms (or femdoms, which I originally typoed) and other forms of female contraception. If pressed I think we'd have guessed the male pill would be causing a new sexual revolution in which responsibility was a buzzword. Instead we're flinging around pseudo science about women, hormones and the pill.
We are still a bit squeamish about contraception in general. I don't know anybody who sees a condom stretched out on the street and says "ooh, somebody was sensible last night!" (it's what I am trying to train myself to think but they are gross). The pill is easier to talk about because you can use it to treat acne, period pain and irregular periods. The cap or the femidom though...well. I've only heard Jo Brand discuss the diaphragm and 'cap nurse'.
What I hear more is how the pill, if it doesn't leave her barren, will make your daughter a nymphomaniac. Double wham[bam thank-you ma'am]my if she has the HPV vaccine! I rather imagine all nymphos are quite content but I do understand it's not the health and happiness you envisage for your female child whilst they are still playing with Lego. The thought that you can't even threaten to stop their pocket money to halt any kind of funny business because birth control can be acquired for free must haunt many a parent. Or not but just in case it does a study came out last week that examined "Change in Sexual Behavior With Provision of No-Cost Contraception".
In the survey for the study 9,256 adolescents and women "at risk for unintended pregnancy" were provided with free reversible contraception. After 6 and then 12 months the participants were interviewed and the number of male sexual partners and coital frequency recorded over the the period with which participants did and didn't have free contraceptives.
What I hear more is how the pill, if it doesn't leave her barren, will make your daughter a nymphomaniac. Double wham[bam thank-you ma'am]my if she has the HPV vaccine! I rather imagine all nymphos are quite content but I do understand it's not the health and happiness you envisage for your female child whilst they are still playing with Lego. The thought that you can't even threaten to stop their pocket money to halt any kind of funny business because birth control can be acquired for free must haunt many a parent. Or not but just in case it does a study came out last week that examined "Change in Sexual Behavior With Provision of No-Cost Contraception".
In the survey for the study 9,256 adolescents and women "at risk for unintended pregnancy" were provided with free reversible contraception. After 6 and then 12 months the participants were interviewed and the number of male sexual partners and coital frequency recorded over the the period with which participants did and didn't have free contraceptives.
| Unsurprisingly the study concluded: "We found little evidence to support concerns of increased sexual risk-taking behavior subsequent to greater access to no-cost contraception." | the pill, if it doesn't leave her barren, will make your daughter a nymphomaniac. |
The study was prompted by the Obama administration's Affordable care Act which has caused concern among some conservatives who think making contraception more accessible will result in promiscuity and that providing birth control is against their religious beliefs.
5% of the women taking part in the study were the virgins. Of this 5%, 46% had, by the end of the study, remained sexually inactive, in spite of revealing they intended to have sex at some point. The study's lead author Dr Gina Secura believes such findings help disprove "the idea that the only thing standing between women and promiscuity is a fear of pregnancy".
However the organisation Concerned Women of America says there are: "documented negative effects the widespread availability of contraceptives has on women's ability to enter into and maintain desired marital relationships. This in turn leads to decreased emotional wellbeing and economic stability (out-of-wedlock childbearing being a chief predictor of female poverty), as well as deleterious physical health consequences arising from, inter alia, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence."
This point is hard to understand when surely access and increased discussion of contraception would reduce "out-of-wedlock childbearing", or indeed childbearing in wedlock. The poverty card is usually employed by pro-choicers - fewer children means fewer outgoings, and refuges who have noted keeping a woman pregnant is a means of controlling her and therefore potentially abusive behaviour. What they are discussing is sex before marriage (if marriage happens at all), no doubt on the up since contraception both became more reliable and accessible, but hard to link to kids born out of wedlock...
It would be helpful to the argument if both sides would just be clear about what they are talking about.
Squeamish Kate
5% of the women taking part in the study were the virgins. Of this 5%, 46% had, by the end of the study, remained sexually inactive, in spite of revealing they intended to have sex at some point. The study's lead author Dr Gina Secura believes such findings help disprove "the idea that the only thing standing between women and promiscuity is a fear of pregnancy".
However the organisation Concerned Women of America says there are: "documented negative effects the widespread availability of contraceptives has on women's ability to enter into and maintain desired marital relationships. This in turn leads to decreased emotional wellbeing and economic stability (out-of-wedlock childbearing being a chief predictor of female poverty), as well as deleterious physical health consequences arising from, inter alia, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence."
This point is hard to understand when surely access and increased discussion of contraception would reduce "out-of-wedlock childbearing", or indeed childbearing in wedlock. The poverty card is usually employed by pro-choicers - fewer children means fewer outgoings, and refuges who have noted keeping a woman pregnant is a means of controlling her and therefore potentially abusive behaviour. What they are discussing is sex before marriage (if marriage happens at all), no doubt on the up since contraception both became more reliable and accessible, but hard to link to kids born out of wedlock...
It would be helpful to the argument if both sides would just be clear about what they are talking about.
Squeamish Kate
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