Pregnant on BC!?!

[brazen_irish_hussy]

yes. My mother was on the sponge when I was concevied. The reason the sponge is now off the market is for that very reason, it is ineffective.

The truth is, keep your legs together sex ed is useless, whether you know someone using BC who got pregers or not. Look at the stats for the US versus other industrialized countries with full sex ed. We have high teen pregnancies, higher accidental pregnancies and more abortions, especially among teens than any other industrialized country. Accodring to the CDC, 49% of pregnancies in the US are unplanned. That is a huge problem we could easily fix.

To give you an example. I knew a woman who was only told not to have sex before marriage and that was pretty much it. She was babysitting for a well respected member of her church who raped her. She had to go to the hospital by herself because she was ashamed she was not a virgin before marriage and only got the plan B pill because of the hospital; she truely believed her parents would disown her if they found out because she went against god. I have known a few women who got full sex ed who were raped or sexually assulted, myself included, and not having that ridiculous judgement hanging over our heads not only gave us the info we needed to make a good decision about our bodies during stressful times, but it also did not impart the same kind of guilt.

 

[LaraOnline]

Date: 9/11/2008 3:49:49 AM
Author: brazen_irish_hussy
yes. My mother was on the sponge when I was concevied. The reason the sponge is now off the market is for that very reason, it is ineffective.


The truth is, keep your legs together sex ed is useless, whether you know someone using BC who got pregers or not. Look at the stats for the US versus other industrialized countries with full sex ed. We have high teen pregnancies, higher accidental pregnancies and more abortions, especially among teens than any other industrialized country. Accodring to the CDC, 49% of pregnancies in the US are unplanned. That is a huge problem we could easily fix.


To give you an example. I knew a woman who was only told not to have sex before marriage and that was pretty much it. She was babysitting for a well respected member of her church who raped her. She had to go to the hospital by herself because she was ashamed she was not a virgin before marriage and only got the plan B pill because of the hospital; she truely believed her parents would disown her if they found out because she went against god. I have known a few women who got full sex ed who were raped or sexually assulted, myself included, and not having that ridiculous judgement hanging over our heads not only gave us the info we needed to make a good decision about our bodies during stressful times, but it also did not impart the same kind of guilt.

These are all interesting posts, but I think it is culturally interesting that the reality / risk of FAILURE of contraception is not more emphasised as a factor in our social relationships.
The whole time I was ''waiting to get married'', the boyfriends I were with at the time seemed unaware of the commitment/risk required on my behalf, for me to be with them regularly. All of my relationships (excepting my marriage relationship) ended when I slowly realised that to the guy, my sleeping with them was not directly associated with risk, and therefore there was no real commitment involved, beyond the shorter term of ''behaving nicely''.
Essentially, they thought we were having a ''fun time'', with very little or no risk, which meant they did not have to factor me into long term future plans.

I am happily married, but occasional comments/jokes from my husband regarding women (particularly when he is chatting on sport forums with other men) makes me see that men are socially conditioned to discuss love principally as a physical sport, a little like fishing, or perhaps visiting a variety of countries.
Birth control has freed women, and overall the social improvements outweigh the negatives, but we have not socially evolved to the point where women''s reasonable fear of risk of pregnancy is seen as a relevant aspect of social relations, particularly when the woman is unmarried. This puts pressure on women.

How many people still see marriage as about a woman ''hooking'' a guy, for example? The implication is that love is free, when of course women who do fall pregnant know that it is not. Fear of pregnancy is a fear that, privately, women revisit again and again in their unmarried relations.

When I was married, I felt overwhelming relief that I would not have to carry the pregnancy risk alone any more.

It is too simple to say : You choose to be active or inactive, because in many circles, women feel they must be active to be ''in the marriage market''... and yet, the risks of being active are constantly undersold culturally. It can leave unmarried women in a difficult situation. IMHO