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The pill is no longer a rite of passage for young women. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via Getty)
Like many women, I’ve tried most contraceptive methods. I soldiered on with Microgynon and Cerazette for years longer than I should have, and spent multiple afternoons in the university surgery with an infected implant. The copper coil was a medieval experience, both in its painful insertion and the fact that it made my hair fall out, as if in punishment for wanting one-night stands. In the end, I decided morning-after pills were worth the expense if they saved me the heartache. When I later found out that I would need fertility treatment to get pregnant, my first thought was that Boots owed teenage me a lot of money.
I don’t regret a thing. We millennials would risk pretty much anything to have carefree sex — even our waistlines. A new generation of women, however, is not so keen. They aren’t wild about the acne, mood swings, weight gain, heavy bleeding and migraines that are associated with hormonal contraceptives. According to Tik Tokers, those side-effects are now thought to extend to anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts. So while taking the pill used to be something of a rite of passage, now women are coming off it in droves.
Part of the problem is there just isn’t much reliable scientific research into why different contraceptives cause different reactions. For most women, finding your contraceptive is like embarking on a blind taste test of various pills, injections and contraptions. Information about how contraceptives work is hard to find and often mystifying. We’ve long known the pill wasn’t perfect. It was described by Elizabeth Siegel Watkins in 2001 as the “least unsatisfactory choice in contraception for American women”. And the “father of the pill”, Carl Djerassi, predicted back in 1989 that “new approaches to birth control – for example a male pill, a once-a-month menses inducer, and an antifertility vaccine – cannot be realized before the next century”. In fact, he said, choice is likely to become more limited, pointing to “an informed and highly motivated group of women [who] strongly criticised the pill while emphasising their abhorrence at male domination.” This middle-class feminist politics resented the idea that women would have to endure side effects to prevent pregnancies and questioned the idea that science might enable women’s sexual freedom.
Yet over 70 years since the pill was first synthesised, he has been proved right. In an article echoing Djerassi, Nicola Thorp wrote in 2018 that the “contraceptive industry is institutionally sexist“. She asked why it was that women were expected to “try different methods until they simply give up and are forced to accept the least painful side effects”? And she also makes the case that if women don’t take action, nothing will change. And today, women aren’t pushing for an improved formulation, with fewer side effects or greater efficiency. Quite the opposite, in fact, the idea of scientific “meddling” with our bodies and medicalising health is increasingly eschewed by younger generations and nowhere more so than in the already fraught world of women’s reproductive health.
The change has been drastic. NHS data for women accessing sexual-health services in 2022-2023 shows the number of women using “natural family planning” to prevent pregnancies has doubled in ten years and the number choosing oral contraceptives has plummeted (down from 429,600 to 126,400 in a decade). It’s only a snapshot but the data does align with trends we’re seeing elsewhere. Natural Cycles, the non-hormonal contraceptive method of choice for celebrities and influencers, is now so popular it boasts over two million users and has been cleared by the FDA in America.
“I’m not convinced dressing up age-old methods, like the rhythm method, in snazzy new apps is the reproductive utopia fem-tech companies want us to believe it is,” says Dr Rebecca Steinfeld, an expert in the politics of reproductive justice. “They all romanticise a past when people lacked access to revolutionary, literally life-saving innovations like modern contraception, effective pain relief in labour, safe surgery in birth, and life-sustaining formula milk,” she says. And what many pill-critics don’t like to admit is that “natural” techniques are much less trustworthy. “I felt colossally naïve,” said one user who got accidentally pregnant while on Natural Cycles, “I’d used the app in the way I do most of the technology in my life: not quite knowing how it works, but taking for granted that it does.”
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SubscribeOk, well, I’m gonna skip the whole patriarchy, messing with women’s ability to act like men thing at get down to nuts and bolts.
First, I think people are questioning a whole lot more than just the the pill. I think people, young people in particular, are questioning the whole idea of putting all kinds of chemicals in our bodies. I think people are questioning the trustworthiness of medicine and big pharma and whether they are putting their financial interests ahead of our health.
Given the history, not an unreasonable perspective to take.
Second, as the father of a daughter and fiance to a woman still of child bearing age, I worry about ANYTHING that messes with hormones. We hear about how some hormones can cause cancer issues if taken too long or in too high a dose. We hear about potential impacts to long term fertility. And if they make you feel off or feel ill or mess with your mood, then to heck with that.
My father was a medical professional who was asked to speak globally. He told me and my sisters early on to never put anything into your body that you absolutely do not need to. He was as skeptical of big pharma and of science that was done that supported new markets for drugs as any of these young people today.
All you can suggest is that people pound their feet and yell for better and cheaper methods of doing the same thing, using chemicals to mess with your body so you can “enjoy your life as unencumbered as men”. Jesus, you think men are unencumbered do you? Ugh. You worry about getting pregnant. We worry about you getting pregnant. DNA testing makes it kinda hard to shirk responsibility ya know and we get no vote on abortion. If we are not married we get to pay for 18 yrs, chased by courts if we do not, and barely get to be fathers. Great deal.
As lame and as boring as it may seem, maybe we should not all be running around treating intercourse as the logical follow up to a night of drinking. Just a little after dinner fun. Harmless. Doesn’t seem to be making anybody any happier. In fact, it seems to be making people more miserable.
And yeah, do I think a day off from work for your period might be a bit much? Maybe, I guess it depends on the woman and what her cycle is like. As a boss I would tell her to just work from home.If it is that bad, then take a flex day. We can handle you being out for a day or so but would appreciate a little extra when you get back.
Women have different challenges than men. Ok. Well instead of trying to drug them away, how about we adjust the business and the processes of the business so that women can actually take care of themselves and get about their lives. It is manageable. I’ve dealt with it as a boss. You can find ways to make things work. Just need a little mutual flexibility.
And SO WHAT if that means that women do not function like men? Really? Thank GOD they do for the sake of the species. Do not know why we need to change women for them to be able to succeed as they wish. Just seems to me we need to make room for them to join in as they are.
It was the idea of putting all kinds of chemicals into my body, the long term effects of which still hadn’t been fully understood that put me off the pill. I also didn’t like the idea that the pill might mask any underlying health problems which needed treating.
I remember being at school in the 90s and being surrounded by girls who had been put on the pill as soon as they started to menstruate, “just because”. They didn’t have acne, didn’t have boyfriends or show any other signs of being promiscuous…it was just the done thing. I was repelled by that kind of knee-jerk treatment of women’s bodies then and it appalls me now.
My sidestepping of this contraceptive circus was also helped by belonging to the millennial cohort who wouldn’t do anything to have carefree sex: partly because the possibilities just didn’t present themselves and partly because – shocker! – I wasn’t that interested in the subject. It wasn’t political, it wasn’t British prudishness, it wasn’t trauma. I just wasn’t bothered.
And I think this is an attitude that needs to be addressed more in public discourse, actually. The pressure on women to have lots of different sexual partners was considerable in the 90s/early 2000s…goodness knows what it’s like now with social media etc. I hope that girls and young women are also getting the clear message that it’s completely fine to stay clear of sex for as long as they want and feel is right.
I came off the pill when it started to give me migraines every day of my period, now I’m left with two days of migraine a month, which is an improvement but given my periods prior to the pill were relatively easy, means I am aware that it messed me up. My daughter takes it because without it, she has very heavy, very painful periods and is an emotional wreck. There are some women who benefit because without it, their hormones do crazy things to them naturally but I do think these women are rare. Using the pill purely for birth control, during one night stands, reasons risks not just the impact on your body from the pill itself but also the risk of STIs! The pill doesn’t stop STIs, condoms do! Condoms protect you from unwanted pregnancy and STIs! Yet there are still young people who prefer to pop a pill and risk an STI then use a condom. The mind boggles.
My younger sister had that issue with wild emotional swings and very painful periods.
She went on the pill at about 14 or so I think. It did seem to help her.
My dad was not thrilled, not because he thought she would be out screwing around, he just hated and distrusted the effects of drugs.
I am with you.
To say that I had a WILD youth would be an understatement. I’ve basically been out on my own since I was 16. Started going to night clubs at that age too. At 18 I was dating a 31 yr old divorcee. We had house parties that went whole weekends with dozens of kids in the house while our parents were away or we had “keggers” out in the woods by lakes. Never mind the pot and the other stuff.
Let’s just say that it was the 1980’s and the tail end of the disco era and free love era.
I had a lot of fun the way a teenager, unsupervised and free to do what they want can have fun. Most of it not particularly healthy in the long run.
I sit back now, 40 yrs later, and I think the following…
I wish my parents had been a little more there and had been a bit stricter.
I wish my first sexual experiences had not been so incredibly casual and transactional, that sex had not just been something you did at the end of a night of partying. It set an unhealthy trend that took years to unlearn and recover from.
I wish my generation of men had been taught to say “No”. Boys are not taught to say no. We are taught by society, and are driven by biology, to TRY and get laid. Nobody tells us, not our parents, not society, not our friends and not even the girls we are friends with that it is perfectly fine to just not want to have sex either at all or with a particular woman. Oh, we get warned about the consequences and that keeping our peckers in our pants avoids them, but teenagers and young men are not real good at assessing consequences and good ole testosterone makes risk exciting. A boy that does not want to get laid will get mocked by his peers and by many women. Boys that do not want to have sex have to count on girls saying “no” for them. But you sure do not want to be that boy that says “no” to the wrong girl. It will be all over school in a day.
To this day, I question what the pill actually brought us. I know what many people hoped it would, just not sure that is what we got.
Boys that do not want to have sex have to count on girls saying “no” for them. But you sure do not want to be that boy that says “no” to the wrong girl. It will be all over school in a day.
‘An unmarried man saying to a woman “no”’ sounds nice, but it defies biological logic.
Duh: the point is, with the advent of reliable contraception, no we’re not just tools.
“boy that does not want to get laid will get mocked by his peers and by many women.”
Absolutely. All the talk about not being pressured into sex, being allowed to say no, is focused on girls because the presumption is they must be the victims, always.
But boys, apart from being under pressure of being the initiators of contact, will all the huge risks of rejection and/or accusations of ,”rape”,also face enormous pressure to “get laid”. Hence why “incel” is a shame word.
Which is why the differing social reactions to male teachers sexually preying on a girl student, versus female teachers with male students.
…ahhh you mean Mr Macron the French President no less.
Great comment. Just about says it all. This nonsense that unwanted pregnancy is only a woman’s concern belies every reality of modern paternity.
Women aren’t the same as men and maybe, finally, the Gen Z girls are wakening up to what nonsense feminism has always been. Keep the chemical crap out of your bodies, keep your knickers on, find a decent boy and treat him with respect and love, and you have a good chance of blossoming into a woman and mother and grandmother, and doing something more worthwhile than waking up Sat morning with your evening dress on some bloke’s bedroom floor.
“. . . waking up Sat morning with your evening dress on some bloke’s bedroom floor.” Gee, you say that like it’s a bad thing . . .
Wh tif you aspire to being something other than a mother and grandmother?
I found myself cheering as I read your comment! It’s such rubbish for women to keep pushing this nonsense about the patriarchy. I have never understood why feminism wants women to be pseudo-men and bad men at that.
I have never understood that either.
On the one hand they bash men and on the other they want to be like men.
One question I ask and have asked for a long time is why they would want to be like men. We have higher rates of suicide. We are more likely to be victims of violent crime. We die younger and have higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse. We are more likely to end up in prison.
I’ve thought for a long time that the reasons for this has been our role in society. It totally sucks to be the provider in a household. It is a LOT of stress to know that your job is what keeps your wife and kids sheltered and fed, keeps them insured for sickness, pays for birthday parties, dance lessons and Christmas presents. That means you kill yourself and eat a lot of pride and you worry daily.
I’ve noticed that as women have entered the workforce more and more they are experiencing the same things men do with drugs and alcohol and suicide. Sorry ladies, but you are catching up to us in all the crappy ways too. You are even starting to catch us on earlier death.
Besides that, I thought one of the main points of women entering the workforce was that they brought different perspectives, would change how businesses function, make things better for everyone. How ya gonna do that if you just turn into men with boobs? (different topic)
“One question I ask and have asked for a long time is why they would want to be like men. ”
Great question.
And as a conventional “provider” male, I feel proud of my role, but it’s also way more high pressure and stressful. I am way happier when I am in childcare mode, far less stress, more satisfying.
I think the answer is, very bluntly, that women of the last century, at least of the “modern” variety, are self centred and stupid.
They genuinely felt that men were having a great time, dying in wars, battling away to earn money to keep their family fed, educated and houses
They are stupid enough to see only the kings and generals, the good bits.
And they were selfish and horrible enough to believe that they had the rights to the good bits but not the obligations that come with it.
That’s why the calls for gender diversity in CEOs but not in manufacturing or military conscription, and that’s why all the agonising over the gender pay gap but so few females who choose to be sole breadwinners.
Why do I suspect that 1) signing up for the all the punishment that entering a capitalist labour force can dish out and 2) wanting sexual pleasure without necessary dire consequences, are perhaps not one and the same thing?
That means you kill yourself and eat a lot of pride and you worry daily.
Eating a lot of pride is never usually mentioned
It is not, but when you have obligations to provide for other people, their food, their shelter, clothing, healthcare and education, you cannot afford to lose your job without another one lined up.
So, that means that if your boss is abusive is some way, or the company wants to pay you for 40 hrs of work and demands that you be available on the weekend or at night or you just have to work those times to keep up, you grit your teeth and do it.
It means that if your daughter’s championship game is on Sunday but you have to fly to a client site from NY to San Diego for a Monday morning meeting, you miss the game. If the boss says you have to go despite the game, you go even knowing it will disappoint your daughter and you were excited to watch her play.
Great post, and what a lovely last sentence.
Yes. Say it again, louder for the people in the back and speak a little slower for the ones with comprehension issues.
Your father was absolutely right. My mother was a young woman of childbearing age when she started using the pill. She developed all sorts of conditions -weight gain, high blood pressure, acne on her back, insomnia, mood swings – and died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at the age of 68 (her doctor also put her on hormone replacement pills when she was menopausal).
Not me. I subscribe to your father’s philosophy. And condoms are topical!
I agree with your father re: avoiding or minimizing medication. Our local CVS (‘Boots’ to Brits?) has as entire wall dedicated to racks and racks filled with little brown bags of medication waiting to be picked up. It gives one pause. I’m approaching 70 and won’t even take a multi-vitamin or even an aspirin unless something is unbearable. In my younger years, I was on the pill very briefly but realizing its negative consequences switched to a diaphragm which one never hears about today. When medical professionals hear that I take nothing at my age they are astounded. Our medicated society is ironically ’sick’.
Number of women think there’s a connection to breast cancer. Let’s not talk about vaginal mesh.
“Second, as the father of a daughter and fiance to a woman still of child bearing age, I worry . . . You worry about getting pregnant. We worry about you getting pregnant.” I’m going to remember this post next time someone tells me that abortion is exclusively a womens’ issue.
TLDR after a wile… One does tired of the same drum being beaten on and on..
But what I post is:
”I don’t regret a thing. We millennials would risk pretty much anything to have carefree sex ”
Why? Does she not realize sex never was, is, or was meant, to be a carefree entertainment? It is about bonding more than fun. Having a family more than single nights out.
Humans and their societies evolved due to realities. Male and Female and children – this is the most fundamental thing of all, in what and who we are.
We are like the geese – we are naturally monogamous and couples. We marry and have families in all societies everywhere. Man and Wife. This is what makes us happier than other ways, it is programed in us – but also it is good. Love, security, trust.
It is so sad to see the wretched state of the younger generations as they, as the writer seems, have given that up for solo fun. Maybe fun when young as rebellious and stupid. But bleak and miserable for life afterwards, alone.
What do the young think caused ‘Sex’ to exist? Why is it part of us? Does she think of that? What does it mean that we have sex? It is not just the trivial thing you seem to think, but with dreadful consequences when unfortunate. You trivialize that which is the most important thing in life – Marriage and family, and sex is the base of that.
(edited because I spelled checked the word wrongly as monotonous instead of monogamous, haha… Freudian slip)
Why can’t sex be a bit of fun and carefree entertainment? What’s wrong with youngsters getting frisky after a night out and not having to worry about an unwanted sprog arriving 9 months later?
We all settle down eventually, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun beforehand. I’d much rather the youngsters go round sh@gging everything that moves without the risk of getting knocked up than lots of unwanted babies being born into broken homes due to accidental pregnancies.
Also many societies do/did practice polygamy, and in many monogamous societies rich and powerful men would often have their mistresses so I’m not sure we’re as naturally monogamous as you claim
Look at the fertility stats. Clearly not everyone is settling down to a family life. In fact, the number of people doing that is coming down sharply, with our elites using this as a reason to import even more immigrants and further change the character of our society.
Get your head out of the sand. Our carelessness and hedonism are already doing real damage to our society, and this problem is only getting worse.
It isn’t carelessness and hedonism that’s responsible for people not having as many kids as they’d want, it’s their precarious financial situation that’s causing them to start families later
In real terms people are richer now than they’ve ever been. Comparatively speaking they are poorer. It’s all about definitions.
They may earn more money but basic living costs such as rent, petrol and utilities a greater percentage of that weekly wage so I’d argue they’re not richer. If they were homeownership rates wouldn’t be at record low levels and still dropping
Boomers are now running the “protect society” narrative after tearing up the social contract. Millennials are screwing away the best years of their lives because they can’t afford to transition into adulthood.
There is a natural drive to have sex but without the social structure to enable childbearing.
The right wing are all “no such thing as society” when it comes to helping others out but when they’re trying to protect themselves from the other it’s suddenly all kumbaya and communal living.
As with the author and her ridiculous claim that “conservatives” see the pill as an excuse for men to run amok, I have to wonder if you’ve actually met someone on the right.
I’d argue that they’re not mature enough to transition into adulthood! The age of consent is about being considered mature enough to handle the responsibility that comes with pregnancy/parenthood or dealing with or avoiding STI’s. It’s now looking like no-one really gets there until late twenties/early thirties if ever!
Despite this, losing your virginity is seen as a right of passage into adulthood. The amount of times I’ve heard (I work with young people)“I’m 16, I can do what I want”, no! You can consent to s3x with someone 16+ and that is about it, there are still public decency laws in place so you can’t do it whenever and wherever you want! Don’t forget to use a condom! “Ugh, they feel gross when I touch them, I don’t one of them inside me!” What about STI’s? Condoms are the only contraceptive that protects against them. “Well I’ll just have s3x with lads that don’t have them” how would you know? Not all STI’s present symptoms. “Well I’ll just date virgins then”
I kid you not, I have had this conversation with a young person that considered themselves worldly and streetwise…. And never met a lad that wouldn’t lie to get his end away, obviously.
Then there are those who want to get pregnant, as babies are still seen as miniature cash cows.
“The right wing are all ‘no such thing as society’ when it comes to helping others out but when they’re trying to protect themselves from the other it’s suddenly all kumbaya and communal living.” Wish I had the wit to say that.
“with our elites using this as a reason to import even more immigrants”
Immigrants who have rather different attitudes towards women who sleep around with different men, the status of women in society, and their freedom to choose various decisions in their life.
All thanks to the “elites” and their supporters, who both include a large contingent of feminist, misandrist women.
Long story short, the patriarchy always wins. Sadly for the likes of men like me, who would just want their daughters to enjoy equal rights (which they do) without having their minds poisoned, society being pushed back centuries, and those same rights eroded, by their supposed feminist leaders.
You realize that there are alternatives between “sh@gging everything that moves” and instant pregnancy, right? And we have numerous modes of birth control as it is, so women can be as wild as men, though with a greater risk no matter what’s used. It’s a bit like the ham and egg breakfast: the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.
I have to disagree Billy.
I think this crap does a lot of emotional damage and sets up negative emotional trends that have long term consequences.
I think, once you reach a point where a quick toss in the hay or BJ in the car becomes the same as getting breakfast after drinking all night, you have broken something that I am not so sure you can repair that easily and that you will need in a long term committed relationship later.
I just don’t see the evidence for it. I know plenty of women who enjoyed themselves and played the field when they were younger and they’re all now happily married, I simply don’t see what long term damage was caused. On the male side the only one of my mates whose marriages have fell apart are the ones who settled down young while the rest of us were out on the town every weekend. Whether that’s coincidence or that they get older and feel they missed out I couldn’t tell you but I’m a firm believer in getting it out of your system when you’re young. A few bad nights and you soon learn who to avoid and what type of person you’d hate to end up shackled to, a perspective that only comes about through trial and error.
I’m not saying every woman should spend their youth taking home as many men as they like if they don’t want to, but pressuring them into abstaining through those horny younger years to me simply isn’t natural. Older generations had to do it simply because the risks were much greater if they didn’t, but now the risks can be minimised I feel young girls should be free to act as they please without puritans (such as many on here seemingly) lecturing them about their immoral lifestyle choices
They’re whores. Who wants to marry that train wreck? She gets a lifelong venereal disease with some football player who uses her as a masturbation tool and then can’t get the guy she wants for marriage because she has herpes.
I bet you’re one of these sad acts that goes around proudly telling people his wife was a virgin until you deflowered her!
Spoiler alert: I deflowered her.
I know, I was filming it
Can you say “Chad”?
Should we assume that those now in long term committed relationships did not also go then for quick tosses in the hay and BJs in the car?
There is no “free” sex? Why answer a question with a bunch of questions? You sound very shallow. It’s not a “bit of fun.” It’s stupid to risk pregnancy, a potential rape charge and a lifelong venereal disease on something so trivial as “a bit of fun.” “A bit of fun” is pleasuring oneself in the shower as there is no risk of bad side effects. Jerking off is free, sex is not.
I don’t know how you went about trying to get women into bed, but your tactics were obviously very different to mine if you were risking a rape charge by doing it.
Having a w@nk is also nowhere near as much fun as some rumpy pumpy with another person. Perhaps if you’d spent less time touching yourself in the shower and more time talking to some ladies you wouldn’t be so terrified of a touch of bedroom action?
Sh@agging. Billy Bob is on point here.
Thank you Mr Boudewijn and Mr Stull. Others can call me a censorious old bat (or a ridiculous romantic) but after reading the lines : ‘I don’t regret a thing. We millennials would risk pretty much anything to have carefree sex’ … followed by her enthusiasm for one night stands, I lost interest in anything this writer had to say. What she was prepared to suffer in pursuit of a series of ‘anonymous’ orgasms (transferred epithet) didn’t merit my attention. I might have been interested in a straightforward piece of medical reporting but the banner of sexual gluttony marching to the drumbeat of what would doubtless become yet another rendition of fourth wave feminism wasn’t how I wanted to start the day. I’ve heard and read too much of it. I read ‘The Female Eunuch’ when I was in uni in 1971. Frankly, I could make a lot more sense of the tricarboxylic acid cycle in Conn and Stumpf. Who was this Germaine Greer person? I had never felt that I was hamstrung in any way.
Since age 22, I’ve been married to the same man for 54 years and the only fear either of us have is that, if there is an afterlife, we may not get to spend it together. That our youth was not a constant round of 12 hour relationships is not the slightest source of regret. I suspect it might even have turned us into completely different people, unable to create what we have. The best I can wish for Ms Whelan is that she one day finds even a percentage of the love and devotion I know.
the only fear either of us have is that, if there is an afterlife, we may not get to spend it together
The article aside, what a wonderful testament to the life you two have had.
“and the only fear either of us have is that, if there is an afterlife, we may not get to spend it together. ”
Beautiful.
And what people miss is, that you don’t need to be in a perfect, lived happily ever after, “completely compatible” kind of relationship to be able to say that.
You can be flawed people, with different interests, have fights, even treat each other less than perfectly at times….and still easily become soulmates who respect and love each other and couldn’t bear to be with anyone else in their lives.
If there is an afterlife I hope mine is spent drinking champagne in a hot tub with Katy Perry rather than being stuck at home while the missus is watching Love Island personally
Saw a fantasy scene like that in the Big Bang Theory. Wolowitz preferred his wife in the end.
If there is a heaven that truly awful piece of television will never make it anywhere near it
That was really well done and thoughtful.
My wife and I are only up to 42 years, but otherwise your final paragraph sounds familiar.
On what basis are you saying we’re naturally monogamous?
With the amount of illegitimate children born throughout history I’d argue we’re not a particularly monogamous species naturally. The apes aren’t and we come from them after all
Relax!
Women have always been divided into women and whores. A small number of whores is very useful for society, as it greatly facilitates the life of male representatives who, due to circumstances, are deprived of the opportunity to have a regular sex life. Whores make society more stable and women‘s lives safer.
To add, the last I heard abstinence still works.
What a boring existence though. We’re only here once (apart from the Hindu’s, they get a few goes) you may as well enjoy yourself
We are like the geese – we are naturally monogamous and couples
Sorry, we don’t. We are in between polygyny and monogamy. Access to resources determines everything. A nomad may have ten sheep or five hundred. A farmer is unable to plow a field ten times larger than his neighbor’s. This is why Muslims are allowed to have many wives. The disadvantage is that Islamic society is forced to wage constant wars to get rid of excess men. People are afraid to talk about it, but it’s true.
i might have missed it: more women are favoring minimally-invasive surgical interventions, as well, choosing a more permanent solution.
unless more women choose to have more children, and, as long as they have to bear the burden of pregnancy, alone, they will seek solutions to a problem that is theirs, alone.
One solution is to store ova and sperm in liquid nitrogen at the age of 13 when the eggs and sperm have minimum damage due to age. At an appropriate age when one’s career has been established and house paid for one then reproduces in vitro. The current long lifespan results children getting their inheritance at age 50. They need it at age 20. Parents date of death should match the date when children leave for college. The problems of late life pregnancy can be delt with by the use of cattle as surrogate parents. Dairy cattle need to be fertilized to produce milk. The resulting calf is a competitor for milk production. Let the cow deliver a human child instead. Since a calf is much larger than a human child a longer period in the womb becomes practical. Human women have a problem moving a large brain through their pelvis. Brain size can be increased with bovine surrogacy. Problems caused by immune incompatibility between cattle and humans have already been addressed in pigs used for organ transplants. Problems involving mother child bonding can be addressed by a short false chemical pregnancy that convinces the mother’s subconscious that she had actually born the child herself. Give her hormones for a month, then OxyContin as the cow delivers. Both mother and child will bond.
What on earth is this nonsense? It reads like the plot of some dystopian novel rather than a solution to anything. What exactly is the problem this grand plan of yours is designed to solve?
I assumed it was a work of satire, in which case, bravo!
Unfortunately I don’t think it was as he’s posted similar before. He’s never explained what problem it’s meant to fix though
it’s a post about surrogacy. Didn’t you read it? The problem would presumably be a lack of consenting surrogates.
Yes it’s ridiculous
I approve of this.
Cows delivering human children caught my attention.
Very good idea
No moral objections for the forseeable future
Cow children are where it’s at
So wait … unlike the claim in the title, the meat of the article makes clear it’s only laptop class young women — woke Gen Z’s who don’t know what a woman is anyway — who are getting all bent up over the most appropriate feminist theory to rule their reproductive choices. Down in the working classes they just do what suits best.
If you’re poor then an unwanted pregnancy could be much more of a financial burden than if you’ve got a reasonably wealthy family behind you to cushion the blow
The last paragraph sums up the idea that the goal of feminism is to liberate women from womanhood.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks to social media we hear about the complainers. Most women are happy to be on the pill, just as they are happy to be in monogamous relationships and appreciate that it affords sensible family planning.
As for those younger generations not using contraception… its because 30% are not having sex!
Yeah, really. Your last point was my first thought, too.
I suppose men could say, wearing a rubber is like taking a bath with socks on. A bit of downside, for a greater upside?
You could argue that some forms of feminism are an earlier form of identity politics. Which implies that treating a set of people as a single ‘group’ ignores all the differences within the group and inspires division with people outside the group.
Contraception is an important topic for both sexes and deserves not to be mobilised as a feminist issue.
This is such good news because it is not just the pill. Medicalizing every natural process is the goal. I refused post-menopausal hormones in my 40s and the doctor’s response was to tell me I was a fool because they prevent heart disease and she then asked me to sign a waiver to show that I refused this recommendation so I couldn’t sue her later when I became ill. No joke.
One good result of pushing the covid vax is that many people are now questioning medical experts and refusing many medications.
Replacement hormones absolutely do not prevent heart disease, they are a cause of them (see my earlier comment about my mother). That doctor was either utterly brainwashed or a shill for the drug industry. I hope you didn’t sign.
More often they are just stupid
I’m tempted to start by asking what, exactly, is a woman since the term is so fluid these days, to the point that I could likely walk away with a package of birth control pills if I just made enough noise. The more sinister response is that it now becomes much clearer why the left has become much more dogmatic about allowing abortion at any stage in a pregnancy for any reason – it really is a means of birth control, and not the proverbial get out of jail card.
Contraception is hardly new. There are numerous methods, most of them effective and the umbrella extends to cover men, too. Is it really that difficult to insist that one’s partner wrap up in addition to whatever the woman is using? Alternatively, is it that difficult to be more judicious about where one lays down? Human beings are not creatures driven purely by instinct; we have agency, the one that part of the article implies does not exist, and we have free will.
the pill isn’t a means to allow women sexual freedom, but a political green flag to allow men to behave like animals. This form of reactionary feminism might find most of its fans in young conservative men hoping for a more straight-laced style of womanhood,
Has the author ever met a conservative or know one one because this is one of the most tortured arguments I have ever read. The pill is not about us men; it’s completely about women, giving THEM the freedom to behave like the sexual animals they imagine men to be. Don’t blame it on males or random conservatives for the sake of cheap political points.
The pill is not about us men; it’s completely about women, giving THEM the freedom to behave like the sexual animals they imagine men to be.
Well, if a woman wants a man to behave like an animal, then why not? I grew up in an industrial city where morals were quite simple, and I knew of several girls in our school who, of their own accord, let up to ten guys in a row pass through them. The author of this article can only envy these feminists, who were so ahead of fashion.
My last two cents
A few years ago an interesting story happened in Cyprus.
At the hotel, a certain British girl announced that she had been raped by a group of young Israelis, Orthodox Jews. The British who were there immediately stood up for the girl, beating all the Israelis they found (the slogan “Free Palestine” has deep roots). The culprits were sent to prison. Luckily for them, everything that happened was filmed on a smartphone by one of the participants in the event. The girl herself managed the line of “rapists”, simultaneously rejecting those whose penises she did not like.
The “rapists” were released, and the girl was sent to prison in accordance with Cypriot laws.
About six months later, a British lawyer came to Cyprus, who achieved her release (immediately or not, I don’t remember exactly). The girl had money for a good lawyer, because before that in Britain she had been collectively “raped” by two young men, who paid about 300,000 pounds for the outraged honor.
PS. I love my wife. She is my gift from heaven, although I’m not sure I deserve it. I love women in general. I noticed that I read comments here from very smart and sensible women. But…
I’m dismayed that the author presents Natural Cycles as the only non-hormonal non-invasive contraception option. Fertility Awareness Methods/Natural Family Planning are NOT akin to the rhythm method, as the quoted doctor seemed to believe.
Same, what a disingenuous comment by that doctor who should really know better. There a number of fertility awareness methods which are well backed by research and actually track relevant signs. The article falls short of in this regard.
At least she was honest about wanting to behave as an unpaid prostitute for some random guy she “fancied.” That’s why in the past women were not allowed their “freedom.”
That’s the spirit! Keep them locked away until you marry them off, then they can enjoy a lifetime of domestic bliss without ever leaving the house! You’d go well in Saudi Arabia
The number of women who are switching to natural family planning is increasing because of another male invention: the smart phone. They are doing it simply because they can; the tools are available.
Today’s young women are glued to their smart phones and apps are being written to monitor the female monthly cycle.
This started out as an article with so much potential but seems to lose all curiosity for the why and the potential for alternatives to contraception half way through. The doctor which was interviewed for this article is exactly the problem. Women want better, women want something that is not going to fight against a perfectly part of them. And this doctor is either too lazy or too caught up in medicalisation to bother to understand other fertility awareness methods. No wonder women fall into ineffective (or do not understand) methods when their doctors will not provide the information to support them. Truly, it is doctors like this that are regressive and medieval.
Women deserve better. The challenges of predicting when ovulation will occur would be far outweighed by the significant discomfort and serious side effects of chemically preventing ovulation.
I managed natural family planning effectively in the 1980s by tracking cycles using an ovulation thermometer and a pencil and graph paper. And a few physical checks like cervical mucus. Cervical cap before ovulation, nothing at all (pre-HIV obviously) afterwards. We don’t have to have an app or a pee stick to find out when we ovulate!! A study done with devout Catholics in France showed minute failure rates, the natural female body doesn’t lie!
Like most young girls I got on it innocently, trusting the establishment and completely unaware of any long term health consequences. The social consequences have been devastating as well. I’m glad at least some are ditching it but not for the reasons this liberal author is advocating for.
Those who do not believe in birth control and abortion will tend to have more children so that over time they will become a greater and greater percentage of the population.
A nothing-burger.
Unironically uses the word ‘patriarchy’
Yes, human beings have insurpassable limits, including the fact that having sex often involves conceiving a child
The author states ‘I don’t regret a thing. We millennials would risk pretty much anything to have carefree sex — even our waistlines.’ Is she flippantly referring to pregnancy or weight gain with the contraceptive pill? It’s telling that there is no mention by her (or in any of the many posts I’ve read here) factoring in the increased risk (and morality) of bringing an unwanted baby into the world with less effective contraception. It’s all ‘me, me, me’ it seems. I was an unwanted baby in the days of risky (as opposed to carefree) sex and I don’t recommend it as a risk worth taking. From that perspective I see things differently and that there’s got to be a trade off – for all concerned – in the management and minimisation of risk.
Was this piece written by a straight-up industry shill? Big Pharma will tell you that “microplastics” in the environment are responsible for male testosterone/fertility loss over the last 50+ years. There is a better candidate. We live within a miasma of environmentally persistent female hormones excreted by women on the Pill.
This author clearly doesn’t know about the research-based advances in Natural Family Planning. The scientific breakthroughs she wants to happen through pharmaceuticals have actually been happening in NFP methods, both on the side of understanding women’s reproductive cycles and on the method/monitoring side. The Creighton method has been shown in multiple studies to be as effective as the Pill and more effective than condom use, even when compliance is factored in. Granted, these methods require education and practice–you can’t just download an app and hope for the best, as one woman in this piece seems to have done. However, use of the Pill also requires education and practiced compliance, which many studies have shown to be woefully lacking.
There may be a future in which a pharmaceutical breakthrough transforms the current situation–either through a reliable male contraceptive or a less health-adverse female contraceptive. At the present moment, the future of a better contraceptive alternative is already clearly outlined in the progress being made in NFP research and practice.
Maybe the problem is that young women aren’t having sex, and therefore don’t need contraception.
Would certainly be consistent with the other data.
I was on the pill for decades: first the combined pill and later on the mini pill, which I only stopped when I was post menopausal. Zero side effects from either of them, I may have been lucky but few women I know have had side effects from the contraceptive pill. It, along with injections, is still the most effective method of contraception available – if taken properly. There are a number of different types available, as with any regular medication it sometimes takes a few attempts to find one that works for you personally.
It was extremely important for me to have effective contraception, as I never wanted children and would not trust a man to take care of contraception either. If young women want to take risks with pregnancy, that is of course their choice – albeit not one I would recommend. Oh, and by the way, I was married (now widowed) rather young and thus not sleeping around like the author of the article. Just as well, the pill does nothing to prevent STDs – that requires a condom.
Great for them. It’s a bit like injecting aluminium into your blood stream as per most vaccines. Or Mercury. Of course it’s going to be bad for your body and your health. Given recent history I can only assume those who benefit financially from the sales, won’t be too keen to do any studies properly, thoroughly, or honestly, that show this.
I’m a bit older than the generation the author is most likely talking about, but I stopped taking the pill in 2021 when everyone was pushing the very shaky evidence for the mRNA vaccines, and I realized I couldn’t trust the advertisements dressed up as medical research. Since Covid I’ve resisted basically all medical interventions, including Zyrtec and ibuprofen, unless I’m desperate to deal with a specific symptom or illness.
I can’t help but think the covid response, especially the vaccine push, was a motivating factor for other women eschewing hormonal contraceptives.
A younger generation of women doesn’t want to be medicalised? Perhaps the author could explain the dramatic rise in the use of anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs by young women over the past 10 years or so. In pretty well every category of pharmaceutical medicalisation, women outnumber men by about 2 to 1, and young women are driving the increased usage.
If you don’t like medical intervention, I wouldn’t suggest frequent pregnancy. Among reproductive doctors and nurses, there’s a fun little joke: “What do we call women who practice the rhythm method? A: Mothers.” Bad-a-boom.