There’s a double-edged sword to being a girl who likes girls. On one hand, I never have to worry about getting pregnant. On the other hand, well, I can’t bang the person I love and then get pregnant.
I imagine the possibility of combining my genes with the genes of the person I love would be pretty great. I bet the revelation of us smashing our bodies together in an ecstatic, sexual union and producing a baby as the product of our mutual orgasm would be pretty dope. But, like I said, lesbians don’t get to have this pleasure.
[anad]
I know, I know. Every time I gripe about this particular bummer, I’m met with the same chorus of replies: “But science! But adoption! But artificial insemination!” And yes, to all you clever, clever problem solvers out there, I plan on utilizing one of those options when the time comes, probably. But let me have this one note of self-pity.
Not being able to get pregnant by the person I’m in love with pretty much sucks.
But freaking out every time you have sex, constantly checking your underwear for any spot of blood, googling the price of abortions and checking your bank account to see if you could afford an abortion should you need one-- that all sucks too. And I know, because I’ve been there.
In college, when I used to have sex with guys, I waited for my period like a six-year-old boy waits for Christmas.
And when it came, well. Remember the feeling of getting an envelope in the mail from the college you wanted to go to? And you stood there holding the heavy envelope in your hands, all your hopes, desires, and dreams vibrating in one piece of paper?
Yeah. When I used to have sex with guys, getting my period felt like that. And I always made the guys I was having sex with wear condoms.
Now that I have sex with girls, getting my period is just kind of gross and renders me celibate and with a painful uterus.
This article went viral last week, you may have read it. The author is concerned with the skyrocketing number of her friends who use “pulling out,” or the “coitus interruptus” (P.S., I love that phrase), method as the primary means of birth control. She cites the obvious: if you don’t use condoms, you can get AIDS and herpes and chlamydia. And, of course, you can fall victim to unwanted pregnancy.
I’ll state another obvious: there aren’t lesbian condoms. And even if you’re a woman who’s rubbing certain parts against another woman’s parts, you’re still very much at risk for all the STDs I just listed. Pregnancy, no, but herpes? Yes. Very much. Still, we're pretty lucky. We don't have to panic for days after sex, wondering if another life is growing inside us.
,I never thought it was fair that, in straight sex, the burden to prevent pregnancy falls in the lap of women. Men don’t have to grapple with the physical and emotional consequences of abortion; they don’t have to deal with the decreased sex drive, weight gain, and mood swings of the pill, nor do they have to grapple with the embarrassing perils of a Nuva Ring falling out during sex.
What men do have to deal with, though, are unwanted boners. I can only imagine the hazards of middle school, of doctors appointments with hot nurses in sweatpants, all the risks associated with daytime sexual fantasies. I will give them that much.
[anad]
According to this article, the average size of the erect male penis is 5.1 inches long. That’s a lot of inches to hide in a pair of sweatpants at the doctor (though it is a few inches less than what I expected the average penis length to be). But, still, men don’t have to deal with the pill.
A lot of women, fed up with the pill’s downsides, have forsaken classical birth control options in favor of “coitus interruptus.” According to NYMag.com, almost a third of women between 15 and 24 have relied on the pullout method to prevent pregnancy.
While I think 15 is pretty young to be banging, I definitely don’t think any 15-year-olds should be relying on their 15-year-old boyfriend to be lucid enough during his first orgasm to remember to pull out.
And let's not forget about that good ol' pre-ejaculation, right?
According to Guttmacher.org, half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in ten of these end in abortion. Am I worried about all these women who think pulling out is a safe, viable alternative to the pill? A little.
I’m not a crazy person who thinks a ball of genderless cells in a woman’s uterus could ever be referred to as a baby, but I am worried about the women who think they’re being safe and, just, well. Aren’t.
Pulling out is not awesome for women, even financially-secure women in their thirties who are sleeping with men they trust.
With the pullout method, it becomes the man’s burden to interrupt his orgasm, quickly, and it’s the woman’s body that’s at stake.
It’s putting too much agency in that man-- he gets too much control over the future of that woman’s body. Well, his penis gets too much control.
Condoms aren’t great, but they’re better than STDs or unwanted pregnancy. They’re my solution for now. If you're a woman and you want to avoid pregnancy, try condoms, masturbation, or lesbian sex.
But really, in all seriousness, protect your body. Don't leave the future of your body to the whims of a man in the middle of his orgasm, because, while I heard male orgasms aren't as awesome as ours, the chances of him messing up are pretty high.
If you enjoyed this article, check out the 14 Harsh Life Lessons Every Lesbian Learns Living in NYC!