One of the best ways to protect yourself from an STI is to be able to trust the person you’re having sex with. Luckily, trust is one of the many benefits of being in a long-term, committed relationship, and if both people are monogamous, there is very little chance of either person catching anything surprising.
However, for heterosexual couples, there is another way sex can surprise you. Sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise, but it also has the potential to ruin your life. I am talking, of course, about making another human being. A baby. Or babies.
All of the techniques you use to protect yourself from STIs can be used to protect yourself from being a mother or father as well. But if you and your partner are stable and not worried about STIs, there are at least three methods that may prevent any sperm from getting near an egg, without requiring you to spend a dime.
The most effective of these three methods scarcely counts as a birth-control method at all, since it requires the woman to already have been pregnant. The production of breast milk can suppress ovulation for up to six months and ensures that women don’t give birth to more children than they can care for. However, since it is impossible to use breastfeeding to prevent any pregnancies at all, couples usually use other methods.
One method that is considerably easier to use is the fertility awareness, or “rhythm” method. The secret behind this method is that a woman can only become pregnant if an egg is present at the time of sex. This is only true for a few days after ovulation, so if sex is avoided or protected with a barrier device on those days, pregnancy should be nearly impossible.
The difficult part of this method is determining which days are safe, since there are no obvious signs when a woman ovulates. It is marked by a slight change in body temperature and a change in the consistency of the mucous discharged by the cervix, and if these are recorded every day, the day of ovulation may be obvious.
However, it is much simpler to record which day menstruation begins, as ovulation usually occurs fourteen days before that date. If every woman had a 28-day menstrual cycle, the method would be easy. Since this isn’t true, it is important that the cycle length is known, so that the date of ovulation can be predicted. If a woman’s cycle is irregular, such as with many teenagers, then the rhythm method is probably not accurate enough to be effective.
Even less effective is the third method, withdrawal or “coitus interruptus,” in which ejaculation does not occur within the vagina. This theoretically prevents any sperm from entering the uterus, but not only are sperm present in precum, which is emitted well before ejaculation, but the method is incredibly dependent on the self-control of the man. If he doesn’t withdraw in time, and hundreds of nerves in a man’s body try to prevent him from doing so, then the method is not effective in the slightest.
These methods are risky. There is no latex or polyurethane protecting the egg from sperm and no protection from STIs at all. Also, lactation is largely impractical, and withdrawal is prone to error. However, for people in relationships where STIs are not a worry, but pregnancy is, fertility awareness can be an inexpensive and simple solution to their quandary.
If you cannot afford to purchase a condom (or any other form of legitimate birth control), you will most certainly be unable to financially support the child that will inevitably result from utilizing any of these methods of pseudo birth control. I pray that no one reading this article takes any of these methods seriously.
Take ten minutes out of your day to get counseled at the health center about effective forms of birth control and inexpensive (sometimes FREE) ways to obtain them.
Actually, the objection to condoms in the article wasn’t financial. Condoms are wonderful and usually free things, but I hear that sex without them (when that is safe, as in a committed relationship) is more pleasurable.
You’re simply missing the point. There are FREE, EFFECTIVE methods of birth control. This article does not address anything that is remotely effective.
Committed couples can have sex without condoms, while also preventing pregnancy. This can be achieved using oral contraceptives, in addition to many other safe options. These are available to students at little to no cost.
I am so disappointed in the Mustang Daily’s choice of material for the sex articles. Every single time I read it I am more and more disgusted by the misinformation and truly irresponsible advice given out. These methods are FAULTY and WILL NOT prevent pregnancy 100% of the time. This article as a whole is completely pointless.
Girls- go to the health center or health works (near new frontiers) or planned parenthood (near downtown), they will inform you how to get a Green Card which will allow you to get your birth control for FREE. Simple as that. They will also most likely give you condoms and Plan B should you ask for it- FOR FREE.
Everyone- please practice safe sex! One random hookup could destroy your life in more ways than one.
BTW, NO method will prevent pregnancy 100% of the time besides abstinence, and I hardly claimed that Fertility Awareness was risk free
Most people know that most methods of birth control don’t work 100% of the time, but the methods you have presented here are notorious for failing. That is what the reaction to your article is all about. These methods are more appropriate in an article about methods of pregnancy prevention to avoid.
Perhaps a follow-up article is in order, detailing the many options students have to obtain little to no cost (effective) birth control. It would actually be really beneficial for the student population, as many are not aware of the many options they have available to them. It would also serve as penance for this article.
FACT #1: I’ve been using these simple methods to prevent pregnancy for a while because I was fed up with oral contraceptives.
FACT #2: I’m pregnant.
You had your opportunity to promote abstinence as the 100% fool-proof way to prevent pregnancy in your article, but you just glossed over it. Don’t forget this is the school where a girl had a baby in the Fremont dorms bathroom. Unwanted/unexpected pregnancy in our age demographic is a really serious issue which affects every single person at Cal Poly in some way. Your article on “fertility awareness” was irresponsible and lacked any concrete information on how to safely and responsibly prevent unwanted pregnancy. Sorry if you were looking to make some more “exciting” assertions than just the old favorites of condoms and birth control, but in reality- it is condoms and birth control which can be up to 90% or more effective, but only if used properly. Maybe your article should have focused on the possible errors people make when using those methods because that would actually be a way to help people, instead of providing them with pointless factoids. There are many useful facts out there which could really make a difference in people’s sexual lives- for example, most young women are not aware that taking antibiotics will render many brands of birth control pills ineffective.
This article should have denounced each of the unsafe methods you chose to focus on. Instead of just mentioning that “fertility awareness” is not “risk free,” your article should have explained those risks in detail with concrete support.
Well, it is nice to see that most of the people who responded to this article’s glaring inaccuracies are better informed and give better advice than the author of this article.
This article is completely irresponsible. The methods discussed in this article are not effective, especially number 3. Get your facts straight or open yourself up to liability. I hope for your sake that no one follows your advice and decides to deliver a lawsuit to your door.
This article is a complete disappointment. These methods are everything doctors, nurse practitioners and sex educators tell you NOT to do for pregnancy prevention because of the incredibly high risk involved. Please Mustang Daily set the bar a little higher in your article selection.
The Center (on Grand Avenue) will supply you with ample amounts of free condoms as will HealthWorks (by New Frontiers). You may need to fill out some forms to qualify for these, but I promise you it will be WAY less intrusive than your options if one of the methods listed in this article fails (which, statistically, it is bound to at some point). An unintended pregnancy results in 2 options 1) abortion (spontaneous miscarriage or planned removal of the fetus) or 2) a live birth. Both of these are a big deal and are preventable with proper use of widely available and inexpensive birth control options.
Anthony,
I have another list. It’s a list of the three most common three reasons why idiotic people reproduce and create unwanted children. These three reasons are:
1. Stupid people think it’s safe to assume women who think they’re pregnant, or recently pregnant women can’t get pregnant.
2. Stupid people think they’re smart enough to gauge ovulation.
3. Stupid people think pulling out is effective.
The entire column gives out advice with the intent to prevent idiots from having unwanted children, but it tells them exactly what think already think is okay to do. This is logic people who have unwanted children used, and they ended up birthing children who are going to make the same mistakes as their idiot parents.
If all of these are risky and you know it, why is this even published as advice? What a crappy article.
Anthony,
Your column this week is uninteresting, uninformative, and irresponsible. The things you discussed are the things that health and sexuality teachers spend their lives trying to get youth to forget about as any type of real birth control. The “rhythm method” is usually used for people that WANT to get pregnant, not as pregnancy prevention, and anyone who has ever had sex knows that pulling out is not only NOT effective, but neither enjoyable nor often possible (to time).
I know you have put “disclaimers” in your article that describe the relative ineffectiveness of the methods, but why even bother talking about them in the first place?
People who are worried about pregnancy should either abstain from sex or use condoms and/or other contraceptives, which, as others have stated, are often free and highly effective.
A married couple who is against typical birth control, wants to have sex, and would rather not have a baby may find the methods you described acceptable, so long as they are okay with the likely outcome that at some point the WILL get pregnant.
In the future, please be more creative and intelligent in your writings.
To the Mustang Daily Editors: Please don’t allow such nonsense in the Daily. You have the power to omit things considered unworthy of publication, do you not?
Here’s an even better idea. Get yourself to Planned Parenthood or another healthcare clinic. They provide free counseling, free healthcare, and free condoms or other forms of birth control!
I sincerely hope that women reading this article DO NOT take it seriously. Those methods only work in conjunction with methods described in “taking charge of your fertility” and that is generally made for people in long term committed relationships where getting pregnant is not going to be a problem.
Most college students I know are not responsible enough for those methods.
Our state has a thing called “The Family Planning Act” which provide free healthcare and birth control to low income people on the basis that it prevents unwanted pregnancies, which is cheaper for the state in the long run, and also prevents unwanted abortions. Which is something just about everyone I know wants. It also ensures that people are not going untreated for STI”s should they get them, and that people are getting check ups and screened for cancer.
Personally Planned Parenthood has been there for me for years and they really are a wonderful place to go for that stuff. And it’s FREE if you qualify for the FPACT, or they have a sliding pay scale. Ovarian cancer runs in my family and this has been the only way I can get my yearly checkups and ensure I am healthy.
If you cannot figure out how to get condoms or birth control, you probably shouldn’t be having sex. It’s not something you just do, you should discuss it with your partner and BOTH PEOPLE should know the inherent risks involved.
Honestly this article comes across as completely flippant and uninformed. Why doesn’t the mustang daily get someone who is actually qualified to write this article? Like a nurse? This column is a total and utter joke.
I am usually a huge supporter of this column, but this week I am very disappointed. AJ, you keep excusing the content here by saying condoms aren’t free (which, as several people have pointed out, is false) and that you never claimed any of these methods were without risk… but as the author of this column, you could’ve just as easily changed the parameters for the methods you wrote about. This column could’ve been more relevant had it been about how to obtain low-cost, effective means of birth control, like those your many readers have suggested. Here’s hoping for a little more research and creativity for your next column.
To those complaining to the Mustang Editors: The columnist position is voluntary and unpaid. As such, the Mustang pretty much allows anyone who agrees to write a weekly (or sometimes bi-weekly) column to do so. If you don’t like one of the regular columns in the paper, encourage someone you know to volunteer for the position next year (or do it yourself!).
I am usually a huge supporter of this column, but this week I am very disappointed. AJ, you keep excusing the content here by saying condoms aren’t free (which, as several people have pointed out, is false) and that you never claimed any of these methods were without risk… but as the author of this column, you could’ve just as easily changed the parameters for the methods you wrote about. This column could’ve been more relevant had it been about how to obtain low-cost, effective means of birth control, like those your many readers have suggested. Here’s hoping for a little more research and creativity for your next column.
To those complaining to the Mustang Editors: The columnist position is voluntary and unpaid. As such, the Mustang pretty much allows anyone who agrees to write a weekly (or sometimes bi-weekly) column to do so. If you don’t like one of the regular columns in the paper, encourage someone you know to volunteer for the position next year (or do it yourself!).
You had your opportunity to promote abstinence as the 100% fool-proof way to prevent pregnancy in your article, but you just glossed over it. Don’t forget this is the school where a girl had a baby in the Fremont dorms bathroom. Unwanted/unexpected pregnancy in our age demographic is a really serious issue which affects every single person at Cal Poly in some way. Your article on “fertility awareness” was irresponsible and lacked any concrete information on how to safely and responsibly prevent unwanted pregnancy. Sorry if you were looking to make some more “exciting” assertions than just the old favorites of condoms and birth control, but in reality- it is condoms and birth control which can be up to 90% or more effective, but only if used properly. Maybe your article should have focused on the possible errors people make when using those methods because that would actually be a way to help people, instead of providing them with pointless factoids. There are many useful facts out there which could really make a difference in people’s sexual lives- for example, most young women are not aware that taking antibiotics will render many brands of birth control pills ineffective. This article should have denounced each of the unsafe methods you chose to focus on. Instead of just mentioning that “fertility awareness” is not “risk free,” your article should have explained those risks in detail with concrete support.
Well, it is nice to see that most of the people who responded to this article’s glaring inaccuracies are better informed and give better advice than the author of this article.
The biggest fallacy here is the following statement:
“The secret behind this method is that a woman can only become pregnant if an egg is present at the time of sex. ”
This is absolutely FALSE. Sperm can live up to six days inside a woman.
Publishing this misinformation can not only lead to the very consequences you are talking about (ruining someone’s life), but it also distorts the real alternative of fertility awareness and gives it a bad name.
Fertility awareness, correctly practiced, is more than 98% effective. BUT, it involves an enormous commitment of time and energy to constantly monitor temperature, mucous, and cervical changes, and an enormous amount of restraint to only have unprotected sex about half of the time (including the time that most women are the most desiring of sex).
I encourage you to either correct this article or take it down.