When it comes to safe sex, condoms are your bread and butter.
If you’re getting it on with anybody other than a person you’re in a committed, monogamous relationship with and you trust 100 per cent they’ve been tested recently and come up with nothing (or if it’s non-monogamous but any and all other parties also meet this definition, and you’re really, really sure), then you should be using condoms anyway. STIs are no fun, and while many are treatable these days, many more are still dangerous. Use condoms.
As far as STI prevention goes, condoms are the best thing we’ve got. But we’re talking birth control here. Condoms are very effective when used absolutely perfectly, meaning that you (or your partner) put them on correctly, including pinching the tip of the condom to make a reservoir, not using two at once (they will break—never do this), and putting them on before any genitals get near each other.
For all your good intentions, though, condoms can still break. And when they do—and they’re your sole method of birth control—it’s a scary time.
If this happens to you, all you have to do is clean things up and march on up to the pharmacy counter for some Plan B. This isn’t so bad, but I gotta say, I’ll be happy if I never have to do it again—especially since a single dose set me back 40 bucks.
The lesson here is that condoms—like all of us—need help sometimes. In my extensive research as a delinquent teenager, I found some solutions.
Next time you’re at the drugstore, walk on past the weirdly-placed crayons-and-notebooks section and go check out the colourful zone full of condoms and brightly-packaged lube. Check out what else is kicking around over there. You’ve got your Vagisil, your bikini cream, your single-use “intimate massagers.” You’ve also got spermicide!
Spermicide: The thing that kills sperm, your sworn enemies. It comes in two main types—foam and film. This is a great method to use as a backup, but I don’t recommend using it alone. With perfect use it’s even more effective than condoms, but unless you have the slowest, most cautious and brightly-lit sex on earth (and if so, that’s cool) then perfect use is actually pretty hard.
The foam is a little bottle that squeezes out a big foamy bunch of spermacidal fluid, and the thing to do is squeeze it right on up into your vagina before sex. The film is a little square of plasticky material that you fold up and insert with your finger, and it’s supposed to sit right up against your cervix. The trouble with these is they both take a little while to kick in and be fully effective, so double-check the package before you plan a romantic evening. You also had better warn your partner about what it is and how it works, because spermacide tastes real nasty and will turn your tongue numb, so plan your activities accordingly.
Spermicide is also one of those things you could be allergic to, so do yourself a big, huge favour and test it out sometime when you don’t have any plans to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Personally, I like spermicide. It knows what it’s about. It does what it’s supposed to do. But it very much kills spontaneity, which kind of ruined it for me. This is how my hormone-fearing reproductive system and I wound up finding the copper intra-uterine device—the IUD, for us mere mortals.
The copper IUD hurts like a son of a bitch. I will get that out of the way right now. It hurt to have it put in, it hurt to recover from having it put in, it hurt to get my period after I got it put in, and it still kinda hurts sometimes more than a year later. But it’s mine for five years, and I love it. They also make 12-year models, and apart from slightly heavier cramps during my period than I had before, the thing gives me absolutely no side effects of any kind. The copper alloy works just like the hormones do in the Mirena IUD—it makes it hard for sperm to fertilize your eggs, plus it makes your uterus inhospitable for fertilized eggs should any slip through.
It’s not for everybody, I’m sure, but it works for me, and now that I know it works for me, I’m not delving into the hormonal birth control rabbit hole any further.
If your hormonal birth control works for you, I’m glad! But if all that estrogen and progesterone is making you miserable, don’t be scared. Copper and spermacide have got your back, and so do I.
