Sorry Dear, Not Tonight! I have a Headache!
A bunch of us got together for a girls’ night out and the subject slowly got around to boyfriends, husbands, sex and birth control (what do you expect after a couple of rounds of drinks). We were a mixed bunch, some married, some with kids, and others still footloose and fancy free but with beaus on the side. Those of us with kids certainly didn’t want any more, and the ones without, well, they valued their freedom more than the cute giggles of a baby.
We went through condoms, sponges, diaphragms, the pill, and various others, and we also discussed our favorite brands. And then we discussed what we would do if our favorite method of birth control was taken off the market.
None of us wanted that to happen to us – we’d all watched the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine goes from drug store to drug store searching for Today’s sponges. She finally locates an entire carton, buys it, and hoards it in her apartment, using it only for men she considers really “sponge-worthy”. And she also refuses to share even though she has a whole cupboard full of the sponges. That’s how important a regular contraceptive is to a woman!
Of course, she could always insist that the guy take responsibility, but then, we all know that condoms are not quite reliable. They’re also pretty inconvenient – you get to the most interesting and enjoyable part and then you need to take a break to, uh, do you know what. A mood killer if there ever was one. And if the onus of stocking up on birth control falls to you, you’d better be able to keep a straight face when you walk into the drug store and ask for contraceptives. Yeah, it’s passé these days, but even one muffled snigger is enough to bring on the blushes, especially if you’re a PYT. And you may tend to walk out of the store with empty hands.
So what do you do then? Well, you resort to the best birth control method ever discovered – abstinence. Yeah, all you need to do is say, not tonight dear, I have a headache and the headache of an unwanted pregnancy flies into thin air!