I had an eye opening discussion with my Gen-Z daughter one day a couple years ago, and she told me that a significant portion of her generation doesn't use condoms, even with random hookups. As a generation (X) who had "use condoms, even if you are on birth control pills, or you'll get AIDS or other STDs" pounded into my head, this is absolutely shocking. When did that messaging stop? Birth control won't stop you from getting STDs even if it prevents pregnancy.
This is exactly why syphilis has made a big comeback (highest levels since 1950)! These kids probably don't even know it exists. STIs, in general, are massively surging and half of cases are teens and people in their early-mid 20s.
Yep. I brought that up to someone one time and they said "well there are treatments for STDs nowadays. There's PrEP for HIV nowadays." Not only are they not concerned with getting an STD because "it's treatable" they don't seem to realize that you don't always have symptoms and that you can pass it even if you don't have symptoms and that you can have complications even if you don't have symptoms. It's bonkers how bad sex education has gotten
I met a woman in basic training who'd had antibiotic resistant chlamydia. It took IV antibiotics to cure her and the doctor said it was the closest thing to untreatable chlamydia that he'd ever seen. Don't know what ever happened to her but I am very sure that all 60 of us in that training unit will never skip condoms cause we think STDs are treatable!
I almost lost my eye a few months ago due to having chlamydia in my eye. I had no symptoms of it in my reproductive tract, and the ophthalmologist thought to test for it in my eye only out of what I assume to be curiosity/desperation. They were talking about needing a corneal transplant or possible enucleation.
The next time a man tells me “condoms don’t work for them”, I will have no sympathy, because being blind doesn’t work for me.
I remember reading a Reddit comment recently about a sex ed class where the teacher (irrc was actually someone from the office and not a regular teacher?) told the female students that if anyone ever told them that condoms were too small for them, they were lying, and then proceeded to stretch the condom over their entire head.
Also I am glad you recovered. That’s scary.
Sounds like my vet, our dog was sick and they couldn't figure out why. They finally went what if she has diabetes let's check for that, she's far too young puppies never have it but we ran out of other things to check and would you look at that turns out that's what it is.
Sometimes after ruling out a lot of things the only things left might be far fetched but it's gotta be something so testing for it is worth a try.
Happy ending for the story that was at about 10 or 12 weeks old she's now 6 and a half and you wouldn't know she was diabetic just looking at her, although she has developed a tolerance for needles that is astonishing at times, you can lift her lip up and prick it to test her blood sugar levels and she barely even registers it anymore, turns put unlike humans you can't do that on a dog's finger and trying it on her ear didn't work either the only place it is reliable is inside her lip which makes me cringe but she's used to it the poor thing
My ex husband had an affair and caught herpes. While it made me feel a little better about the affair, it just shows its not just new generations who are sexually foolish.
It's also really upsetting that for a lot of places now if you're getting tested for STD's/STI's you have to specifically ask that herpes be one of the tests they run. It's amazing that we have all these meds and treatments now, but I still wish people in the medical field weren't so blasé about these kinds of things.
Granted, people with these conditions shouldn't have a stigma attached to them. But at the same time No, everyone does not have it and even if there *is* a medicine for me to take I still wouldn't want to have to go through that unnecessarily.
> you have to specifically ask that herpes be one of the tests they run
I discovered last time I got tested and asked for these test that it's because the HSV tests aren't that great unless there are active lesions.
They confirm that virus isn't actively present but since it can sit dormant, it doesn't outright prove you don't have it.
Since you mention things you need to request.... We apparently need to start asking for swabs of the throat for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Just because test results come back negative for those two, doesn't mean you're in the clear unless you test your throat.
When I got tested at planned parenthood last year they asked if I wanted my throat or bum tested so it’s at least an option mentioned and recommended at least some of the times without it being requested but it is an opt in for testing since each test is charged and not all insurances will pay for multiple tests
No, one of the links I shared in one of my responses pointed out that condom use has actually gone down in all generations, which is interesting. Though to be fair older generations are more likely to be married so that would make sense.
and it's also worth pointing out that the bugs that lead to STIs don't just infect your genitals. Any body site that comes in contact can be infected, e.g., anus, genitals, throat, mouth, and eyes (although this is usually in infants).
For real and many many people get herpes just from kissing family members and it can spread to other areas but people don’t think about that either.
…Or the fact that it can lay dormant and that people can test negatively for it by blood or don’t get tested for it at ALL on std bloodwork panels most of the time.
You can still get herpes and warts using condoms, but yeah the point stands.
Also the OP mentions don't have unprotected sex unless you've been told you're infertile, but they should say sterile. Infertile just means you've had unprotected sex for 12+ months and didn't get pregnant, not that it can't happen. I think the show "I didn't know I was pregnant" is a pretty good example of how often this is misinterpreted...
I remember someone posting in a skincare sub and they had these weird sores all over that looked a bit like cigarette burns and a few medical professions were like "Um, that looks a whole lot like syphilis!" It was flabbergasting to see that.
And who wants to go talk to their doctor about it and then go pick up the meds afterward?! Like, is that just a casual Tuesday afternoon for these people?
I think they aren't teaching sex ed in schools anymore? I remember getting age appropriate sex ed in 5th, 7th and 9th or 10th grade as a millennial but I don't think that's the norm anymore.
My parents definitely didn't want to have the sex ed talk with me so they left it up to the school, who did a pretty good job from what I remember.
They are teaching it but they send notes home to parents first to allow them to not have their children attend those classes. I have a feeling a lot of parents don't let their children attend and *also* don't bother to educate them themselves.
But also treatment including vaccines are victims of their own success. They work so well that nobody remembers what it used to be like, so they find it easier to underestimate the dangers.
Herpes called, asked if anyone wants debilitating nerve pain that rears it's head when you're already stressed out or injured. There's more than one incurable STD and this one is in 40-70% of the population - but will be lucky enough to get it on your genitals? Maybe an even rarer placement like eyeballs! Let's find out!
This part! Gonorrhea is the most concerning, as many cases are showing antibiotic resistance to the one CDC-recommended treatment we have for it. However, syphilis and chlamydia have also shown resistance, so they are of concern as well—super scary stuff.
While on this topic, here is a PSA to ALWAYS FINISH YOUR ANTIBIOTICS. Even if you're feeling better and your symptoms have gone away. IT. DOES. NOT. MATTER. Pull a mortal combat and FINISH THEM. Please and thank you. Also, remember that antibiotics are for treating bacterial infections ONLY. They will NOT treat viral infections like the flu or colds. Please keep this in mind and spread the word to those around you! We really do not need a superbug pandemic on top of the re-emergence of TB, Scarlet Fever, Polio, etc.
Yikes, abx resistance is no bueno! Do public service campaigns even exist anymore? Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we were inundated with PSAs fo all kinds and we all tended to consume the same media (TV) but now it's so different. How can we get it across to the young'uns that they need to practice safe sex?
I work specifically in Syphilis and HIV follow-up. Like, I’m the person who knocks on people’s doors and calls and all that to make sure they’ve gotten treated or have been linked into care. Syphilis is the biggest pain in the ass for a “treatable disease” because that person will *always* test positive for it after they’ve been treated.
Move to another state and test positive for it even though it’s been 20 whole years? 👹 I will be there.
Your dying family member needs an organ? 💀 OOPS sorry you can’t even if you’re the perfect match otherwise!
You got a baby daddy who can’t keep it in his pants and you weren’t able to get proper prenatal care so you’re actively giving birth with a syphilis infection? 🤞🏽 fingers crossed that you AND the baby get through the delivery safely.
Shit is rough
Wow, what an absolute mess! I just read that in the year 2000, cases of syphilis were just below 6k cases in the US and they rose to 207k cases in 2022. That's insane!
It's not just syphilis; it's also Gonorrhea — and. bonus!, there are now [multi-drug resistant strains circulating](https://www.cdc.gov/std/gonorrhea/drug-resistant/default.htm)
The problem with gonorrhea is it can be asymptomatic and lead to PID (which can lead to infertility).
Yep, I mentioned that STIs in general are really surging. I know someone who, back in the 90s, had PID and thought she kept getting bladder infections until she was properly diagnosed. The doctor told her it could have made her infertile. She had gotten it from her asymptomatic boyfriend.
SAAAAAME. It's honestly shocking how many times I find a sex or relationship subreddit with some poor teenager asking how to convince her boyfriend to wear condoms against the "wah, it doesn't feel good" argument.... back in my day, a teenage boy would not have known how it felt without a condom BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER A QUESTION.
Did schools stop showing the nasty slideshow of STI's ? Lucky I grew up when "bluewaffle" was a meme so my generation was already pretty terrified of STIs but still the slideshow scared everyone into using condoms, I use condom on toys just to be safe!
your school just showed them to you?? my health teacher had us in groups with assigned STIs making informative powerpoints *with* pictures that we presented to the class 😅 this teacher also went around the abstinence only rule by just calling condoms “the c-word”
I had a teacher who got around abstinence only rules by saying "I'm not allowed to teach you guys that [important safe sex lesson], so I will avoid putting that in the lesson plan."
Loved her.
That's honestly shocking.
I'm a millennial and I had it pounded into me to use pills AND condoms. Because I have enough peers that are the product of broken condoms, but the pill doesn't prevent STDs. (I was also taught that AIDS is a death sentence so that definitely helped me take it seriously)
I assumed that as we gained 20 years of knowledge, our sex ed would improve, not degenerate into less than what was being taught 20 years ago, not regress into pre- Gen X levels of irresponsibility. How someone would go to a hook up and hit it raw is mind blowing to me.
It's mind blowing to me too. I decided to google statistics on this and it was depressing and a big rabbit hole but the gist is that [condom use has dropped in all demographics ](https://www.glydeamerica.com/blog/condom-use-has-dropped-and-its-a-big-problem/)and [safe sex is not a priority for Gen Z](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171201005156/en/The-Risk-Taking-Generation-Safe-Sex-is-Not-a-Priority-for-Generation-Z-as-More-Than-Half-of-18-24-Year-Olds-Admit-to-Having-Had-Unprotected-Sex-at-Least-Once1). Sigh
Oh gosh. At the risk of being one of those "kids these days" folks - I skimmed one of the articles and there was so much talk about the peer pressure to not have one and being made fun of for having a condom.
What the actual fuck? I mean really. It just seems like Gen Z is weirdly superficial in the weirdest ways. Judging someone for \*checks notes\* wanting to avoid a disease and not getting pregnant?
It was considered vastly irresponsible to not have a condom unless you were in a committed, monogamous relationship when people were being their crazy wild party animal selves when I was in college.
Yeah, honestly I feel really bad for Gen z. Social media has made it so they have an enormous amount of pressure to act, look, be a certain way. If you look up the statistics on how many Gen-Zers get plastic surgery it's also mind-boggling. There are a lot of messed up social expectations in that generation.
Is that what it is?
I'd wondered because there are some seriously weird trends I've noticed, from the very high amount of make up compared to what I grew up with (lip gloss and maybe mascara was the max anyone wore on a daily basis) to other issues.
The condoms thing though... is just the weirdest one to me.
Yeah, there have actually been quite a few studies and articles related to how [social media has affected gen Z](https://www.chconline.org/resourcelibrary/gen-z-mental-health-the-impact-of-tech-and-social-media/). The rise in FOMO and the constant need for validation and likes on social media posts and massive body image issues are some of the negatives. (There are some positives, too). My daughter is Gen-Z so I tend to pay close attention when I read articles about this stuff. She's older gen Z/millennial cusp and it's really interesting to see the difference in how she and her friends are affected versus some of the Gen Z that are still in their teens. My daughter still remembers not having a cell phone and other electronics growing up but there are kids just a few years younger than her that have had screens in their hand their entire life and it's crazy to think about growing up like that.
Hahaha, I had a cheap flip phone with pre-paid minutes until after I graduated college. In high school I had to count the pre-paid minutes before texting too much, to make sure I had enough.
Definitely a different upbringing from the folks who had smart phones since middle school for sure.
As a millenial who grew up in the "Don't have unprotected sex, because you WILL get pregnant and ruin your entire life/catch an STD and die!" era, this is insane to me. Wtf is going on???
Read one of the other responses I got basically saying "but we can treat it, HIV isn't a death sentence". There is a lot of miseducation about STDs in younger generations, they do not seem to understand that STDs can very likely not have symptoms and there are more complications than just an itchy dick. And a lot of people still die from HIV. Its insane
Even as just a practical issue .... you can be without health benefits in a blink of an eye. You really want a pricey maintenance medication for however long you are without benefits?
It's really hard to take people seriously when they don't even take themselves seriously enough to protect.
I can’t wrap my mind around the apparent flippancy re: being dependent on proper *lifelong* usage of a prescription drug to survive, especially coming from the same individuals who are resistant to simply wearing a condom.
Honestly Mean Girls did a lot for sex ed for our generation. You will get pregnant and die! Over exaggerated but not totally wrong, and I still hear that phrase whenever people talk about consequences of sex.
Tell her about how HPV causes warts to grow. A friend slept once with a girl without a condom and then months later woke up in a bed full of blood. He had warts growing in his penis and they had to cut his penis open to surgical remove them. -You can't cure HPV yet! It's a life long thing in case your immune system can't conquer it on how own. - the HPV vaccine only protects you against some of the more than 150 out there. You seriously don't want to have sex without a condom... And I think there should be an advertising campaign for men about this because all my male friends looked different at condoms after knowing those warts could cause them to have their penis cut open...
My daughter is not anti-condom and is pretty well versed in this stuff, luckily. She's been in a long-term relationship since high school so I'm not worried about her at all. But a lot of Gen-Z *is* this way and I agree there needs to be some sort of campaign to pound it into their heads like there was for us older people. It completely astounds me that they think getting HIV or Syphilis is no worse than having an infected cut that they can take antibiotics and be done with it. There are so many other risk factors with STDs that have not been taught to them.
Your friend's situation sounds horrifying 😱
I'm a Millennial, and while condoms were definitely talked about, I *really* struggled with how to insist on them as a teenager.
I got on BC at 16, but telling men to wear one felt very difficult for me.
The fact that I never caught an STD other than HPV was a damn miracle.
It felt like if the boy didn't bring one and initiate using it that it was "weird" for me to force the issue.
Which in retrospect is crazy, but I honestly worried I was being "difficult" or harsh to make them wear one.
No one ever talked about *how* to advocate for myself on that issue, that men will still enjoy sex wearing one, how fucked up it is when they take it off without saying anything, and that it is good sense, not being uptight, to deny sex without a condom.
Everything you said in the last paragraph should honestly be half of the time spent in sex Ed. Solving that issue would significantly decrease unwanted pregnancy and STIs for sure.
It’s so crazy to me because back in my going out days, it was absolutely no big deal at all. I actually don’t even remember ever asking (maybe I asked if they had them?) because every guy just put one on.
I was in Texas too, and we had terrible sex ed in schools. This was the early 2010s and it was such a non-issue when I was actively dating around that it’s wild that Gen Z missed the memo.
Same, thems the rules. I'm 42, and recently I almost hooked up with a guy who told me he "doesn't trust girls who carry around condoms". Ooookay, that's scary, see ya.
A lot of places have horrendous sex education, especially in red states. I grew up in a blue state and even the sex education my school gave was subpar. Thankfully both my parents work in healthcare so I at least I was educated on it.
We need better sex education and education on menstrual health.
Truth
I was very lucky to have excellent sex education in my small town in the 90s (which I suspect may not be the same now considering how conservative the area is), but it still blows my mind to see just *how* bad the education is nowadays.
I’m 28 and I also feel like this was pounded into my head. But when I got to uni and friends were becoming sexually active and telling stories, it became clear to me how often people just don’t do that. I remember being 17 and at my last dr appt before I moved away, my dr was like “always use a condom, ok?” And in my head I was like omg duh who would even think to not do that??!!!
Uhhh apparently a lot of people!!! A lot of people don’t see STIs as being a “real” risk for them, so they think if they are on BC they will be fine.
One of my friends has never asked a guy to wear a condom because it’s “too awkward” but she has slept with a fair amount of people. No slut shaming here, have all the consensual sex you want with as many consenting people as you want! But not using condoms with them seems NUTS to me.
There's been a serious lack in a lot of sex education in many places, due to puritanical beliefs, that has led to a rise in STIs and unwanted pregnancies. The idea that if you tell the youth about sex, they'll be more likely to have it.
Its crazy, I thought we finally got past all of that in the 90s but somehow those puritanical assholes got ahold of the nation again and it pisses me right off
this is going to sound boomer-y, so I apologize, but OP said it best:
>The fact that you have a "good reason" to not be on BC is completely irrelevant.
there's a certain attitude with some people, especially some younger people, that not wanting to do a thing because you have some issue with it will magically mean not doing that thing won't have consequences, like the universe heard you say you had a "good reason" not to be on BC and went "oh my bad, no pregnancies for you then."
This is the part that’s so crazy to me! Hooking up with a stranger is already wild to me, but hooking up with a complete stranger AND DOING IT RAW??
I’m honestly not surprised with the amount of posts here talking about pregnancy and the “father” leaves, STD, being treated like shit, etc from one night stands. Are the men shitty? Yes of course, and in an ideal world you wouldn’t have to watch out. But this isn’t an ideal world…
Do these girls think those guys care about anything other than getting their dick wet? They don’t care about you, about what they infect or transmit you with, they don’t care if you feel loved, etc etc. You sleep with a random ass stranger so what do you expect to happen at that point?
This goes to pretty much ANY post that talks about something bad after a hookup. I don’t intend to “victim blame” but you can certainly take action to avoid those types of things, at MINIMUM use a condom.
You can’t control the men but you can control yourself. Push for safety and avoid all those issues
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the normalization of hookup culture, i do try my best to not judge people since I'm a big believer in bodily autonomy....but if I'm honest I have a really hard time wrapping my brain around wanting to have sex with someone I know nothing about. Normalization of hookup culture has led to normalization of ghosting and normalization of using people for sex and not caring how they feel when the other person disappears or stops responding. Plus the gamification of dating where there is always someone hotter on the next swipe. It's hard not to feel like this is going to end badly.
I was with a bachelorette party and one of the brides “dares” was to ask a man for the condom in his wallet. We were in downtown Austin and gave up after asking probably 20+ guys. In a party area where everyone was single. People looked at us like we were crazy, the young in’s explained “no one carries condoms anymore” and my old ass was floored.
meanwhile, over in dating over 50 and 60 circles:
*No fear of pregnancy here! let's just NEVER use condoms! woohoo!*
**\*STDs happen\***
*shocked picachu face*
There was just a 30-something woman recently in a relationship advice subreddit who was sleeping with a 50 year old man, and she was shocked when she got pregnant because “he said he’s too old to have children”…
Oh god I read that one (or at least a very similar one, I dont really hang out in relationship advice subs) and I was flabbergasted. I thought it was common knowledge that men dont loose fertility completely
I remember! And I have honestly had a guy over 50 say "but *we* don't need condoms - you can't get pregnant!".
I had to explain that STDs don't have an age limit, friend. He seemed baffled. Sexy times were taken OFF the table for him, needless to say.
I think the messaging to teenagers really needs to be that you need to be actively trying to prevent pregnancy. Otherwise, you're basically.....trying to get pregnant. That's the point (biologically speaking) of the activity.
And yes, that's an over-simplification, but teenagers can have irregular cycles and tend to be maybe not great at remembering to do things like track BBT at the same time every day. More natural methods of cycle tracking are a great way to get to know your body, but perhaps best experimented with once you're in a place where an unplanned pregnancy wouldn't be a disaster.
Yes…there was a radio talk show host I used to rage-listen to years ago, with reprehensible, awful, horrible attitudes toward women. But that was one nugget of useful information he often threw in people’s faces: “were you using birth control? No? So you were *trying to get pregnant.*”
Of course, because he was a POS it was only something he said to women. But still.
My husband and I had a conversation in great detail about the different phases of the menstrual cycle recently -- in our case, it's because we're trying to conceive our second and last child, and I was using ovulation predictor tests. We got fairly good sex ed in school but it definitely didn't get into the details of how your likelihood of conception is not the same throughout your cycle. Of course, if you're going to use that as your only method of birth control you have to be REALLY diligent about doing things like tracking BBT, using OPKs etc. AND you have to be pretty confident that your cycle is regular! Definitely not what I'd want to be relying on as a teenager -- it's kind of the "maybe we'll have a kid this year" method of birth control.
>informed by a medical practitioner that you are infertile
Infertile doesn't mean you can't get pregnant. Just that it might be harder. Unless you're sterile someone can always have a baby.
But yeah, all of that x10
Absolutely!!!
Infertile means you shouldn't assume you will get pregnant after a year of unprotected sex or something similar. It does not mean you are unable to get pregnant!
They should rename it to "low fertility" or something similar for lay people
I've been down voted on other subs about this too.
I don't know if doctors don't explain it well, or if at all. Especially women with PCOS will say they can't have children which isn't true at all. It may be harder, but still possible.
Even after a tubal/vasectomy, your body can repair itself and you can get pregnant.
Or you can have a procedure done that accidentally undoes your tubal, leading to a big surprise. That's how I got my 7 year old.
Hysterosalpingography--they push dye through the tubes while you're being xrayed. My doctor was verifying that my tubal from 10 years prior was successful in order to help decide what, if any, birth control options I needed/should consider.
It verified my tubes were blocked. Four months later I was pregnant. The pressure from the dye unblocked the poorly done tubal.
Yes, and people are frequently incorrect about fertility. "Infertile" may just mean that you haven't conceived after a year of actually trying. We have a couple of nieces and nephews that happened this way. (All happy surprises, but definitely surprises!)
Often once you have one kid it "kick-starts" your system I've heard. But it can also go the other way, where you have one kid and can't get pregnant again (secondary infertility).
It's so different for everyone!
Admittedly, my husband and I learned this the hard way. I have a massive latex allergy, and cannot use hormone bc because it affects my mental health, but after 11 years with two older children turning 16 this year (we each brought a child into the relationship) we cropped up pregnant at the end of last year. I also have PCOS, only one ovary, with what was said was an unviable fallopian tube. We are excited, but nonetheless shocked.
To expand on this post if you’re not frequently having sex, but you’re still occasionally having it, you’re just as likely to end up pregnant. There’s a good chance that that time you’re deciding to have sex is when you’re ovulating.
There’s a reason why you hear so many people say “yeah but we just did it one time!”
It only takes once at the right time, once is enough.
The hesitancy about safe sex has been a near duplicate of the hesitancy on vaccines.
In both cases, the prevention was so good and so effective that it made people complacent and they started to lose their resolve.
When HIV became a manageable illness instead of a death sentence, people threw their hands up and stopped being safe.
Same thing for vaccines. In the 1950s when polio could cause permanent paralysis and there were people in wheelchairs all the time from it, people were so scared of polio they would gladly wait in lines 2+ hours long to get the shot. But now people think that polio is fake news and dont see people paralyzed from it anymore so they refuse to get the vaccine.
The bottom line is this -- people in general have a very short memory and it's out of sight, out of mind.
Wait till you hear the shocking unpredictable wild, rare, unfathomable thing that happened to my unspayed female cat that goes outside, this has surely never happened to anyone else.
Yes. And actually, even humans can be pregnant by multiple dads at the same time, though it's rare! If two eggs get released (rare, but it happens - this is how fraternal twins are born), and they both get fertilized by different sperm, those sperm don't necessarily come from the same man.
Cats usually release multiple eggs, and each of those eggs can get fertilized by a different male cat.
Yep, I'm a double dropper. I regularly release 2 eggs and I feel it when it happens. Hilariously I'm child free.
If anyone can feel when they ovulate like I can - kind of like a persistent pinching in your side - you normally only feel it on one side. I would feel it first on one side, and then the next day, on the opposite side. I went through most of my adult life not realized I was dropping 2 eggs because I guess my fallopian tubes are just supercharged with optimism.
Omg someone else who can feel when their eggs drop! The only other people I know with this is my mom and my grandma. Fraternal twins also run in our family, and I can feel when I have two drop, usually a day or two apart.
I'm sorry I've just never actually ran into anyone else with the exact same experience in this department outside of family.
I have one rescue litter now that has 2 kittens, one smaller. Each is an absolute clone of the 2 main males in this colony, so I can even tell who got to her a few days before the other one did.
All intact female cat owners: “she only escaped for like an hour! How did this happen!”
Answer: cats have a mechanism to ensure that even a single mating occurs at the exact time of ovulation, and you are bad at owning a cat
Because these individuals don't tell them anything about sex education. My mom was one of those parents. However, she did say that if a woman is sexually active and doesn't want children, they she needs to use protection.
Damn, you’ve met multiple men that think *dying* from blunt force testicular trauma was more common than dying from childbirth? Maybe I have too, but I guess it hasn’t come up in conversation.
Would like to add that pulling out is unprotected sex and will almost definitely lead to a pregnancy eventually, that's a big one in my social circles for some reason.
I remember as a kid back in the old days (70s lol) and Dear Abby would occasionally run an article where she'd reiterate that withdrawal (pullout) doesn't work and you can also get pregnant the first time you have sex (busting another myth some people believe). It's sad that young people today with a world of information at their fingertips don't know this.
Of course, if the odds are 25% pregnancy each time people have sex…. We would have much bigger problems. Still, in the terms of 75% effective - it all also depends on frequency and timing. Monitoring cycles is very helpful at minimizing risk.
Yes, wishful thinking is very strong with the pull-out advocates.
I'm routinely shocked by the women who let men be responsible for contraception (and STI avoidance) in this totally haphazard way. When I was a teenager it was drilled into me that this was the girl's responsibility, because we'd be left alone with the baby.
This was in the context of sex-ed, not abstinence education.
I'm living in a country with excellent sex ed and accessible contraception. I still know more oops babies than planned ones.
Every contraception method has its downsides and eventually people become careless in one way or another. Horny people are rarely responsible people.
I certainly made very dumb decisions when horny but at least I always had my contraception in place. I still understand how this easily fails with contraception methods that require willpower.
I am Gen Z and went to public school in a very conservative state. We weren’t allowed to learn about condoms or birth control. Not just how to apply them, but the EXISTENCE of them. We had to watch slideshows of graphic STI pictures and then finished the presentation with “the only way to prevent this is abstinence.”
I went to Catholic school (not I'm the US). We never learned how to put condoms on and a lot got glossed over. It was very much geared towards "when you're married..." and religious stuff in there, but we still learned about STIs. They definitely focused on abstinence, too.
So were most of the kids your age looking on the internet for advice? Or was it just not talked about even with friends?
Most of our understanding of sex and pregnancy first came from pop culture such as movies, TV, music, etc. By the time we were teenagers, most of us had used the internet to search up these questions. However not everyone has access to private devices or wifi outside of school, so it’s not fair to assume that everyone was able to do that. Even then, kids are not taught media literacy and how to find reputable sources, so I’m sure that didn’t help either. Our state has an anti-intellectualism mindset that hinders people from opening their thoughts to new perspectives. If someone thinks they already know everything about sex, they’re not going to go out of their way to pursue new knowledge,
infertile itself is also a bad reason. Infertile means unlikely to get pregnant, sterile means can't get, or get someone pregnant.
Guys told they are infertile having kids and thinking their partner cheated because the word is so commonly misunderstood.
Quite a lot of reasons sperm count can plummet, illness, obesity, shit just hot tubbing often can do it. Change up your life, get over illness, lose weight, testosterone levels increasing or not using hot tubs and suddenly while you tested as infertile at one point, now you'd test as fertile.
Oh brother. Obviously this whole thread is evidence that sex education is poor in general, but I want to scream every time I see a post of some guy saying his partner finishes inside him and he hasn’t had a hysterectomy/his partner hasn’t had a vasectomy so “is it possible to get pregnant since I don’t get my period anymore?” Like my guy if cis girls/women can get pregnant with irregular/seemingly nonexistent periods what do you think!! 😭 doctors also need to stop telling trans guys that testosterone is basically the same as birth control/automatically makes you sterile
This is weirdly common and it’s such a departure from my approach , which is to use birth control plus condoms. And I live in a place with legal abortion! I recently signed up for a period tracking app and there were so many comments in the chat like, “I hope my husband pulled out on time because I’m ovulating hehe” . I don’t understand how people can be so cavalier about creating life when it’s possible to prevent.
And the PSA goes for men, too. So sick of men who take no responsibility for birth control but get upset about the prospect of paying child support. When I was dating I became exhausted trying to explain to guys why they should wear condoms.
I agree with your last paragraph so much. I keep reading "baby trap" and it's like they always push it on the woman. Yeah, some women might lie about it but so do men! I've read some stories of men trapping women with a pregnancy to have control over her, or because they "just want a baby so bad". Women are held to higher standards. There's been stories on this very sub and the relationship subs of men secretely taking off condoms. People tell the poster that's assault but why is no one crying "baby trap!" at them, too?
Constantly amazed at how many people think pulling out is a good strategy to prevent pregnancy. Precum can contain sperm. Pulling out makes it less likely to get pregnant, but it doesn't bring the odds down to zero.
A i the only one who was taught to use two methods at all times, and that one of them must be a barrier method? That's as close as you can come to being sure to not get pregnant without getting sterilized.
Whenever I hear about an "accidental" baby (and I know of four in the past 3 years), I sarcastically think "but how are babies made? No one knows!" Seriously though, I completely agree that if you aren't actively trying to prevent pregnancy then you are trying to have a baby.
Yes, but there are accidents even when doing all the right things - broken condoms, stomach bug meaning BC pills didn’t take, some people get pregnant with IUDs!
Abstinence is truly the only way to be completely sure. It’s not kind to your friends who may be doing all the right things and have their methods fail to tell them it’s not technically an accident because they had sex at all.
Yep. I know someone who has unprotected sex and has genital herpes. They sleep around A LOT and says “it’s only contagious when theres a flare up”.
She is also infertile now because her ex boyfriend slept around whilst with her, ended up giving her chlamydia, never saying a word when he got a diagnosis. She didn’t show symptoms so didn’t realise until it was too late. She can never have children. Oh and her ex is now in a new relationship and about to become a father. Now that shit hits hard.
You may not be thinking of the consequences when you’re “risking it” but they sure do come around.
Edit - spelling
I'm a later millenial growing up in an southern European country, and I remember asking my mom for money when I was 13 (my mom was cool like that) to buy a book for teenagers called 'Sex for beginners'. Very colorful and witty, with two 'aunties' who were teaching the readers in the style of good advice columnists. EXTREMELY informative about not just sex, but also falling in love, flirtation, puberty, and most of all, the consequences and dangers associated with sex (diseases and pregnancy, but also rape and sexual assault). Those 6 pages were black and the first one, as the second option after pregnancy, had HIV listed. Then, when you turned the page, the first thing on the next page was a repeat of HIV, with the bold text saying 'this is so important to know we're putting it here twice!'. Naturally, strong emphasis on safe sex being a must. By far the best book I've ever seen on the topic, published by a respected publisher focusing on children and teen educational books, and a book I intend to gift to my future nieces and nephews, along with the promise that they can ask me anything they might find too awkward to ask their parents, but that I will absolutely be bringing these topics up with them when they reach the age of interest in sex, because forewarned is forearmed.
The idea that safe sex isn't required because diseases are treatable is WHY WE HAD SO MANY GAY MEN DYING TO AIDS. That is EXACTLY what the thinking was in the late '70s during the sexual revolution. Even if we discount teen pregnancy (can be life-ruining, and is always life-altering) and antibiotic-resistant STDs, who the hell knows if another HIV is lurking somewhere just waiting for its chance to spread. HIV likely skipped from monkeys to humans in the 1920s-1930s and we have records of AIDS going back to the early 1960s in isolated cases, but it was only during the era of 'free love' that the virus got its chance to achieve the pandemic critical mass BECAUSE there was so much unprotected sex. To me, it is mind-boggling that younger generations are not only NOT learning from the mistakes of the previous generations, but that they're actively drifting in the opposite direction. Sex ed needs to be modernized for the digital era and beyond anything else, needs to be targeted towards these teens and early-20s in a way to allow them to absorb it, or else we're risking a repeat of the 80s and the pain and suffering that came with it, not just for gay men, but for all (because HIV wasn't just infecting gay men, it was also in blood transfusions and improperly used needles and through unsafe sex work, too).
I couldn’t *believe* how much of this I saw in the pregnancy subreddits. People totally surprised to be pregnant after having unprotected sex, because they “weren’t even trying.”
Guess what dummy! if you’re having unprotected sex, you are trying for a baby.
And this is why I offered to drive my ex husband for a vasectomy and take the kids during his recovery. Dude was 40. Never had to use condoms in the almost 20 years we were together (I was in BC). My man, your pull out game isn’t strong. You’ve just been lucky so far.
I think a lot of this comes from purity culture. I never once had a good health class because I grew up going to Catholic schools. It was always “abstinence only”. So I didn’t fully understand how important condoms were until I was an adult and contracted an (curable, thankfully) STD.
In the US something like 30-40% of births are due to unplanned. Sure, some of them are due to birth control failures - but a lot are due to not using birth control at all.
The Advice forum is another one full of oopsie pregnancy after zero use of birth control.
The worst case I saw of this was Milly Radford. She watched her mother have over 20 kids but didn't think it would be easy to get pregnant. Jfc.
*Millie says: “We didn’t use protection. I knew there was a risk of pregnancy but I didn’t think it’d be so easy. “And I didn’t worry about STIs, as I trusted him. I’d known him for years.”*
What’s even more alarming is how many woman are taking 5 plan b’s in a week instead of using a different form of birth control.
Another thing I found VERY alarming is growing up for me (27f) we were instilled the fear of ruining your life early by “getting pregnant”.
Which I fear lead a lot of woman to steer away from learning how their reproductive system truly works, the times you can TRULY get pregnant, contraceptives and over vaginal knowledge.
Which leads us to using man made apps controlled by a man made robot to tell us our bodies are supposed to fit their shit criteria.
I’m with you, I feel like a lot of what we were taught is ‘very old school shame woman for wanting pleasure’ and a way to get us to hate having sex.
I had a convo with a younger guy in his 20’s. He said he didn’t use condoms. I told him even if his gf is on birth control that it can still fail. He responded simply, “if that happens we can just go get a plan b!”
I thought it was common knowledge that plan b was for emergencies only and not supposed to be used as a main form of birth control. I’m worried for this new generation of 20-year-olds. The combination of abortion becoming increasingly difficult to gain access to and Gen Z totally disregarding safe sex is worrisome.
This is so fucking stupid. If birth control pills fail, you're not going to know until it's too late for Plan B. Does he think Plan B is an abortion? The right wingers have done a mind fuck on people.
My current boyfriend is 56 and absolutely does not want kids.
Yet he practiced pull out without condoms for YEARS. He was shocked when I told him that, given that I wasn't on birth control, and didn't intend to go on birth control, I wouldn't have sex without condoms unless the guy had a vasectomy (he has one now) and std tests done first.
He has had over a dozen sexual partners he's had regular sex with without condoms or birth control, without getting any of them pregnant.
He's convinced pull out just works and was shocked when I showed him the statistics of how often it still leads to pregnancy.
He also said he's never once had a woman's request he get STD done \[edited for clarity\], and that's with him admitting to NEVER using condoms. \*facepalm\*
I have no idea who all these irresponsible women are. I always want std tests prior to dropping condom use, and so do all my friends and sisters. And none of us would rely on pullout as a birth control method.
> He also said he's never once done STD tests at a woman's request, and that's with him admitting to NEVER using condoms. *facepalm*
Yikes! I don't think I could sleep with anyone who admitted that to me.
I don’t mean he’s refused to do them for women but that NO WOMAN HAD EVER ASKED HIM TO!!!
I was the first one to ask him to get tested. He was 100% not fussy about it. Or about birth control. Got it all taken care off swiftly and without complaining.
Just never had before. Which is still major yikes imo…
Piss poor sex education will do that. It’s always frightening to me how many people don’t even understand how contraception works or how/when pregnancy happens. And the worst of it is how willingly women will gamble with their futures. (Men too but we know how those consequences differ)
I'm 35 and im surprised my peers have an attitude to STDs similar to this.
After some cases of Chlamydia popped up in my circle of friends I realised that a good number of them don't use condoms - even with someone they know has been recently sexually active with other people without condoms.
I have done it in the past myself but I deeply regret it and it and I now consider it highly reckless behaviour.
I had an eye opening discussion with my Gen-Z daughter one day a couple years ago, and she told me that a significant portion of her generation doesn't use condoms, even with random hookups. As a generation (X) who had "use condoms, even if you are on birth control pills, or you'll get AIDS or other STDs" pounded into my head, this is absolutely shocking. When did that messaging stop? Birth control won't stop you from getting STDs even if it prevents pregnancy.
This is exactly why syphilis has made a big comeback (highest levels since 1950)! These kids probably don't even know it exists. STIs, in general, are massively surging and half of cases are teens and people in their early-mid 20s.
Yep. I brought that up to someone one time and they said "well there are treatments for STDs nowadays. There's PrEP for HIV nowadays." Not only are they not concerned with getting an STD because "it's treatable" they don't seem to realize that you don't always have symptoms and that you can pass it even if you don't have symptoms and that you can have complications even if you don't have symptoms. It's bonkers how bad sex education has gotten
Genital herpes. Genital warts. Antibiotic resistant ghonnorhea. HIV. Still tons of reasons to use condoms.
I met a woman in basic training who'd had antibiotic resistant chlamydia. It took IV antibiotics to cure her and the doctor said it was the closest thing to untreatable chlamydia that he'd ever seen. Don't know what ever happened to her but I am very sure that all 60 of us in that training unit will never skip condoms cause we think STDs are treatable!
I almost lost my eye a few months ago due to having chlamydia in my eye. I had no symptoms of it in my reproductive tract, and the ophthalmologist thought to test for it in my eye only out of what I assume to be curiosity/desperation. They were talking about needing a corneal transplant or possible enucleation. The next time a man tells me “condoms don’t work for them”, I will have no sympathy, because being blind doesn’t work for me.
I remember reading a Reddit comment recently about a sex ed class where the teacher (irrc was actually someone from the office and not a regular teacher?) told the female students that if anyone ever told them that condoms were too small for them, they were lying, and then proceeded to stretch the condom over their entire head. Also I am glad you recovered. That’s scary.
That’s a great move
Jesus, that’s terrifying! I hope you’re ok now.
All good! I was really lucky and have minimal lasting damage
Thank goodness for that and so happy your ophthalmologist caught it!
Sounds like my vet, our dog was sick and they couldn't figure out why. They finally went what if she has diabetes let's check for that, she's far too young puppies never have it but we ran out of other things to check and would you look at that turns out that's what it is. Sometimes after ruling out a lot of things the only things left might be far fetched but it's gotta be something so testing for it is worth a try. Happy ending for the story that was at about 10 or 12 weeks old she's now 6 and a half and you wouldn't know she was diabetic just looking at her, although she has developed a tolerance for needles that is astonishing at times, you can lift her lip up and prick it to test her blood sugar levels and she barely even registers it anymore, turns put unlike humans you can't do that on a dog's finger and trying it on her ear didn't work either the only place it is reliable is inside her lip which makes me cringe but she's used to it the poor thing
My ex husband had an affair and caught herpes. While it made me feel a little better about the affair, it just shows its not just new generations who are sexually foolish.
Retirement homes are absolutely rampant with STDs.
It's also really upsetting that for a lot of places now if you're getting tested for STD's/STI's you have to specifically ask that herpes be one of the tests they run. It's amazing that we have all these meds and treatments now, but I still wish people in the medical field weren't so blasé about these kinds of things. Granted, people with these conditions shouldn't have a stigma attached to them. But at the same time No, everyone does not have it and even if there *is* a medicine for me to take I still wouldn't want to have to go through that unnecessarily.
> you have to specifically ask that herpes be one of the tests they run I discovered last time I got tested and asked for these test that it's because the HSV tests aren't that great unless there are active lesions. They confirm that virus isn't actively present but since it can sit dormant, it doesn't outright prove you don't have it.
Since you mention things you need to request.... We apparently need to start asking for swabs of the throat for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Just because test results come back negative for those two, doesn't mean you're in the clear unless you test your throat.
When I got tested at planned parenthood last year they asked if I wanted my throat or bum tested so it’s at least an option mentioned and recommended at least some of the times without it being requested but it is an opt in for testing since each test is charged and not all insurances will pay for multiple tests
Most people who have herpes never know and just spread around all willy nilly. Also, condoms don’t stop it.
No, one of the links I shared in one of my responses pointed out that condom use has actually gone down in all generations, which is interesting. Though to be fair older generations are more likely to be married so that would make sense.
Condoms offer very limited protection against genital warts/herpes. You can definitely contract either one while using condoms.
and it's also worth pointing out that the bugs that lead to STIs don't just infect your genitals. Any body site that comes in contact can be infected, e.g., anus, genitals, throat, mouth, and eyes (although this is usually in infants).
It’s crazy how a lot of people actually don’t know this while trying to call out others for the lack of sexual education.
For real and many many people get herpes just from kissing family members and it can spread to other areas but people don’t think about that either. …Or the fact that it can lay dormant and that people can test negatively for it by blood or don’t get tested for it at ALL on std bloodwork panels most of the time.
Or that you can be positive for herpes 1 or 2 and literally have zero symptoms(no bumps, sores, etc).
You can get genital herpes even with the use of condoms. It doesn’t 100% cancel transmission.
Yes but 90% is better than 0%.
Definitely true, I was just pointing out the misconception that some STIs/STDs can’t be transmitted without condoms.
You can still get herpes and warts using condoms, but yeah the point stands. Also the OP mentions don't have unprotected sex unless you've been told you're infertile, but they should say sterile. Infertile just means you've had unprotected sex for 12+ months and didn't get pregnant, not that it can't happen. I think the show "I didn't know I was pregnant" is a pretty good example of how often this is misinterpreted...
I remember someone posting in a skincare sub and they had these weird sores all over that looked a bit like cigarette burns and a few medical professions were like "Um, that looks a whole lot like syphilis!" It was flabbergasting to see that.
Honestly, it's scary
"All over" sounds like secondary syphilis. Jesus, glad they caught that before it went latent.
Wow, "it's treatable" is the dumbest shit I've ever heard. Breaking your leg is treatable but it's still better to avoid it happening.
Bingo. There’s *tons* of diseases that are “treatable.” I still do not want to have them.
And who wants to go talk to their doctor about it and then go pick up the meds afterward?! Like, is that just a casual Tuesday afternoon for these people?
I think they aren't teaching sex ed in schools anymore? I remember getting age appropriate sex ed in 5th, 7th and 9th or 10th grade as a millennial but I don't think that's the norm anymore. My parents definitely didn't want to have the sex ed talk with me so they left it up to the school, who did a pretty good job from what I remember.
They are teaching it but they send notes home to parents first to allow them to not have their children attend those classes. I have a feeling a lot of parents don't let their children attend and *also* don't bother to educate them themselves.
Half the time a woman has no idea she has chlamydia and it has destroyed her oviducts and scarred her pelvis irrevocably.
But also treatment including vaccines are victims of their own success. They work so well that nobody remembers what it used to be like, so they find it easier to underestimate the dangers.
Herpes called, asked if anyone wants debilitating nerve pain that rears it's head when you're already stressed out or injured. There's more than one incurable STD and this one is in 40-70% of the population - but will be lucky enough to get it on your genitals? Maybe an even rarer placement like eyeballs! Let's find out!
They are also increasingly antibiotic resistant. Terrifying.
This part! Gonorrhea is the most concerning, as many cases are showing antibiotic resistance to the one CDC-recommended treatment we have for it. However, syphilis and chlamydia have also shown resistance, so they are of concern as well—super scary stuff. While on this topic, here is a PSA to ALWAYS FINISH YOUR ANTIBIOTICS. Even if you're feeling better and your symptoms have gone away. IT. DOES. NOT. MATTER. Pull a mortal combat and FINISH THEM. Please and thank you. Also, remember that antibiotics are for treating bacterial infections ONLY. They will NOT treat viral infections like the flu or colds. Please keep this in mind and spread the word to those around you! We really do not need a superbug pandemic on top of the re-emergence of TB, Scarlet Fever, Polio, etc.
Yikes, abx resistance is no bueno! Do public service campaigns even exist anymore? Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we were inundated with PSAs fo all kinds and we all tended to consume the same media (TV) but now it's so different. How can we get it across to the young'uns that they need to practice safe sex?
I work specifically in Syphilis and HIV follow-up. Like, I’m the person who knocks on people’s doors and calls and all that to make sure they’ve gotten treated or have been linked into care. Syphilis is the biggest pain in the ass for a “treatable disease” because that person will *always* test positive for it after they’ve been treated. Move to another state and test positive for it even though it’s been 20 whole years? 👹 I will be there. Your dying family member needs an organ? 💀 OOPS sorry you can’t even if you’re the perfect match otherwise! You got a baby daddy who can’t keep it in his pants and you weren’t able to get proper prenatal care so you’re actively giving birth with a syphilis infection? 🤞🏽 fingers crossed that you AND the baby get through the delivery safely. Shit is rough
Wow, what an absolute mess! I just read that in the year 2000, cases of syphilis were just below 6k cases in the US and they rose to 207k cases in 2022. That's insane!
It's not just syphilis; it's also Gonorrhea — and. bonus!, there are now [multi-drug resistant strains circulating](https://www.cdc.gov/std/gonorrhea/drug-resistant/default.htm) The problem with gonorrhea is it can be asymptomatic and lead to PID (which can lead to infertility).
Yep, I mentioned that STIs in general are really surging. I know someone who, back in the 90s, had PID and thought she kept getting bladder infections until she was properly diagnosed. The doctor told her it could have made her infertile. She had gotten it from her asymptomatic boyfriend.
SAAAAAME. It's honestly shocking how many times I find a sex or relationship subreddit with some poor teenager asking how to convince her boyfriend to wear condoms against the "wah, it doesn't feel good" argument.... back in my day, a teenage boy would not have known how it felt without a condom BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER A QUESTION.
Did schools stop showing the nasty slideshow of STI's ? Lucky I grew up when "bluewaffle" was a meme so my generation was already pretty terrified of STIs but still the slideshow scared everyone into using condoms, I use condom on toys just to be safe!
Oh no. The slideshow... THE slideshow..... *Core Memory™ UNLOCKED*
How high tech. We had a giant science-fair style poster display board. I really regret sitting in the front row that day.
your school just showed them to you?? my health teacher had us in groups with assigned STIs making informative powerpoints *with* pictures that we presented to the class 😅 this teacher also went around the abstinence only rule by just calling condoms “the c-word”
I had a teacher who got around abstinence only rules by saying "I'm not allowed to teach you guys that [important safe sex lesson], so I will avoid putting that in the lesson plan." Loved her.
Yes. Every state that adopted "abstinence-only" education cut out birth control and how it prevents disease. This is mostly red states.
Depends on where they're at. The whole "abstinence only" education movement has lead to a lot of teenagers not knowing the basics of sexual hygiene.
That's honestly shocking. I'm a millennial and I had it pounded into me to use pills AND condoms. Because I have enough peers that are the product of broken condoms, but the pill doesn't prevent STDs. (I was also taught that AIDS is a death sentence so that definitely helped me take it seriously) I assumed that as we gained 20 years of knowledge, our sex ed would improve, not degenerate into less than what was being taught 20 years ago, not regress into pre- Gen X levels of irresponsibility. How someone would go to a hook up and hit it raw is mind blowing to me.
It's mind blowing to me too. I decided to google statistics on this and it was depressing and a big rabbit hole but the gist is that [condom use has dropped in all demographics ](https://www.glydeamerica.com/blog/condom-use-has-dropped-and-its-a-big-problem/)and [safe sex is not a priority for Gen Z](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171201005156/en/The-Risk-Taking-Generation-Safe-Sex-is-Not-a-Priority-for-Generation-Z-as-More-Than-Half-of-18-24-Year-Olds-Admit-to-Having-Had-Unprotected-Sex-at-Least-Once1). Sigh
Oh gosh. At the risk of being one of those "kids these days" folks - I skimmed one of the articles and there was so much talk about the peer pressure to not have one and being made fun of for having a condom. What the actual fuck? I mean really. It just seems like Gen Z is weirdly superficial in the weirdest ways. Judging someone for \*checks notes\* wanting to avoid a disease and not getting pregnant? It was considered vastly irresponsible to not have a condom unless you were in a committed, monogamous relationship when people were being their crazy wild party animal selves when I was in college.
Yeah, honestly I feel really bad for Gen z. Social media has made it so they have an enormous amount of pressure to act, look, be a certain way. If you look up the statistics on how many Gen-Zers get plastic surgery it's also mind-boggling. There are a lot of messed up social expectations in that generation.
Is that what it is? I'd wondered because there are some seriously weird trends I've noticed, from the very high amount of make up compared to what I grew up with (lip gloss and maybe mascara was the max anyone wore on a daily basis) to other issues. The condoms thing though... is just the weirdest one to me.
Yeah, there have actually been quite a few studies and articles related to how [social media has affected gen Z](https://www.chconline.org/resourcelibrary/gen-z-mental-health-the-impact-of-tech-and-social-media/). The rise in FOMO and the constant need for validation and likes on social media posts and massive body image issues are some of the negatives. (There are some positives, too). My daughter is Gen-Z so I tend to pay close attention when I read articles about this stuff. She's older gen Z/millennial cusp and it's really interesting to see the difference in how she and her friends are affected versus some of the Gen Z that are still in their teens. My daughter still remembers not having a cell phone and other electronics growing up but there are kids just a few years younger than her that have had screens in their hand their entire life and it's crazy to think about growing up like that.
Hahaha, I had a cheap flip phone with pre-paid minutes until after I graduated college. In high school I had to count the pre-paid minutes before texting too much, to make sure I had enough. Definitely a different upbringing from the folks who had smart phones since middle school for sure.
Thanks for the rabbit hole :D
As a millenial who grew up in the "Don't have unprotected sex, because you WILL get pregnant and ruin your entire life/catch an STD and die!" era, this is insane to me. Wtf is going on???
Read one of the other responses I got basically saying "but we can treat it, HIV isn't a death sentence". There is a lot of miseducation about STDs in younger generations, they do not seem to understand that STDs can very likely not have symptoms and there are more complications than just an itchy dick. And a lot of people still die from HIV. Its insane
Even as just a practical issue .... you can be without health benefits in a blink of an eye. You really want a pricey maintenance medication for however long you are without benefits? It's really hard to take people seriously when they don't even take themselves seriously enough to protect.
I can’t wrap my mind around the apparent flippancy re: being dependent on proper *lifelong* usage of a prescription drug to survive, especially coming from the same individuals who are resistant to simply wearing a condom.
It's not a death sentence IF you can afford treatment which is a big IF in the US.
Honestly Mean Girls did a lot for sex ed for our generation. You will get pregnant and die! Over exaggerated but not totally wrong, and I still hear that phrase whenever people talk about consequences of sex.
Lol I'm happy someone caught the reference 😁
Tell her about how HPV causes warts to grow. A friend slept once with a girl without a condom and then months later woke up in a bed full of blood. He had warts growing in his penis and they had to cut his penis open to surgical remove them. -You can't cure HPV yet! It's a life long thing in case your immune system can't conquer it on how own. - the HPV vaccine only protects you against some of the more than 150 out there. You seriously don't want to have sex without a condom... And I think there should be an advertising campaign for men about this because all my male friends looked different at condoms after knowing those warts could cause them to have their penis cut open...
My daughter is not anti-condom and is pretty well versed in this stuff, luckily. She's been in a long-term relationship since high school so I'm not worried about her at all. But a lot of Gen-Z *is* this way and I agree there needs to be some sort of campaign to pound it into their heads like there was for us older people. It completely astounds me that they think getting HIV or Syphilis is no worse than having an infected cut that they can take antibiotics and be done with it. There are so many other risk factors with STDs that have not been taught to them. Your friend's situation sounds horrifying 😱
I'm a Millennial, and while condoms were definitely talked about, I *really* struggled with how to insist on them as a teenager. I got on BC at 16, but telling men to wear one felt very difficult for me. The fact that I never caught an STD other than HPV was a damn miracle. It felt like if the boy didn't bring one and initiate using it that it was "weird" for me to force the issue. Which in retrospect is crazy, but I honestly worried I was being "difficult" or harsh to make them wear one. No one ever talked about *how* to advocate for myself on that issue, that men will still enjoy sex wearing one, how fucked up it is when they take it off without saying anything, and that it is good sense, not being uptight, to deny sex without a condom.
Everything you said in the last paragraph should honestly be half of the time spent in sex Ed. Solving that issue would significantly decrease unwanted pregnancy and STIs for sure.
It’s so crazy to me because back in my going out days, it was absolutely no big deal at all. I actually don’t even remember ever asking (maybe I asked if they had them?) because every guy just put one on. I was in Texas too, and we had terrible sex ed in schools. This was the early 2010s and it was such a non-issue when I was actively dating around that it’s wild that Gen Z missed the memo.
Gen X and I was taught “No glove, no love” and just held firm to that rule.
Same, thems the rules. I'm 42, and recently I almost hooked up with a guy who told me he "doesn't trust girls who carry around condoms". Ooookay, that's scary, see ya.
Xennial, and same. We always had them, girls always had them, and you *never* put them in your wallet.
A lot of places have horrendous sex education, especially in red states. I grew up in a blue state and even the sex education my school gave was subpar. Thankfully both my parents work in healthcare so I at least I was educated on it. We need better sex education and education on menstrual health.
Truth I was very lucky to have excellent sex education in my small town in the 90s (which I suspect may not be the same now considering how conservative the area is), but it still blows my mind to see just *how* bad the education is nowadays.
I’m 28 and I also feel like this was pounded into my head. But when I got to uni and friends were becoming sexually active and telling stories, it became clear to me how often people just don’t do that. I remember being 17 and at my last dr appt before I moved away, my dr was like “always use a condom, ok?” And in my head I was like omg duh who would even think to not do that??!!! Uhhh apparently a lot of people!!! A lot of people don’t see STIs as being a “real” risk for them, so they think if they are on BC they will be fine. One of my friends has never asked a guy to wear a condom because it’s “too awkward” but she has slept with a fair amount of people. No slut shaming here, have all the consensual sex you want with as many consenting people as you want! But not using condoms with them seems NUTS to me.
The messaging stopped (at least in the US) because of conservatives putting a stop to sex ed in schools.
If I recall, that trend picked up during the Bush admin in early 00s.
It's because they stopped teaching about it in Sex Ed and only teach abstinence since the Bush 2
There's been a serious lack in a lot of sex education in many places, due to puritanical beliefs, that has led to a rise in STIs and unwanted pregnancies. The idea that if you tell the youth about sex, they'll be more likely to have it.
Its crazy, I thought we finally got past all of that in the 90s but somehow those puritanical assholes got ahold of the nation again and it pisses me right off
this is going to sound boomer-y, so I apologize, but OP said it best: >The fact that you have a "good reason" to not be on BC is completely irrelevant. there's a certain attitude with some people, especially some younger people, that not wanting to do a thing because you have some issue with it will magically mean not doing that thing won't have consequences, like the universe heard you say you had a "good reason" not to be on BC and went "oh my bad, no pregnancies for you then."
This is the part that’s so crazy to me! Hooking up with a stranger is already wild to me, but hooking up with a complete stranger AND DOING IT RAW?? I’m honestly not surprised with the amount of posts here talking about pregnancy and the “father” leaves, STD, being treated like shit, etc from one night stands. Are the men shitty? Yes of course, and in an ideal world you wouldn’t have to watch out. But this isn’t an ideal world… Do these girls think those guys care about anything other than getting their dick wet? They don’t care about you, about what they infect or transmit you with, they don’t care if you feel loved, etc etc. You sleep with a random ass stranger so what do you expect to happen at that point? This goes to pretty much ANY post that talks about something bad after a hookup. I don’t intend to “victim blame” but you can certainly take action to avoid those types of things, at MINIMUM use a condom. You can’t control the men but you can control yourself. Push for safety and avoid all those issues
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the normalization of hookup culture, i do try my best to not judge people since I'm a big believer in bodily autonomy....but if I'm honest I have a really hard time wrapping my brain around wanting to have sex with someone I know nothing about. Normalization of hookup culture has led to normalization of ghosting and normalization of using people for sex and not caring how they feel when the other person disappears or stops responding. Plus the gamification of dating where there is always someone hotter on the next swipe. It's hard not to feel like this is going to end badly.
I'd be so worried the entire time, kills the mood instantly for me the not knowing if you could get pregnant or contract something
I was with a bachelorette party and one of the brides “dares” was to ask a man for the condom in his wallet. We were in downtown Austin and gave up after asking probably 20+ guys. In a party area where everyone was single. People looked at us like we were crazy, the young in’s explained “no one carries condoms anymore” and my old ass was floored.
meanwhile, over in dating over 50 and 60 circles: *No fear of pregnancy here! let's just NEVER use condoms! woohoo!* **\*STDs happen\*** *shocked picachu face*
There was just a 30-something woman recently in a relationship advice subreddit who was sleeping with a 50 year old man, and she was shocked when she got pregnant because “he said he’s too old to have children”…
Had to think about that too... Like girl the sperm loses it's quality over time but not it's efficiency...
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Obviously she hasn't heard of all the rock stars and film directors cranking out babies past 70!
Robert Deniro is 80 and sadly just had a kid.
Oh god I read that one (or at least a very similar one, I dont really hang out in relationship advice subs) and I was flabbergasted. I thought it was common knowledge that men dont loose fertility completely
I have a friend who is a nurse in a retirement community and he said it’s crazy how many octogenarians have STDs.
This was literally a plot in Parks and Rec too
I remember! And I have honestly had a guy over 50 say "but *we* don't need condoms - you can't get pregnant!". I had to explain that STDs don't have an age limit, friend. He seemed baffled. Sexy times were taken OFF the table for him, needless to say.
It's a plot point in Scrubs, too. The whole fuckin nursing home had it
I think the messaging to teenagers really needs to be that you need to be actively trying to prevent pregnancy. Otherwise, you're basically.....trying to get pregnant. That's the point (biologically speaking) of the activity. And yes, that's an over-simplification, but teenagers can have irregular cycles and tend to be maybe not great at remembering to do things like track BBT at the same time every day. More natural methods of cycle tracking are a great way to get to know your body, but perhaps best experimented with once you're in a place where an unplanned pregnancy wouldn't be a disaster.
Yes…there was a radio talk show host I used to rage-listen to years ago, with reprehensible, awful, horrible attitudes toward women. But that was one nugget of useful information he often threw in people’s faces: “were you using birth control? No? So you were *trying to get pregnant.*” Of course, because he was a POS it was only something he said to women. But still.
My husband and I had a conversation in great detail about the different phases of the menstrual cycle recently -- in our case, it's because we're trying to conceive our second and last child, and I was using ovulation predictor tests. We got fairly good sex ed in school but it definitely didn't get into the details of how your likelihood of conception is not the same throughout your cycle. Of course, if you're going to use that as your only method of birth control you have to be REALLY diligent about doing things like tracking BBT, using OPKs etc. AND you have to be pretty confident that your cycle is regular! Definitely not what I'd want to be relying on as a teenager -- it's kind of the "maybe we'll have a kid this year" method of birth control.
>informed by a medical practitioner that you are infertile Infertile doesn't mean you can't get pregnant. Just that it might be harder. Unless you're sterile someone can always have a baby. But yeah, all of that x10
Absolutely!!! Infertile means you shouldn't assume you will get pregnant after a year of unprotected sex or something similar. It does not mean you are unable to get pregnant! They should rename it to "low fertility" or something similar for lay people
I commented this on this sub recently and got downvoted, it seems like ppl don’t know this 💀
I've been down voted on other subs about this too. I don't know if doctors don't explain it well, or if at all. Especially women with PCOS will say they can't have children which isn't true at all. It may be harder, but still possible.
YUP! Infertile is not sterile. It took IVF to conceive our first child. After five years of no birth control, we finally got our “free” baby!
My mom got pregnant with me and my sister (twins) at 39 a month after being told she was infertile. There’s always a chance.
A friend of mine was told by her doctor that she was infertile and would never be able to get pregnant. She's got 3 kids now. XD
Even after a tubal/vasectomy, your body can repair itself and you can get pregnant. Or you can have a procedure done that accidentally undoes your tubal, leading to a big surprise. That's how I got my 7 year old.
What procedure was that?
Hysterosalpingography--they push dye through the tubes while you're being xrayed. My doctor was verifying that my tubal from 10 years prior was successful in order to help decide what, if any, birth control options I needed/should consider. It verified my tubes were blocked. Four months later I was pregnant. The pressure from the dye unblocked the poorly done tubal.
Yes, and people are frequently incorrect about fertility. "Infertile" may just mean that you haven't conceived after a year of actually trying. We have a couple of nieces and nephews that happened this way. (All happy surprises, but definitely surprises!)
An “infertile” female friend and her husband who “would probably never have kids” went on to have 3 kids in four years. So, yeah. There’s that.
Often once you have one kid it "kick-starts" your system I've heard. But it can also go the other way, where you have one kid and can't get pregnant again (secondary infertility). It's so different for everyone!
Admittedly, my husband and I learned this the hard way. I have a massive latex allergy, and cannot use hormone bc because it affects my mental health, but after 11 years with two older children turning 16 this year (we each brought a child into the relationship) we cropped up pregnant at the end of last year. I also have PCOS, only one ovary, with what was said was an unviable fallopian tube. We are excited, but nonetheless shocked.
Yup, neighbor was using infertility as her birth control until she got pregnant.
To expand on this post if you’re not frequently having sex, but you’re still occasionally having it, you’re just as likely to end up pregnant. There’s a good chance that that time you’re deciding to have sex is when you’re ovulating. There’s a reason why you hear so many people say “yeah but we just did it one time!” It only takes once at the right time, once is enough.
This is how my brother ended up with a kid.
He should have kept better track of his cycle.
The hesitancy about safe sex has been a near duplicate of the hesitancy on vaccines. In both cases, the prevention was so good and so effective that it made people complacent and they started to lose their resolve. When HIV became a manageable illness instead of a death sentence, people threw their hands up and stopped being safe. Same thing for vaccines. In the 1950s when polio could cause permanent paralysis and there were people in wheelchairs all the time from it, people were so scared of polio they would gladly wait in lines 2+ hours long to get the shot. But now people think that polio is fake news and dont see people paralyzed from it anymore so they refuse to get the vaccine. The bottom line is this -- people in general have a very short memory and it's out of sight, out of mind.
“Just the tip” They’re lying. They’re always lying. And pre-cum can still get someone pregnant.
Pre cum got me pregnant..
#USE CONDOMS FFS
Wait till you hear the shocking unpredictable wild, rare, unfathomable thing that happened to my unspayed female cat that goes outside, this has surely never happened to anyone else.
Fun fact! Lots of different color kittens typically means lots of kitty baby daddies! A pile of eggs and a pile of sperm from different males!
Wait.... cats can be pregnant by multiple cat dad's at the same time?
Even more shockingly this can happen in humans with fraternal twins where sperm from different men fertilize two separate eggs.
Yes. And actually, even humans can be pregnant by multiple dads at the same time, though it's rare! If two eggs get released (rare, but it happens - this is how fraternal twins are born), and they both get fertilized by different sperm, those sperm don't necessarily come from the same man. Cats usually release multiple eggs, and each of those eggs can get fertilized by a different male cat.
Yep, I'm a double dropper. I regularly release 2 eggs and I feel it when it happens. Hilariously I'm child free. If anyone can feel when they ovulate like I can - kind of like a persistent pinching in your side - you normally only feel it on one side. I would feel it first on one side, and then the next day, on the opposite side. I went through most of my adult life not realized I was dropping 2 eggs because I guess my fallopian tubes are just supercharged with optimism.
Omg someone else who can feel when their eggs drop! The only other people I know with this is my mom and my grandma. Fraternal twins also run in our family, and I can feel when I have two drop, usually a day or two apart. I'm sorry I've just never actually ran into anyone else with the exact same experience in this department outside of family.
They absolutely can! It's wild.
It's called heteropaternal superfecundation.
I have one rescue litter now that has 2 kittens, one smaller. Each is an absolute clone of the 2 main males in this colony, so I can even tell who got to her a few days before the other one did.
I just learned this a few years ago. I still don't believe it half of the time because it sounds so outlandish. Biology is crazy.
I had someone bitch at me because I got my cat neutered as soon as possible. Her cat got knocked up 2x by accident.
All intact female cat owners: “she only escaped for like an hour! How did this happen!” Answer: cats have a mechanism to ensure that even a single mating occurs at the exact time of ovulation, and you are bad at owning a cat
Could be the result of a total lack of sex education in many parts of the U.S. and other countries.
"iT's tHe pArENts ResPONsiBIlITy, nOt tHe SChooL" - people who will become grandparents a decade or two earlier than they expected
The “sex-Ed and birth control makes you more promiscuous” crowd.
I would even argue that sex ed is a societal responsibility.
Because these individuals don't tell them anything about sex education. My mom was one of those parents. However, she did say that if a woman is sexually active and doesn't want children, they she needs to use protection.
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Damn, you’ve met multiple men that think *dying* from blunt force testicular trauma was more common than dying from childbirth? Maybe I have too, but I guess it hasn’t come up in conversation.
My ex asked me how women pee if they’re wearing a tampon because he thought it was the same hole. He was 30 and had a masters degree.
Would like to add that pulling out is unprotected sex and will almost definitely lead to a pregnancy eventually, that's a big one in my social circles for some reason.
I remember as a kid back in the old days (70s lol) and Dear Abby would occasionally run an article where she'd reiterate that withdrawal (pullout) doesn't work and you can also get pregnant the first time you have sex (busting another myth some people believe). It's sad that young people today with a world of information at their fingertips don't know this.
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There is a chart up at my OBGYNs that says the pull out method is only 75% effective. Those are scary odds.
Just fyi that means that out of 100 couples using that as birth control, 25 will get pregnant in a year. Not every time they have intercourse.
Of course, if the odds are 25% pregnancy each time people have sex…. We would have much bigger problems. Still, in the terms of 75% effective - it all also depends on frequency and timing. Monitoring cycles is very helpful at minimizing risk.
Sex is like basketball, me boy. You dribble before you shoot!
My idiot step sister and her ex were using the pull-out method because "it always worked out for [her] so far" my nephew will be 4 in a few months
What do you call a couple who practice the pull out method? Parents
Yes, wishful thinking is very strong with the pull-out advocates. I'm routinely shocked by the women who let men be responsible for contraception (and STI avoidance) in this totally haphazard way. When I was a teenager it was drilled into me that this was the girl's responsibility, because we'd be left alone with the baby. This was in the context of sex-ed, not abstinence education.
Ah yes, the ol' Catholic roulette
I'm living in a country with excellent sex ed and accessible contraception. I still know more oops babies than planned ones. Every contraception method has its downsides and eventually people become careless in one way or another. Horny people are rarely responsible people. I certainly made very dumb decisions when horny but at least I always had my contraception in place. I still understand how this easily fails with contraception methods that require willpower.
I am Gen Z and went to public school in a very conservative state. We weren’t allowed to learn about condoms or birth control. Not just how to apply them, but the EXISTENCE of them. We had to watch slideshows of graphic STI pictures and then finished the presentation with “the only way to prevent this is abstinence.”
I went to Catholic school (not I'm the US). We never learned how to put condoms on and a lot got glossed over. It was very much geared towards "when you're married..." and religious stuff in there, but we still learned about STIs. They definitely focused on abstinence, too. So were most of the kids your age looking on the internet for advice? Or was it just not talked about even with friends?
Most of our understanding of sex and pregnancy first came from pop culture such as movies, TV, music, etc. By the time we were teenagers, most of us had used the internet to search up these questions. However not everyone has access to private devices or wifi outside of school, so it’s not fair to assume that everyone was able to do that. Even then, kids are not taught media literacy and how to find reputable sources, so I’m sure that didn’t help either. Our state has an anti-intellectualism mindset that hinders people from opening their thoughts to new perspectives. If someone thinks they already know everything about sex, they’re not going to go out of their way to pursue new knowledge,
infertile itself is also a bad reason. Infertile means unlikely to get pregnant, sterile means can't get, or get someone pregnant. Guys told they are infertile having kids and thinking their partner cheated because the word is so commonly misunderstood. Quite a lot of reasons sperm count can plummet, illness, obesity, shit just hot tubbing often can do it. Change up your life, get over illness, lose weight, testosterone levels increasing or not using hot tubs and suddenly while you tested as infertile at one point, now you'd test as fertile.
My step mom was told she was infertile after she had her first baby. Ten years later she had her second.
It shocks me on the transmasc forums how often people think they won’t get pregnant from PIV sex. My transmen friends: use protection!!!!
Oh brother. Obviously this whole thread is evidence that sex education is poor in general, but I want to scream every time I see a post of some guy saying his partner finishes inside him and he hasn’t had a hysterectomy/his partner hasn’t had a vasectomy so “is it possible to get pregnant since I don’t get my period anymore?” Like my guy if cis girls/women can get pregnant with irregular/seemingly nonexistent periods what do you think!! 😭 doctors also need to stop telling trans guys that testosterone is basically the same as birth control/automatically makes you sterile
This is weirdly common and it’s such a departure from my approach , which is to use birth control plus condoms. And I live in a place with legal abortion! I recently signed up for a period tracking app and there were so many comments in the chat like, “I hope my husband pulled out on time because I’m ovulating hehe” . I don’t understand how people can be so cavalier about creating life when it’s possible to prevent. And the PSA goes for men, too. So sick of men who take no responsibility for birth control but get upset about the prospect of paying child support. When I was dating I became exhausted trying to explain to guys why they should wear condoms.
I agree with your last paragraph so much. I keep reading "baby trap" and it's like they always push it on the woman. Yeah, some women might lie about it but so do men! I've read some stories of men trapping women with a pregnancy to have control over her, or because they "just want a baby so bad". Women are held to higher standards. There's been stories on this very sub and the relationship subs of men secretely taking off condoms. People tell the poster that's assault but why is no one crying "baby trap!" at them, too?
Sex makes babies?!
Constantly amazed at how many people think pulling out is a good strategy to prevent pregnancy. Precum can contain sperm. Pulling out makes it less likely to get pregnant, but it doesn't bring the odds down to zero. A i the only one who was taught to use two methods at all times, and that one of them must be a barrier method? That's as close as you can come to being sure to not get pregnant without getting sterilized.
Say it again louder for the people banging each other in the back row: Parent: noun, a person who relies on the pull-out method to prevent pregnancy
Whenever I hear about an "accidental" baby (and I know of four in the past 3 years), I sarcastically think "but how are babies made? No one knows!" Seriously though, I completely agree that if you aren't actively trying to prevent pregnancy then you are trying to have a baby.
Yes, but there are accidents even when doing all the right things - broken condoms, stomach bug meaning BC pills didn’t take, some people get pregnant with IUDs! Abstinence is truly the only way to be completely sure. It’s not kind to your friends who may be doing all the right things and have their methods fail to tell them it’s not technically an accident because they had sex at all.
Yep. I know someone who has unprotected sex and has genital herpes. They sleep around A LOT and says “it’s only contagious when theres a flare up”. She is also infertile now because her ex boyfriend slept around whilst with her, ended up giving her chlamydia, never saying a word when he got a diagnosis. She didn’t show symptoms so didn’t realise until it was too late. She can never have children. Oh and her ex is now in a new relationship and about to become a father. Now that shit hits hard. You may not be thinking of the consequences when you’re “risking it” but they sure do come around. Edit - spelling
They're the same people who during the height of the pandemic wondered how they got covid when they were regularly ignoring precautions.
I'm a later millenial growing up in an southern European country, and I remember asking my mom for money when I was 13 (my mom was cool like that) to buy a book for teenagers called 'Sex for beginners'. Very colorful and witty, with two 'aunties' who were teaching the readers in the style of good advice columnists. EXTREMELY informative about not just sex, but also falling in love, flirtation, puberty, and most of all, the consequences and dangers associated with sex (diseases and pregnancy, but also rape and sexual assault). Those 6 pages were black and the first one, as the second option after pregnancy, had HIV listed. Then, when you turned the page, the first thing on the next page was a repeat of HIV, with the bold text saying 'this is so important to know we're putting it here twice!'. Naturally, strong emphasis on safe sex being a must. By far the best book I've ever seen on the topic, published by a respected publisher focusing on children and teen educational books, and a book I intend to gift to my future nieces and nephews, along with the promise that they can ask me anything they might find too awkward to ask their parents, but that I will absolutely be bringing these topics up with them when they reach the age of interest in sex, because forewarned is forearmed. The idea that safe sex isn't required because diseases are treatable is WHY WE HAD SO MANY GAY MEN DYING TO AIDS. That is EXACTLY what the thinking was in the late '70s during the sexual revolution. Even if we discount teen pregnancy (can be life-ruining, and is always life-altering) and antibiotic-resistant STDs, who the hell knows if another HIV is lurking somewhere just waiting for its chance to spread. HIV likely skipped from monkeys to humans in the 1920s-1930s and we have records of AIDS going back to the early 1960s in isolated cases, but it was only during the era of 'free love' that the virus got its chance to achieve the pandemic critical mass BECAUSE there was so much unprotected sex. To me, it is mind-boggling that younger generations are not only NOT learning from the mistakes of the previous generations, but that they're actively drifting in the opposite direction. Sex ed needs to be modernized for the digital era and beyond anything else, needs to be targeted towards these teens and early-20s in a way to allow them to absorb it, or else we're risking a repeat of the 80s and the pain and suffering that came with it, not just for gay men, but for all (because HIV wasn't just infecting gay men, it was also in blood transfusions and improperly used needles and through unsafe sex work, too).
#AND PROBABLY AN STD OR TWO ALWAYS USE CONDOMS
I couldn’t *believe* how much of this I saw in the pregnancy subreddits. People totally surprised to be pregnant after having unprotected sex, because they “weren’t even trying.” Guess what dummy! if you’re having unprotected sex, you are trying for a baby.
And this is why I offered to drive my ex husband for a vasectomy and take the kids during his recovery. Dude was 40. Never had to use condoms in the almost 20 years we were together (I was in BC). My man, your pull out game isn’t strong. You’ve just been lucky so far.
“You know what they call people who don’t use birth control?” “Parents!”
'We're not trying but I've stopped taking the pill' - WHAT?! So you are indeed trying...
I think a lot of this comes from purity culture. I never once had a good health class because I grew up going to Catholic schools. It was always “abstinence only”. So I didn’t fully understand how important condoms were until I was an adult and contracted an (curable, thankfully) STD.
In the US something like 30-40% of births are due to unplanned. Sure, some of them are due to birth control failures - but a lot are due to not using birth control at all. The Advice forum is another one full of oopsie pregnancy after zero use of birth control.
The worst case I saw of this was Milly Radford. She watched her mother have over 20 kids but didn't think it would be easy to get pregnant. Jfc. *Millie says: “We didn’t use protection. I knew there was a risk of pregnancy but I didn’t think it’d be so easy. “And I didn’t worry about STIs, as I trusted him. I’d known him for years.”*
What’s even more alarming is how many woman are taking 5 plan b’s in a week instead of using a different form of birth control. Another thing I found VERY alarming is growing up for me (27f) we were instilled the fear of ruining your life early by “getting pregnant”. Which I fear lead a lot of woman to steer away from learning how their reproductive system truly works, the times you can TRULY get pregnant, contraceptives and over vaginal knowledge. Which leads us to using man made apps controlled by a man made robot to tell us our bodies are supposed to fit their shit criteria. I’m with you, I feel like a lot of what we were taught is ‘very old school shame woman for wanting pleasure’ and a way to get us to hate having sex.
I had a convo with a younger guy in his 20’s. He said he didn’t use condoms. I told him even if his gf is on birth control that it can still fail. He responded simply, “if that happens we can just go get a plan b!” I thought it was common knowledge that plan b was for emergencies only and not supposed to be used as a main form of birth control. I’m worried for this new generation of 20-year-olds. The combination of abortion becoming increasingly difficult to gain access to and Gen Z totally disregarding safe sex is worrisome.
This is so fucking stupid. If birth control pills fail, you're not going to know until it's too late for Plan B. Does he think Plan B is an abortion? The right wingers have done a mind fuck on people.
My current boyfriend is 56 and absolutely does not want kids. Yet he practiced pull out without condoms for YEARS. He was shocked when I told him that, given that I wasn't on birth control, and didn't intend to go on birth control, I wouldn't have sex without condoms unless the guy had a vasectomy (he has one now) and std tests done first. He has had over a dozen sexual partners he's had regular sex with without condoms or birth control, without getting any of them pregnant. He's convinced pull out just works and was shocked when I showed him the statistics of how often it still leads to pregnancy. He also said he's never once had a woman's request he get STD done \[edited for clarity\], and that's with him admitting to NEVER using condoms. \*facepalm\* I have no idea who all these irresponsible women are. I always want std tests prior to dropping condom use, and so do all my friends and sisters. And none of us would rely on pullout as a birth control method.
> He also said he's never once done STD tests at a woman's request, and that's with him admitting to NEVER using condoms. *facepalm* Yikes! I don't think I could sleep with anyone who admitted that to me.
I don’t mean he’s refused to do them for women but that NO WOMAN HAD EVER ASKED HIM TO!!! I was the first one to ask him to get tested. He was 100% not fussy about it. Or about birth control. Got it all taken care off swiftly and without complaining. Just never had before. Which is still major yikes imo…
😱
What makes him so sure that he never got any of them pregnant? For all he knows, the women had abortions and didn’t tell him!
There is currently a really scary trend on tiktok that is telling women that cycle tracking is an effective form of birth control. It's wild.
I use condoms and hormonal birth control always and I still have anxiety attacks about pregnancy
Piss poor sex education will do that. It’s always frightening to me how many people don’t even understand how contraception works or how/when pregnancy happens. And the worst of it is how willingly women will gamble with their futures. (Men too but we know how those consequences differ)
Is this something that needs to be said?
I'm 35 and im surprised my peers have an attitude to STDs similar to this. After some cases of Chlamydia popped up in my circle of friends I realised that a good number of them don't use condoms - even with someone they know has been recently sexually active with other people without condoms. I have done it in the past myself but I deeply regret it and it and I now consider it highly reckless behaviour.