Unintended consequences of birth control

[FeministBadger]

This week I've had another frustrating discussion with a doctor trying to push LARCs on me and I ended up lying about planning on conceiving to get them to drop it.

Dwelling on it over the weekend, I've realised that while birth control has been a fantastic freedom for women it's come with a lot of consequences including an expectation that women should just put up with 30+ years of not so minor side effects to control their fertility.

I feel like there's a feminist explanation in here somewhere - it's almost like a backlash of "You want to be able control your fertility? Fine but you're now the only one responsible for if you get pregnant, you ought to be sexually available at all times, and don't complain about any side effects just consider yourself lucky"

Can someone a bit more feminist-y articulate what I'm saying?

The impression I have got from the disapproving-type doctors was that they were aiming to minimise accidental conception AT ALL COST. I mean, obviously that's the main aim but I think a more nuanced view (trusting women to use barrier methods reliably, looking at side effects and weighing up what they will mean for an individual's day to day life) would be better. I do find the unwillingness to consider anecdotal evidence very odd (she was genuinely baffled when I told her about losing my interest in sex while on the pill).

Since having DD six months ago I’ve been certain I don’t want to go on hormonal contraception ever again- reading that Germaine Greer quote about 24/7 medication for approx. 24 fertile days a year is a total lightbulb moment.

DH is understanding and appreciates that after being on the pill since I was 18, I’ve good reason to decide not to start taking it again.

I've been astonished at how little interest men appear to take in contraception, even in casual hook-up type arrangements. Oftentimes they don't mention it at all, apparently assuming it will have already been dealt with.

It's as though the default woman is now drugged up on synthetic hormones, or carrying around a contraceptive device inside of her, wherever she goes.

Have men always been so reckless? Or is it the free availability of contraception that has made them so complacent?

I'd be really interested to hear the perspective of someone who was sexually active pre-pill.

I'm mid 40s and have never been pregnant, and have been sexually active since 16. Only used the pill for less than a year, other than that it's always been condoms. If barrier methods are so useless then how can this be?

The pill gives me migraines, I can't use it. Tried various then gave up

Typeractive I agree with you that this would be very interesting to know, I was having this conversation the other day with DH. When we first started seeing each other I had a coil in place, which I told him obviously. He just accepted it and we never used anything else (he hadn’t had sex before me) but looking back he didn’t know me very well and I could have easily been lying. I think in the reverse situation I would want to use a barrier method for my own peace of mind and not just trust that this person I didn’t know very well had an invisible contraceptive device in place! His answer was that he trusted me but I don’t entirely know why, we didn’t know each other well and hadn’t known each other long.

That said he’s far from alone in this, I have had my fair share of sexual partners and they were all fairly disinterested in contraception, even when conception would have been a complete disaster.

hypermice

There are very few non hormonal LARCs - really only the copper coil is leave and forget and that can make periods unbearable and has risks during insertion and during use.

Im sure I read a thread on here about the copper coil and how, despite it being 'non-hormonal', it was having a massive hormonal effect on a lot of women.

These women (numerous MNetters who posted on this thread) were all sharing stories about the side effects of the copper coil and many said they had gone to their GP and told them about these side effects and they wanted it removed, and that their GPs had told them they were imagining it basically, and refused to remove it.

I think hormonal contraception and it's effect on mental health will turn out to be one of the greatest medical scandals of our age.

I've been in a long term relationship for 19 years and whilst it would be nice to have sex without condoms, they are preferable to the mental side effect of hormones.

I refuse to use any sort of hormonal contraception. If the doctor tried to push it on me, they'd get short shrift. I have heard of too many women suffering depression and other side effects.

Did anyone else get the constant bleeding? That was pill #2, iirc.

that is so awful
I have just read you post to DP, he says he had a GA, and there was no reason to expect it to be complicated. This was about 22yrs ago.

sonic oh yes the copper coil definitely has side effects - it can cause really heavy bleeding and there’s all the attendant risks of perforation, expulsion etc. I just meant it’s really the only long term non hormonal ‘place and forget’ option.

A GP should NEVER refuse to remove a coil if the woman doesn’t want it. You shouldnt even have to give a reason, just ‘I’m making an appt to get this out.’

Typeractive

I am sure some of the disinterest is the consequence is 'all' on the girl isn't it. I know that's a bit of an extreme take on it but looking at all the totally absent fathers compared to mothers its got a truth to it.

I cant answer if men were always so reckless but there seemed to be quite a few places where 'unmarried mothers' went off to have their babies in shame. they didn't make those babies by themselves!

Women have always beeb the ones to shoulder the burdens of sex and its consequences. It is a result of our biology. It us unfair that we continue to live in a world where a man can have sex and just walk away leaving the woman to cope with the consequences of birth control and unwanted pregnancy. The reason why this isn't a major feminist issue is that it is by and large a silent burden. How many women actually refuse to take birth control? How many of them speak publicly about how birth control means a risk free shah for their partners but depression for them? How many women want to say these things but immediately get shut down by so called fenenists because the pill is a miracle drug and having sex with everyone and anyone is their definition of sexual liberation. Women aren't sexually liberated. The burden of sex is just less visible. When our burden once was palpable in the form of children and ostracisation of women who took lovers outside of marriage today our sexual burden comes in the form of an expectation that we will engage in sex to prove that we are serious about perusing a relationship, responsibility for contraception and contraceptive failures, debilitating side effects of birth control like migraines, depression, painful periods, weight gain, loss of sex drive etc, occasionally infertility as a result of improperly fitted contraceptive devices and sometimes death as a result of cobraceptives causing blood clots or infections (thankfully the latter is a rarity these days). We are in the same prison, we just have different cell mates.

I got constant bleeding on one of the pills I tried Angry. Possibly Cerazette? Microgynon and Rigevidon both fucked with my MH. The implant gave me unpredictable bleeding, and again messed with my MH. I have a coil in now, and my periods are horrendous for the first 2 days (think having to empty my menstrual cup every 1-2 hours, even on Ibuprofen or DH's Naproxen) and then random little bleeds on and off for over a week.

I'm 28, with 2 DC. I'm done having babies, but I'll have to do this for what, another 20 years unless I get sterilised?

RE: pressure on women to be sexually available. I think that's a definite consequence of birth control, as is asking if you're on the pill so the guy can effectively excuse himself from having to take responsibility himself.

Every pill I tried had significant side effects, and it was different ones in each case. After running through several I decided that "it's fine, we'll just try you on a different pill until we find the one that suits you" was bollocks and that there was no need to do that to myself when I could just insist on condoms.

There really should be better access to sterilisation and more work done on long acting but reversible options.

Right now women bear all of the consequences and few of the benefits.

I'm in my late 30s and I've never taken any sort of hormonal contraception - DH and I used condoms and then a couple of years ago he got a vasectomy. There is no way I would ever take daily hormonal medication unless it was absolutely vital. I told DH that when I met him and he never made any fuss about it. He never had any issue with condoms.

I don't understand the comments about birth control making men expect women to be sexually available? Men have always expected women to be sexually available, in fact, up to 1991 once a man married a woman he had free rein under the law to use her body any time he wanted - as long as they were married it wouldn't be rape. In previous generations women were very strictly controlled (never allowed out without a chaperone etc) because it was generally understood that if a man and woman were alone together he would 'take advantage' or at the very least her reputation would be sullied as it would be assumed he had sex with her (whether she wanted it or not). That didn't come about as a function of BC - that's been the case since the beginning of time.

Men don't bother much about contraception because in patriarchal society men don't have children, women do. Even men in committed relationships aren't seen as actually having children (take a look at the endless articles about women 'delaying motherhood' as though men have no hand in it at all) - they're seen as allowing women to indulge their frivolous reproduction habit - a habit that Real People (ie men) doing Real Things (ie paid work) have to reluctantly accommodate, with as little good grace as possible. If a woman does 'get herself pregnant' a man can just walk away, no consequences.

Birth control was a great thing simply because it gave the woman herself control over when she had babies and when you give women that control, they invariably have fewer babies (contrary to the views of endless male economists who seem to see women as baby making factories who will pop out as many children as possible given half a chance).

However, at this stage it is ridiculous that women are still being medicated 365 days a year (as someone else said upthread). It is ridiculously unhealthy to have permanently elevated hormone levels.

Thanks to those who have responded to my questions about contraception/perceived sexual availability. I'm finding this thread really interesting.

One issue with male hormonal contraception, which I agree should not have been abandoned because of side effects that women are just expected to deal with, is that it would only really be a viable option in established relationships. Would you trust a man you didn't know all that well and had just recently started dating, much less a one night stand, to be telling the truth if he said he was on the hypothetical male pill? I wouldn't. And even in long term relationships, men sabotaging women's contraception is a thing that happens in abusive relationships. Not sure how you'd get around that.

(My suggestion would be to use condoms, which also protect against STDs.)

I think it's madness not to use condoms with new partners anyway kittens - HIV is still incurable, chlamydia can make you infertile and syphillis is at best very nasty and at worst fatal.

I am disabled because of the pill.
My doctor put me on the combined pill a) for contraception, and b) because I had fairly bad acne. I was 22. I developed hemiplegic migraines. I came off it within a month. I'm now 37 & still get them. I can't currently work or drive, some days I can't get to the bathroom on my own. They are gradually getting worse. I am on preventative medication which has really unpleasant side effects, including birth defects were I to get pregnant, kidney/gallstones, alopecia, & memory loss.
Migraine, and stroke, is a known risk of the combined pill. Both run in my family but I wasn't asked. If I have a stroke it will be impossible to tell as my migraines look like I'm having a stroke; I can have up to 9 in a bad month.
I might get better when I hit menopause.

I don't know what sex education is like nowadays, but when I was a teenager (about 20 years ago), it was kind of assumed that we'd be shagging and so the focus was on making sure we had 'safe sex'.

I can't remember any allusion to dangerous or unpleasant side effects of contraception, or indeed failure rates.

I got pregnant at 18 when the antibiotics I was taking for my acne interfered with my pill. I knew another couple of girls in my year at school who got pregnant in similar circumstances. After that I realised that 'safe sex' is a fantasy.

I remember feeling a bit resentful at the sex education I'd received as it had presented contraception as a solve-all and unalloyed good.

Now I feel that the health messaging I received on contraception is like that I received on smoking/drinking in pregnancy, breastfeeding etc: That is to say patronising, simplistic and propaganda-like.