Contraceptives: a "Good" Idea...

Today I suppose I'll write about birth control.  Since it seems that everyone is writing about it (and for good reason I should say).

Having been on oral contraceptives on and off since 2006 or so, I'll start with the reasons women take them.  At least in my case.  And, to clarify, I've been off for over a year and a half now (ha, it sounds like I'm talking about some kind of addictive substance).

The largest reason that I took them was because I was involved with "progressive" douche-bags who encouraged it, and I thought it seemed like a good idea.  This is not to say every man I've dated to the point of meeting my fiance was a jerk, but a good percentage of them were (I'll touch on why I think that was later).  And I mean that in the nicest way possible; I'm not trying to say they were bad people, just misguided perhaps.
The second largest reason I took them was because I was uninformed.  I simply didn't think about it.  Yeah, when I was eighteen my doctor gave me the information packet with the pills and said, "read this," but I was eighteen; I wasn't going to read it.  At least not all of it.  The way my logic process functioned at this point in my life was as such: I read through the first quarter of the packet (just enough to read a couple of the potential side-effects) and got put-off, the side-effects were scary, so I stopped reading, but continued to take the pill.  Under what seemed to be the assumption that what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me.
This continued until I started being really serious about converting to Catholicism.
I had talked with my fiance (boyfriend at the time) about it on several occasions and that was when I really started to see what I had been blinding myself to.  It came very, very gradually, and it's still happening - to some extent - today.
A minor reason I took them was because prior to starting my periods were hell.  Debilitating cramps that made it hard to do anything but curl up and try to will the pain to pass, and I perceived my periods to be irregular (because my cycles are longer than 28 days).  It was nice to be able to predict when I was going to have my period, and while I was on them the cramps were less than half as bad, and my period was half as long.


As to the largest reason; the "progressive" men:
"Progressive" men don't know how to treat women.  Out of my four boyfriends before my fiance, two of them were over 90% aware that women were not objects; one of them seemed less expectant of sex than the other.  This is why the "progressive" man is a poor selection for a spouse (which was what I was looking for).  I was too naive to figure out that I was doing it wrong; the proper way to select a spouse was to wait until marriage - which was, indeed, my original intention, but that's a story for another day.  I mean, I knew that in my heart, but my head kept saying, "everyone else does it, so it must be okay."
I had bought into the fallacy that is modern dating.  Not to mention the idea that sleeping with your partner was okay.  I do believe that both my first and second boyfriends said, at one time or another, "you wouldn't buy a car without test-driving it, would you?"  They were "joking" when they said it, but I'm pretty sure they were just trying to further convince me that what we were doing was normal.  The thing of it is, it has become normal to do things backwards this way.
The "progressive" man will say things like, "I don't like organized religion for it's rules," and when asked what he means his reply will be, "I don't think you should repress sex; sex is natural and religion treats it like it's bad."  The problem here is the unsaid assumption that you (if you're a woman) are on some form of contraceptive, which is not natural.  But the "progressive" man does not see it this way.

On being uninformed:
This and the minor reason I stated sort of go hand in hand (except the pain part).  When asked for birth control options doctors will often respond with abstinence, condoms, IUDs, oral contraceptives, hormone injections, etc..  They will not, generally, tell the woman about sympto-thermal charting.  Or any of it's benefits.  I had no idea this existed until I was talking to a coworker (a "progressive" man) about abstinence before marriage and the absence of birth control.  He recommended the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) when I mentioned Natural Family Planning (NFP); it turns out they're the same thing.  This method is far more liberating than the promise of "sexual liberty" for women.  Through this method you learn that what they tell you about a woman's cycle being 28 days and ovulation being on day 14 is generally untrue - which is why the "rhythm method" fails so hard.  There are women who fall into the category of course, but the majority of women have shorter or longer cycles (or so says my FAM book).
So, through sympto-thermal charting you can learn about your body.  You can know exactly when your period will arrive, and exactly when you ovulated.  Which is useful for determining a more accurate due date if you get pregnant (not to mention you know earlier if you are).
There are scores of women who ask, "could I be pregnant?" or wonder when they truly conceived.  I was a month or so "early" because my mother had had what seemed like a normal period after conception, which is common and can be detected through charting.
You can also identify irregular cycles and get the treatment you need in a more timely manner, because you are aware.
Man...I sound like a sales-person.
My main point here is that the contraceptive movement is not about women's health (as a good friend of mine pointed out).  If it were, there would be more readily available information about what exactly your body does and why.  Because there is not, and because I have gone through numerous gynecologists on account of their stupidly negative reaction when I say I'm charting (one didn't even know what I was talking about) I have come to the conclusion that the contraceptive movement was devised by men, and perhaps is aiming to destroy the family.  The government is trying hard enough as it is to take the family rights away, so why not?  I'm not sure I fully buy into it, but it seems like a plausible theory, particularly after I read up on what kind of rights parents are losing when it comes to childcare.
And don't get me started on douche-ing.  What a load of bull that is; "you're body is dirty, filthy even!  Clean it with chemicals!"  I read somewhere that Lysol used to be a douche.  Not sure if that's true.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

If there were more readily available information (it's pretty easy to get, if you know how, but the general masses don't know how) about it, I don't think chemical contraceptives would be quite as widely accepted.

Concerning abortion - an extension of contraception:
I wonder if the majority of the pro-choice movement has ever looked up exactly how an embryo develops in the womb; if they are aware of how quickly it grows, and how amazing it is.  And how soon its heart starts beating.
If they know this, what makes killing it okay?


I know that the above is not why others are writing about contraceptives and abortion.  I just chose to write on that angle of it because I feel like there is enough out there on the religious freedom angle (which does not make it less valid).  I figured, being someone who was on contraceptives and now is not, I would explain why.

~~~

As to my emo-ness on Monday; I forget sometimes that the situation I mentioned is not actually about me; it really has nothing to do with me.  I couldn't tell you what it was, because I don't know this person well enough to be able to correctly assess anything.  And, to be frank, I don't even know very much about the situation other than how they feel about me, so making judgements is pretty much impossible.  Which is probably why it bothers me so much; I don't know what caused it.  If I knew, I might be able to fix it.  Although I'm pretty sure it's un-fixable at this point.  It was probably to the point of no return when I first found out about it all those months ago.

I am stressed about the wedding, and I think my main problem was not attending mass on Sunday.  I disappointed myself, so I was being extra hard on myself when I woke up.

Yep.