today I told my boyfriend that achieving balance between great sex and effective contraception is no longer my private battle.
(and that, with diligence and communication, there shouldn't be a trade-off)
as mentioned in past posts, i love my boyfriend and i am almost positive he isn't an asshole. he has a great heart, a great sense of humour and a great mind. he's great.
he's a liberal-minded, self-identified feminist, and i am thrilled with him 95% of the time. however, i often forget that he's still a 21-year old male raised in patriarchal suburban Ontario where misogyny and hyper-masculinity rein supreme and old tropes die hard.
he's not a fan of condoms.
he is also blissfully ignorant of all things birth control. he didn't know what an IUD was before i got one (out of sheer terror at all the unprotected sex i found myself complacently having). and when it slipped out a month ago, he didn't seem to care that i no longer had this necessary backup. when i sarcastically answered yes in response to his inquiry of whether birth control medication was effective after three days of taking it properly, he believed me. three fucking days. the standard is one pack (28 days) although liberal doctors have told me that 7 days can be adequate, depending on your body mass. but why would i ever want to be liberal with my sexual health - and my future?
he also seems unaware of the common practice of using two forms of birth control so that if one fails, the other won't, which is essential when your life is as unpredictable as mine.
so here -- 6 months late, but just as relevant -- the confrontation:
*
take it from me, in the heat of the moment, it's easy to revert to primal instinct, dig in and let someone come all over your insides because it's so hot. or to non-commitally mutter "yeah whatever" when the guy you're madly falling for delivers his pitch about not having condoms that are big enough (aka not-condom enough) to not constrict his poor, deprived dick. makes sense, right? fuck now, worry later. right?!! heaven forbid you kill the vibe.
but wait a minute...
if someone supposedly cares about you (as i know my boyfriend does), why would they want to subject you to a nightmarish existence of pregnancy tests, costly morning after pills and irregular bleeding/cramps from IUDs and/or the birth control pill?
... and (most importantly) the private burden of bearing full financial and social responsibility of taking these precautions?
why is this the norm?
why would any man - in 2014 - feel entitled to condomless sex, lacking two forms of contraception (the only standard i personally feel comfortable with) or even one, leaving women the full responsibility of salvaging themselves after reckless sex? and even if they salvage their bodies, can they ever truly salvage any sense of equality to their sexual partner?
even if no pregnancy results, the implications on the woman are still adverse, and i have continually known them. risky sex makes me feel used and cheap and like any day now it'll be my turn to face the decision no woman wants to (or should have to) make.
and if someone prefers not to use condoms, that's totally forgivable. condomless sex (in context) can be incredibly beautiful, intimate and just goddamn great. it's furious, it's hot, it's as evolution wanted it to be.
but there's a right way to do it.
a way that's more hot, more intimate and ultimately more true and ethical for both members of a partnership.
it might not yet be the norm,
but a loving partner (or one possessing even a drop of human decency) must
research the alternatives,
support his partner through any procedures such as an IUD insertion
and not hesitate to contribute equally in terms of cost and effort.
and, out of love or at least respect of both the woman and her efforts to increase his pleasure, a man should not hesitate to put on a condom until whatever chosen alternative(s) becomes fully effective.
for me, and for many other women, pregnancy, is earth-shattering but ending a life is simply unthinkable. i am not catholic, or a moral extremist and i believe every woman has the right and freedom to choose.
but i realized a long time ago that it was in my full power to prevent this situation from arising in the first place. and it's time for men to assume an equal role in making this possible, if they want to have a healthy, loving and fair intimate connection to a woman.
~ approximately 24 hours later ~
if you made it to the end of this, I wholeheartedly congratulate you for bearing with this extremely sleep-deprived, heavily-medicated, very pissed-off monologue of mine. despite any small errors or inconsistencies due to the aforementioned realities of its production, this was a very honest, open and important personal rant and i feel infinitely better for writing it.
if you're wondering how this all panned out, my boyfriend was extremely apologetic and responsive to my confrontation and promises to care just as much as me in the future about this. we look forward to using mint chocolate and tropical punch flavoured condoms which i hoarded from the birth control clinic (free!) until my new contraceptive patch fully kicks in. yay for compassion, equality and an open line of communication!
*my boyfriend's name is not Heathcliffe Huxtable. fyi.
No comments:
Post a Comment