Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
Twenty-first century couples tend to do lots of things. They shop together; they go out on date nights; they do laundry together; they car pool. And they use the Pill.
Birth control pills, along with other hormonal methods, are some of the most popular contraceptives, and for a lot of reasons. For women, they have—or can have--many beneficial side effects such as regular periods, lighter periods, clearer skin, and increased cup size. For guys it usually comes down to one or two things: the fact that they (selfishly) don’t have to wear condoms or even worry about birth control at all. :-)
Of course, this is putting things in the best light. More realistically, not every woman gets all of these good side effects, and often they get bad ones, such as weight gain, moodiness, acne, loss of libido, vaginal dryness, yeast infections, and more serious ones such as blood clots. For guys, as well as for girls, absence of condoms can mean the spread of STIs.
Despite all of this, millions of women (and their partners) use hormonal contraceptives as their only form of birth control for one overriding reason: they’re tremendously effective at preventing pregnancy.
But they’re not perfectly effective, even if they’re used perfectly. True, they’re 98% or even 99% effective—if used perfectly—but 99% isn’t 100%. Furthermore, not many people use them perfectly, which can cut down a lot on their effectiveness.
So, using a highly effective but not perfect form of birth control, one that is essentially invisible, how much do these women and men trust it, really? How many women are always careful to take it perfectly or else use a back up method? How many guys trust their women to use it correctly (or, in presumably more casual relationships, trust the woman when she says she’s using it when they have no other way of knowing she is)? How many couples discuss in advance what to do if their contraception fails? How many get tested for disease before throwing out the condoms and relying only on hormonal birth control? How many guys, when it comes right down to the moment of truth, stay inside their woman’s vagina as they ejaculate with nothing to stop pregnancy but an invisible little pill? How many woman on hormonal birth control find them getting nervous as they come to their last active pill in the pack, or take out their Nuvaring or take off their patch, wondering if this month their period really will come right on schedule? How many guys likewise get nervous? How many guys even know their girl’s cycle?
If you are on hormonal birth control, or you are or have been with a woman on hormonal birth control, share your thoughts about this!
(Disclaimer: I’m on the Pill, and except for a few occasions when I’ve been on antibiotics or messed up my pill-taking routine, this is the only birth control my boyfriend and I have used throughout the three-years we’ve been having sex, and yes, he stays inside me to ejaculate. So I’m not pointing fingers here.)
Most Helpful Girl