There are lots of reasons my preferred birth control method has long been condoms. They’re easy to find, free at the cafe I like off Market Street, super effective and come in neon colors! I also found out from my current boo that there’s this new variety that he calls “the dick-numbing kind;” it has a little bit of numbing gel in the tip for when I want to have sex for a longer-than-usual amount of time.
When you hear the words “birth control,” you might immediately think of the pill, intrauterine device (IUD), or implant. But many people still prefer…
There are some differences among the five IUDs. The biggest is that the copper IUD (Paragard) is non-hormonal, while the other four (Mirena, LILETTA, Kyleena, and Skyla) contain a hormone called levonorgestrel, which is a type of progestin. While they all work very well to prevent pregnancy, the non-hormonal IUD can have different benefits and side effects than the hormonal IUDs, and the four hormonal IUDs have some differences among them as well. Which IUD is best for you depends on what’s most important to you.
You’ve heard of chlamydia. You’ve heard of gonorrhea. But have you heard of trich (pronounced like “trick”)? Trich—which is short for trichomoniasis—is the most common non-viral STI. According to Dr. Ina Park, Associate Professor of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and medical advisor to the American Sexual Health Association, it’s more common than chlamydia and gonorrhea combined. It’s also the most common curable STI. That’s right–curable.
Good news and bad news, folks. The bad news is that the following 10 groceries are NOT birth control: