Still thinking about this thread, but wanted to share this news story from a few months ago about "natural family planning"--which is a horrible name for paying close attention to your body, monitoring it, for contraceptive purposes (although the same techniques are also regularly used for conceptive purposes...).
Although obviously the name, and the research clearly arise from religious goals that many of us find appalling, the technique seems pretty valuable. If women are carefully trained, and follow the rules scrupulously, the pregnancy rates are actually better than for condoms and the same as for the pill, the article says. And I believe it could be so empowering--even magical? for those of us who don't have a clear sense of when we're ovulating.
(Can I get off my chest here, that the snarky part of me is thinking: If the Catholic church is so concerned about women's health and lives, and is truly pro-life, they should put all the money they are currently providing for anti-choice work and advertising, into providing expert training and tools or women around to learn and practice and develop this process....)
The rest of me is just interested in the way that such a process could help many women become more grounded in themselves, and ideally help het women, especially young het women, to be more assertive in sexual relations with men.
Of course, it still won't help in situations of rape--whether stranger rape or the "nice guy" who kept going when he was asked to stop--or if a woman feels for whatever reason unable to clarify that she doesn't want to be penetrated, doesn't want this. And, obviously, it doesn't protect the lovely shell-like vaginal walls and the delicate cherry-shaped vulva from disease. At all.
To paraphrase a character from Toni Morrison's Beloved--Yonder they don't love those parts of your body. You got to love them. You. |
