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the pill

There are a lot of ways one could define the pill, depending on your perspective: magical, life-saving, life-preventing... you get the idea. But is it also the cause of the rampant fertility problems facing women today? It just might be, according to New York Magazine, if not medically then at least sociologically, causing women to put off having kids until their less-than-fertile years and to fall out of touch with with fun things like the status of their "egg-white cervical fluid." Or, to be more specific: 

On the Pill, it’s easy to forget the truths about biology. Specifically, that as much as athleticism or taut cheekbones are, fertility is a gift of youth. The body that you wake up with after fifteen or more years on the Pill is, in significant ways, not the one you started out with. With age, body rhythms change. Cystic conditions, endometriosis, and a whole host of complicated ailments are more common. And whatever “irregularities” a woman may have experienced in her teenage years before going on the Pill will likely be around when she goes off it. “Some women who come off the Pill in their thirties are surprised that it takes a few cycles to get their periods back, or that they may have very long cycles, or cycles without ovulation,” says Jill Blakeway, founder of acupuncture center Yinova near Union Square and a co-author of the cult book Making Babies. “The Pill didn’t create these problems: In most cases, the problems were there all the time, but because they were on the Pill, these women were never motivated to deal with them. And now they have a time issue.” 

Wait, so you're telling me that I should really re-consider the rhythm method and that these money-making cheekbones aren't going to last forever? Harsh! Harsher still is the vision for our collective reproductive future imagined by pill-co-inventor-cum-sci-fi-novelist Carl Djerassi, who has predicted that "girls and boys will deposit their eggs and sperm in a reproductive bank to be frozen at 20 or so and then get sterilized." Obvious pros include permanently avoided pregnancy or infertility scares, while cons include... feeling like a robot.

Tags abortion

Commentarium (10 Comments)

Nov 30 10 - 9:48pm
Twolane.

Don't despair, women of the world. My spermatozoa are available via COD.

Dec 01 10 - 4:32am
hm

Virginia...Have you considered taking a course in reading comprehension? Or one in methods of birth control? If you actually read what is written, they are saying nothing like you suggest. There are things like IUD's, condoms, gels, and so on. More importantly, they are suggesting that women be cognizant of their age; that we are, after all, beholden to time, and that choices are constrained by age. Try reading carefully; I think it might help. And then the people who gave you that nice job will feel better.

Dec 01 10 - 9:20am
TexasStrangers

Good call hm, way to bring this conversation around to a tone thats befitting of something of this gravity. Let's leave humor where it belongs, in the Catskills, and keep being awkwardly emotionally invested in other peoples takes on New York mag pieces.

Dec 01 10 - 10:46am
Twolane

I hasten to admit that I am no longer shocked and appalled at the continual shellacking I receive by ignoramuses and poseurs, err, posters, in these forums. And since when has reading comprehension been a prerequisite to posting a response to a Hooksexup article? Hmm?

Dec 01 10 - 10:50am
TexasStrangers

YOU USED "HASTEN" and "IGNORAMUSES" IN THE SAME SENTENCE! Gold!

Dec 01 10 - 1:39pm
Raco

TexasStrangers, you are officially my favorite person.

Dec 02 10 - 10:20am
Twolane

The imagined worldliness of some ignoramuses only serves hasten the demise of the Engrish language.

Dec 02 10 - 5:55pm
Virginia Smith

HM, I can only assume you mean the kind of reading comprehension class that might, say, teach a person to detect at least a little bit of sarcasm in any piece of writing that refers to my money-making cheekbones?

This post was a response to the actual content of the article, not to full the state of birth control practices in America... just a little reading comprehension trick I picked up somewhere along the line.

Dec 02 10 - 11:00pm
puppy

I don't really see how the pill makes women forget about their "biological realities." (Isn't it common knowledge that women become less fertile once they're past their late twenties? Anyways, it's not like I'm able to detect the absence of an egg when I have periods.)

It's more like... the pill keeps our biological realities from slamming into our faces when an unexpected pregnancy occurs.

Dec 03 10 - 5:44pm
Bery

As much as I like the Hooksexup articles, sometimes I enjoy the readers' comments even more.

Now you say something

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