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Birth Control, But Make It Sexy
Birth control allows people to decide if and when to become pregnant. Birth control has helped women narrow the wage gap, reduce poverty, increase educational attainment, and increase lifetime earnings. By every measure, birth control has revolutionized society and been a critical tool in the pursuit of gender justice. Yet in celebrating all of the wins birth control helps us achieve, we sometimes overlook the most obvious feature of birth control: it lets people have sex for fun, without fear of an unwanted pregnancy. Nowhere is this facet of birth control celebrated more than in romance novels.
In romance novels, there is almost always The Scene. The main characters have been pining for chapters—the tension is at an all-time high! They are about to consummate their bone deep attraction! But first. The birth control. In Rachel Lynn Solomon’s most recent book, What Happens in Amsterdam, Dani and Wouter are long-lost lovers: their teenage romance gave way to 15 years of unrequited longing across continents, and they are finally reunited. And after weeks of forced proximity, they are ready to have sex again! But what about the birth control? Well, conveniently, Dani reveals that she has an IUD—a popular form of long-acting contraception, used by 10% of women ages 15 to 49, that allows people to not worry about contraception with each sexual encounter!
And there of course is the tried-and-true method of condoms. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 94.5% of sexually active women who have had a male partner have used a condom at some point in their life. So, it is unsurprising that this is a favorite method for romance authors. Some steamy benefits include that they are portable, require little planning, and their use alone can be sexy! If you need further evidence, might we direct you to page 343 of First-Time Caller—B.K. Borison’s most recent novel in which a radio host and car mechanic kindle attraction on air before moving things in person where they ultimately find themselves grappling for protection before they can finally relieve their tension. Condoms are also a popular method in the one night stand trope, sometimes on page one—a testament to their ability to be used at the spur of the moment: see Alexa Martin’s newest romance novel about a multi-level marketing scheme takedown that gets steamy.
Some authors really get into the nitty, gritty of birth control, and we are here for it. Take Becca Title’s summer camp romance (the perfect summer read!) Nothing to Write Home About. Maggie, a queer woman in her thirties, knows she does not want kids—but faces a barrier many women without children face: she cannot convince anybody to remove her tubes and permanently sterilize her. So, she turns to the combination of birth control pills and condoms—surely the two will be fool proof. But the fact of the matter is that birth control can be subject to failure. Maggie travels across time zones, which disrupts her birth control pill routine. She has sex with a neighboring camp director and unexpectedly gets pregnant, then gets an abortion. Romance authors often do not shy away from all the realities of birth control, and their stories are better for it.
And romance authors are no fools—they don’t limit contraception to humans, because the last thing we need are surprise monster babies. In some instances, they do reach for familiar forms of contraception like the heroine in Muscles & Monsters who “thanked the goddess that [she]’d opted for an IUD” because regular birth control pills might not have been strong enough to prevent pregnancy from Wolven semen. Note: wolves are also immune to STIs, but the heroine responsibly, like many romance novel main characters, had recently tested negative for STIs.
Finally—and this is where reproductive health researchers could take some inspiration—authors also take liberty to invent new forms of birth control. In Entranced by the Basilisks, main character Emilia is about to have sex with not one, but two, basilisks! This is clearly a situation that is going to need a highly effective, even magical form of contraception. That is exactly what the author dreams up when the basilisks place a contraceptive amulet on Emilia’s neck. While contraceptive amulets may not be coming to a pharmacy near you any time soon, the researchers at the National Institutes of Health have acknowledged that advances in birth control have been too slow and that innovative and novel methods are urgently needed.
Birth control has changed the world. The CDC lauds it as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the first 10 years of the 21st century. The impact it has had on the lives of women across the world cannot be overstated—it has benefits across domains including health, income security, safety, and education. But we should not forget that at its core, birth control allows people to have sex for fun, without having to worry about pregnancy (or STIs—hello, barrier methods!). Thanks to romance authors, we can be reminded of this fact in the best way possible.
