Contraception myths 'widespread'

[formercia]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8238789.stm

Contraception myths 'widespread'

--snip--

One in five women said they had heard of kitchen items, including bread, cling film and even chicken skin, being used as alternative barrier methods.

Others had heard food items such as kebabs, Coca-cola or crisps could be used as oral contraceptives.

--snip--

Contraceptive myths have been around for thousands of years.

Ancient methods have varied from crocodile dung and honey before sex, to sea sponges and beeswax after.

Perhaps the most intoxicating was alcohol made from stewed beaver's testicles.

--snip--

[MrModerate]

1. I think the crocodile dung might have been more effective than you think.

Not in preventing pregnancy, but in preventing intercourse!

[formercia]

4. That was my thought too. n/t

[sarge43]

2. Ah, knowing something and believing something are two very different things.

I've heard that the planet rests on the back of a gigantic turtle. Pretty sure that isn't true.

My favorite was one I heard from a young man who worked for me: Women couldn't get pregnant if they didn't have an orgasm. (We wish)

The human capacity for denial is almost unlimited.

[moriah]

3. I have heard of cling wrap used as a dental dam.

I guess it's better than nothing insofar as disease prevention.

[glowing]

5. That's what the sex educators used to say when you don't have anything

else, use this please. I seriously don't know anyone who used it. I don't even know where you'd buy a dental damn.

[Warpy]

7. Sex shops, maybe

and I think AIDS outreach places have them. Still, even as an RN, I've never seen one and I don't know if anyone I know has.

Contraceptive myths flourish whenever the moralists get the upper hand in this country and real sex education is abandoned. Along with those myths come an upsurge in unplanned, unwanted pregnancy and nasty diseases.

The best thing parents can do for daughters is to buy "Our Bodies, Ourselves" if they're too bashful to talk about these things. You know the schools are still pushing the one thing that never works: abstinence.

(as for the crocodile dung method, I think a savvy village midwife could probably form it into an effective cervical cap. The species difference between crocs and humans is so great, no one would get sick from it. If tribal people hadn't had some methods of birth control, we'd have no record of any woman living past her early 20s)

[glowing]

11. I've seen them back in highschool at the demo.. but I've never seen them

at the local drug store. They also encouraged having a man use a condom while orally pleasing him.. Every single girl said, "ewe, do you know how bad that tastes.. and eating spermicide cannot be good for your health.

[Warpy]

12. Latex and spermicide

are a whole lot healthier than oral chlamydia, herpes or AIDS.

[juno jones]

13. Soft wax is plausible too.

There is mention of it in Roman times, along with alum. I'm guessing applied to the cervix to act as a barrier?

[sarge43]

14. Another Roman favorite -- small turtle shells as a cervical cap. n/t

[1Hippiechick]

6. We used our contraption for a "Cash for Clunkers" (in memory of Rosanne Rosanna....)

[BlueJazz]

8. "alcohol made from stewed beaver's testicles" I can see a beer manufacture making this stuff.

"Leave it to Beaver Malt Liquor"

[Berry Cool]

9. I believe that may be the world's biggest misinterpretation of someone advising:

"Liquor. It'll help prevent you from getting 'er pregnant. Just...liquor."

[formercia]

10. It should be really popular in Canuckistan.

Get looped and mark your Beaver traps.