Hi! We're Planned Parenthood: Female Condoms Are Not Just Ew!
Female condoms: whether you love ‘em, hate ‘em, or have never tried ‘em, we can all agree the world is a better place because of ‘em. Female condoms (also known as internal condoms) work pretty much the same way as regular ol’ condoms, but rather than going over the penis, they go inside of…
This. And also our two cents on “the oft-misunderstood female condom” (an oldie, but clearly still relevant.)
Smoking tobacco isn’t a medical condition of its own, but continued smoking does cause all kinds of medical conditions like emphysema, lung cancer, and throat cancer. It can also have an impact on which types of birth control are safe to use. Women under 35 who smoke and have no other medical conditions can usually use the pill with reasonable safety, but should definitely talk to their doctor about alternative methods. Women over 35 who smoke more than 15 cigarettes a day should steer clear of the pill, ring, or patch.
Rethinking the Blow Job: Condoms or Gonorrhea? Take Your Pick
Great piece (and not just because we make an appearance;) from Jezebel yesterday about the tricky business of making oral sex safe. If there’s one thing we want to emphasize about this topic, it’s that oral sex…is sex. You may not be at risk of pregnancy, but STI risk should be reason enough to insist on some winning combo of conversation, condoms, and testing.
The Jezebel article is worth a read in its entirety—then follow up by seeing what one of our docs (Corinne Rocca) has to say about protecting yourself from chlamydia and gonorrhea. And if you’re going for STI-genius status, check out the 8 things college students should know (and probably don’t) about STIs and see if there’s any new information for you there.
And (just for fun):
Before you hop on that bike…
Jezebel posted today about a compelling reason to keep your handlebars up where you can see ‘em. (Let’s just say it has to do with “genital sensation.” So you may want to go ahead and click through…)
“Stained glass bicycle” image by jenny downing.
Your Future Just Got a Little Less Pap Smeary
As we noted in a “Get on Top” digest back in November, new guidelines recommend a Pap smear every 3 years instead of annually. Check out Jezebel’s post for more information on the new guidelines, or NPR’s coverage for even more detail.
BeforePlay and Beyond
This isn’t the first time we’ve posted about Beforeplay.org and it probably won’t be the last. We’re so psyched to be working with them and to see them getting some much-deserved media attention. Though their excellent, locally tailored campaign is all their own, you may have noticed traces of Bedsider on the website itself.
Martha Kempner noted in her RH Reality Check piece about the Colorado-based campaign that there “are now countless websites devoted to sharing information about contraception, STDs, and sexual health…each has a slightly different audience but I do question whether we could do even better if we just pooled our resources to make existing sites better rather than continue to put up new ones.” It’s nice to be able to say that in this case, Bedsider and the BeforePlay folks did just that. BeforePlay uses Bedsider’s health center and emergency contraception (EC) finder databases and their team helped us to improve the information the databases offer on Colorado health centers and EC. BeforePlay also used some of our information and images (the method detail pages and “Real Stories” will look particularly familiar to Bedsider users) in their birth control section.
We’ve put a lot into our site with the goal of being a resource to individuals as well as health care providers and other partners, but we can’t be all things to all audiences, so we love that the BeforePlay team took what they found useful from Bedsider and tailored it to Coloradans. We hope to work with other state and local partners in similar ways going forward. There are plenty of ways to use our resources already by embedding videos from our YouTube channel or using our free birth control finder on your own website. We also invite you to reach out via info[at]bedsider[dot]org if you know of a state or local initiative you think we should work with.
And now, another BeforePlay video we love for your viewing pleasure:
Did we mention that dudes are allowed to buy emergency contraception?
Well, this isn’t the first time we’ve posted this video, but we felt it needed to be a shared again in light of yet another report of a pharmacy (CVS) refusing EC to guys. Seriously, folks, guys are allowed to buy EC. It says right here in our Fact or Fiction video.
Men’s Love-Hate Relationship With Condoms
Very interesting post from Jezebel, in which some dudes give their thoughts and preferences about condoms.
Koala IUDs?
We saw these adorable conceptual IUDs thanks to Jezebel, where many commentors compared them to Mickey Mouse. Doesn’t it also look kinda like a koala, though? Or is it just our love of koalas clouding our judgment?
Koala or mouse? You decide.
“Koala” image by Mshai, “Mickey Mouse” image by web-superhero.
