Expert: Brigid Kowalczyk - 4/25/2006

Question
I've been with my boyfriend for about two years now, and our sex life would be just perfect except for my irrational (that's his term not mine) fear of pregnancy.
About a year ago, we both got tested for STDs and agreed to stop using condoms since I'm on the pill (I've been on it for more than ten years) and we're completely exclusive, but then I couldn't do it after all, and he's been really disappointed about it.
Even though we still use both condoms and the pill, I can't completely relax during sex. I've read lots of statistics so I know that no method of contraception is completely safe, and I've always known that I never want to have children (and I'm absolutely against abortion), so I keep counting days till I'm 30, since in my country (Finland), that's the age limit for getting sterilized. Then I'll finally be able to stop worrying. But my boyfriend thinks I'm completely paranoid and I would benefit more from therapy than from surgery.
So, is he right? Am I paranoid or just justifiably cautious?


Answer
I think you are justifiable cautious.  Given the strength of your convictions about abortion, sterilization and pregnancy you are right to do all that you can to be safe.  However, abstinence is the better way to go.  Your health, emotional wellbeing and libido are all being affected by the pill and your anxiety.  You would be surprized what sex is like without barriers!  I can't imagine you are interested in that topic though.  I do have an article that you could read if you were even a bit curious:

Contraceptive Emotional and Personality Damage in Women
By Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg
Member Advisory Board, The Edith Stein Foundation
Systematic contraception - and sterilization - is part of modern life. Tens of millions of women the world over, inside and outside marriage, are on hormonal contraception (mostly, the pill) and as far as powerful organizations as the UNFPA and IPPF are concerned, many more millions must be added. In countries with intensive pill habits like the Netherlands, there are still increases in pill use among adolescent girls (27% between 1990 and 2000), so that half of them are now on the pill. With few exceptions, this does not seem to alarm anyone, because modern contraception is believed to be wonderful progress and beneficial to the woman. However, on the horizon dark clouds are gathering, although those who might spot them prefer not to see:

Risks of Birth Control:  
It is becoming increasingly clear that hormonal preparations are not as effective as they are said to be, and even worse, that the medical risks are more serious than had always been assumed. The advantage of less ovarian cancer is far outweighed by substantially increased risks of breast and cervical cancer, and we must add to this the risk of thrombo-embolism and the escalation of Sexually Transmitted Diseases facilitated by contraceptive relationships and increased promiscuity. These dangers are real enough, and will certainly be recognized some day, like the ominous consequences of chronic cigarette smoking are admitted today.

But there are other grave effects of contraception which get even less attention, although they are common: it causes damage to the deeper emotional layers of the woman's psyche (soul) and suffocates basic feminine needs. Although contraception is promoted as liberation for woman, in reality it is psychologically traumatizing; initially perhaps in a subtle way, but ever more manifest in the long run.

Fundamentally, it thwarts the maturation of the woman's psychological nature, not only sterilizes her biologically, but cripples her psychologically. The result is growing inner dissatisfaction and tension. The connection with the contraceptive relationship may not be obvious to the woman, or denied (“denial” is a common defense mechanism).

Contraceptive emotional damage may express itself in a variety of ways, ranging from depressive moods and psychosomatic symptoms to behavioral and relational problems. Put simply and somewhat generalized, contraception may be satisfactory on a more superficial level, satisfying certain more ego-centered needs, but at the same time saps inner happiness and the sense of meaning and personal fulfillment. It offers some immediate rewards, but at the price of a loss of real inner joy.

These things are often not conspicuous at first glance. One cannot “measure” contraceptive psychological damage with a simple poll or questionnaire. However, it may be evident several ways: first, when a woman expresses her feelings without justifications and self-defenses, speaking her mind without reserve to a trusted person, a friend, maybe a doctor, a psychotherapist, or a priest.

It may also become evident after a woman stops contracepting and turns to a more natural sex life. Usually, she will experience this as liberation and a blossoming of her relationship (of course, much more is happening when such a “conversion” takes place, but here I only point to the factor of emotional relief).

Secondly, it may be evident indirectly, from the emotionality and sometimes hostility of the reactions of some women when they explain themselves concerning their contraceptive habit. Many are overly defensive, ambivalent, and uneasy. One reason these things are so poorly understood is the prevailing often shallow and defective psychology of women.

The importance of educational and professional achievement and “independence” for feminine self-realization is highly overestimated. In fact, fulfillment of these needs only contributes secondarily to a woman's self-fulfillment, provided that they are subordinated to her more essential drives: giving love and life.

The deepest aspiration of the woman's psyche is to give love in a twofold manner: as the companion of a man and as a mother. She is not really happy if she cannot do that, either because she herself resists this drive, or because she is pressured to frustrate it (for example, by her lover or husband). By nature then, the soul of the woman tends toward fully abandoning herself out of love; deeper, more sensitively and more totally than a man might do. That implies her special power to sacrifice herself out of love and to suffer for others out of love.

Of course she longs for love in return and her power to love makes her especially vulnerable when her love receives no response. Yet she can suffer and sacrifice herself even in that case; she often remains faithful even to an egoistic or difficult husband or to ungrateful children. Contrary to what is often affirmed, these feminine “roles” of companion and mother are not learned cultural habits, but inborn distinctive psychological dimensions. They are related to the women's special sense for the beauty and sacredness of her procreative power.

It would be a mistake to view the perception of the sacred nature of sexuality, intimate man-woman love, and new life as a typically Christian notion. It is rather a universal human awareness, which is even more keenly felt in many non-western cultures than in our present society. It is rather our numbness to this natural experience which is the product of cultural conditioning and repression.

The contraceptive relationship frustrates the woman's central “instinct” to abandon herself to giving life and love. Some relationships are more contraceptive than others; living together unmarried, which usually includes maximum contraception, is on the average more dissatisfying than marriage. But likewise marriages that turned contraceptive after one or two children generally suffer from the wife's increasing dissatisfaction, no matter if it is recognized or not.

This is so because a contraceptive relationship lacks deeper meaning; the woman does not give herself fully, in her complete femininity: either she does not want to share it herself, or the man does not want this essential part of her person. What remains is the game of playing complete man-woman union, but it becomes ever more impersonal, no idealism is shared, self-centered sensuality replaces tenderness.

Especially the woman feels somehow disillusioned, and the relationship cools off and becomes more distant. This is one of the chief reasons so many cohabitation relationships break off. Many begin with the hope - mostly on the part of the woman - that the initial love will deepen, however, as self-giving is blocked, it usually ends in disappointment. Married women, who after one or two children, decide their family is “complete”, often become discontented and may seek “new challenges” in careers, educational opportunities, or even new intimate relationships.

“When one of my friends unexpectedly told me she was pregnant, I saw in a flash that somehow I too had wished for one or more children”, a woman confided to me. She had been on the pill for years and complained about her unsatisfactory, boring, marital relationship. Both of them had thought a long time ago their two kids, one boy, one girl, were just enough, and they continued thinking that way.