On June 24, 2022, six Supreme Court Justices told American women what they legally can and can’t do with their bodies.

Ending a pregnancy after six weeks (before most women discover they’re pregnant) is now against the law in some states; this may soon be followed by the banning of other methods to end pregnancies, including (ironically) forms of birth control to avoid getting pregnant in the first place.

Banning abortions makes the act of sex so profoundly consequential in terms of health and emotional security that I fear many women will start to see sexual abstinence as their chosen form of birth control.

The “forced birth” movement is a boot on the throat of women’s sexuality, desire, and pleasure.

For the lower desire partners I work with (men and women), the devastating consequences of an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is one more reason to avoid sex.

These are the words of former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell who played a pivotal role in designing the legal framework of the state’s near-total abortion ban, “Women can control their reproductive lives without access to abortion; they can do so by refraining from sexual intercourse.”

There you have it. It’s being suggested that women should simply refrain from sexual intercourse. That statement alone is frightening. Mr. Mitchell’s words suggest that he believes a woman’s sexuality is disposable and its primary purpose is reproduction.

Suggesting women stop having intercourse if they don’t want to become pregnant is advocating abstinence in relationships as an answer to unwanted pregnancies and the demand for abortions. He (and others) are in essence blaming women’s desire for sex—and the intimacy that comes with it—as a part of life they need to view as a societal problem and threat to their freedom.

The fear and shame now put on women who seek to end an unwanted pregnancy turn sex into a political and religious weapon used to control women’s healthy sexual desire and enjoyment.

For the higher desire partners, sex is a part of life they value and want to support in their relationship. If safety from pregnancy is now one of the reasons their partner’s sexual response is low, it’s important to understand how desire works in all of us.

Sexual Desire is Born out of a Sense of Safety

In the natural world, sex doesn’t happen when a threat is felt. Feeling safe allows desire to flow—the safety felt with a trusted lover, the safety that our bodies will be honored, the safety of knowing that sex is for pleasure and intimacy. There is no safety if sexual intercourse has the potential to irrevocably alter a woman’s life. There is no safety if a woman’s right to choose to conceive a baby or not is stripped from her.

I suggest that partners talk together about the implications of this suppressive political direction and how this naive promotion of abstinence as a form of birth control might affect their sex life.

If you’re in a relationship with a woman, ask her how she feels about what is happening in the United States. Discuss your fears about the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Discuss the importance of birth control—now more than ever.

Make an agreement that sex is important in your relationship and that you’ll both work together to feel confident in your choice of birth control.

Why We no Longer Hear about Natural Birth Control

Women can take a stand, not by choosing to abstain from sexual intercourse, but by empowering themselves to avoid pregnancy to begin with. One form of birth control that I rarely hear being promoted is natural birth control.

I think 95 percent of abortions are due to accidents or a lack of knowledge about how a woman’s reproductive system works. Period.

Women have been trained out of their own inherent connection to their body’s reproductive cycles.

Natural birth control doesn’t require a pharmaceutical pill, a doctor’s prescription pad, hormonal suppression, or any other type of product that has to be inserted into a vagina. It’s not something we have to afford or can be taken off the shelves.

Women don’t need anyone’s permission or prescription to not get pregnant.

Natural birth control is learning about and tracking what days of the month a woman’s body can or cannot conceive a baby, then avoiding sexual intercourse on those days, or using a condom as a form of protection. On average, the time period to avoid unprotected intercourse is approximately six days a month.

If there’s anything positive that could possibly come out of this assault on women’s sexuality, it’s the knowledge that six judges, or doctors, or the government, do not own women’s bodies. Women own their bodies, and they can diligently learn how to avoid pregnancy naturally with up to a 93 percent effectiveness rate.

It’s time for women to reclaim the bodies they live in and be empowered in their choice to become pregnant or not.

Back to the Beauty of our Body’s Natural Cycles

The temperature method of birth control requires a thermometer and a return to an innate attunement to our natural feminine cycles. Natural birth control asks more of a woman than popping a pill once a day or a visit to the doctor to be implanted with a foreign object. With a consistent five-minute morning routine of daily temperature tracking, women become much more intimate with their body’s reproductive cycles.

For many, natural birth control introduces women (and men) to the beauty and power of their life-giving bodies. Rather than suppressing their natural hormones, women come into relationship to their own unique fertility cycles.

This assault on women—and society as a whole—is confronted by taking the power of choice out of the hands of others and placing that power back in the hands of the bodies that create life. That happens through education and knowledge.

If you are a woman, know a woman, are a daughter, or have a daughter, start a conversation about natural birth control, share this information, and encourage them to take ownership of what is inherently theirs, their enjoyment of safe sex, and their power to choose what happens to their body and their life.

Birth Control on your Phone

There are now temperature method phone apps that teach women how to avoid an unwanted pregnancy naturally because the pleasure of safe sex is everybody’s birthright. It’s safe for a woman’s health, has no contradictions or side effects, and if done properly, has a 93 percent effectiveness rate. Most importantly, your data is kept private.

I hope this article gets you started on your own education and research to find natural methods of birth control, or any other form of birth control, that works for you and your body and insures your choice to procreate or not.

In this MSNBC article on birth control by Esther Choo, there is no mention of the words “natural birth control.” Have we become so dependent on pharmacies and doctors that we no longer educate women on how to avoid pregnancy naturally?

In service to your pleasure,

Corinne.

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