Who Needs Condoms When You Can Pull Out?

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Last month, the Guttmacher Institute released a controversial report showing that the much-maligned withdrawal method, when used correctly, is almost as effective in preventing pregnancy as condoms are. Withdrawal is also increasingly popular: The report cites CDC data showing that the number of women who have used it went up almost 15 percent from 1995 to 2002. Meanwhile, CDC data also shows that as women get into their late 20s and early 30s, they use condoms less and less, even if they’re not married.

My theory, based on an admittedly small sample of educated twentysomethings, is that there’s a connection here between the condom ebb and the withdrawal flow, so to speak. Many of my friends have admitted to ditching condoms and adding withdrawal to their contraceptive repertoire, even when they’re not on the Pill. These women say that they’re not afraid of the STDs that condoms protect against. And to the extent they think withdrawal still poses a greater risk of pregnancy, well, they’re not worried about that the way they used to be.

A year before the Guttmacher study came out, a 27-year-old friend, let’s call her Amanda, started using withdrawal with her new boyfriend. “I mean, there are really not that many days per month that you can get pregs, and if you are pretty regular it's not rocket science,” she says over instant message.

Amanda’s gynecologist insisted otherwise, which isn’t a surprise. Even though, as the Guttmacher study points out, withdrawal has played a major role in the European fertility decline, it goes against everything American public health experts have been preaching for decades. In the 1990s, when my friends were in high school, Madonna did PSAs encouraging condom use. TLC’s Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez pranced around with a condom eye patch. We all dutifully learned about dental dams even though I never met anyone who actually used one. We absorbed the message that latex-free sex was incredibly reckless behavior.

But is it really? It’s irresponsible not to use a condom for casual sex, but for affluent women, it’s not actually a dire risk. Statistically, the vast majority of women who contract HIV are low-income women and IV drug users. Meanwhile, the chronic STDs middle class young women do regularly contract—HPV and herpes—aren’t an ironclad argument for condoms. Both diseases can be transmitted even if you use condoms, though condoms do prevent a majority of transmissions.

In backing away from condoms, my peers are also backing away from the un-nuanced message we got when we were teens: Namely, if you have unprotected sex, you will get pregnant and die. “I think by the time women hit their mid 20s, they know at least one person who has herpes, at least one person who's had to get warts frozen off of her cervix,” another friend says. “And she understands that these things, while shitty, are not the end of the world.” Even fear of cervical cancer—which is literally the end of the world for those who contract it—doesn’t unroll a lot of condoms because many women my age have received the vaccine Gardasil.

If you’re not convinced you need condoms to stay safe, it’s hard to see why you’d choose them. Though the stereotype is that men are the ones who hate condoms because they’re no fun, studies have shown that more women than men complain about the “physical displeasure of male condoms.” Another friend, call her Erin, who is 31, told me, “Condoms make orgasms difficult, and I'm pretty sure any guy will agree with me there.”