Confessions of a dirty slut
by Fancy Free on Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 5:12am ·
Recently, there's been a lot of debate about whether employers should be required to choose insurance policies that include birth control coverage for women. This discussion has degenerated into vicious partisan attacks, claims that birth control is for "recreational" use, and the idea that women only want birth control because they want to have promiscuous sex, thereby requiring employers to provide coverage for birth control is requiring everyone to subsidize those dirty, dirty sluts.
While I want to believe that my friends on Facebook are educated enough to realize that birth control is NOT just for sex, I've decided to come out with a personal example. To be honest, this confession is humiliating, but I value my privacy and dignity less than I value my fellow human beings' health. Here's the face of one of those "whores" who relies on insurance coverage for birth control.
After my first few years of puberty, I started taking birth control. Let's get this straight; that is NOT because I was bangin' every guy in town. If that's what your mind jumps to, my friend Chris Hansen would like a talk with you. No, the reason I began taking birth control, and the reason I still do, is because without it, I have horrible pain during my menstrual cycle. I'm not talking about cramping. I'm talking about shaking all over, puking, screaming, crying, out-of-my-gorram-mind with pain for at least a full day. So independent, so grown-up, but calling my mom and begging her to come rescue me so I could lie on her couch and sob and moan and scream, pleading with my mommy to please please make it stop help me mommy please. I've broken bones, I've been kicked and trampled by horses, I've had that infamously-painful appendicitis. But no pain I've ever experienced comes close to the pain I feel during that time of the month.
Before starting birth control to address this, I tried all kinds of pain medication - prescription and non - and every wives' tale technique in the book, Western and Eastern, to relieve the pain. Not because I thought that birth control was only for evil sluts; thankfully, my wonderful mom didn't raise me to believe such nonsense. I was just reluctant to alter my hormone levels every day of the month to protect me for one or two days. I wanted to try less-intensive methods first. Finally, I caved.
Now, my cramps, while still painful and taxing, are at a manageable level. Now, I don't have to miss school and work and interviews because I'm incapacitated with pain from a cause too embarrassing to explain to professors and employers. Now, I'm not missing out on a day or two of my life each month. Now, I get to live like a normal human being.
At the moment, I'm still on my family's insurance. And thankfully, my mom continues to choose a health insurance plan that covers birth control. But in just a few short years, I'll be on my own, just like millions of other American women. My best option for insurance coverage will likely be on my employer's group plan. And that group plan needs to cover birth control, not only for people like me, but for others with even more pressing needs - like agonizing and dangerous ovarian cysts, or acutely life-threatening endometriosis.
Recently, I had a glimpse of what it would look like the other way. We switched insurance plans to one that doesn't cover the brand of birth control I was on. The blood drained from my face as I stared at the numbers on the pharmacy computer. I left my purchases on the counter and paced up and down an empty aisle, pale-faced, stomach clenched, fearing what would happen to me in just a few short weeks if I couldn't afford my medicine. I called my mom, panicked and trembling, and she advised me to call my OB-GYN. Thankfully, I was able to switch to a different type of birth control that day, one that was covered by our new insurance.
But what would have happened if I needed a specific type and couldn't switch?
What if I didn't have insurance coverage for birth control at all?
You shouldn't have to be a woman, shouldn't have to go what I and others have gone through, to realize that birth control is not just for contraceptive purposes. We're not asking that insurance cover condoms, which as far as I know are ONLY for sex. We're asking that every woman in America have affordable access to hormonal treatment. For some, like me, it's important for quality of life. For others, it's essential for their health and safety. And yes, for others, it is indeed "only" for contraception. "Only" another line of defense between a faulty condom and an unplanned pregnancy. "Only" saving insurance companies thousands of dollars in prenatal care and deliveries. "Only" saving unwilling fathers from being trapped paying child support to a woman they didn't want a baby with. "Only" keeping people who can't afford a baby off of welfare. "Only" preventing abortions. "Only" giving women the right to control when they reproduce, allowing for a better-educated, more powerful workforce and higher standard of living for all Americans.
No person should have to choose between buying vegetables and gambling with infertility or death. No person should have to go through agonizing, easily-treatable pain because they turned over an unlucky card. No couple should be forced to rely solely on a thin piece of latex when they could have another line of defense. No woman should be denied affordable birth control.
In the 21st century, it just doesn't make sense.
While I want to believe that my friends on Facebook are educated enough to realize that birth control is NOT just for sex, I've decided to come out with a personal example. To be honest, this confession is humiliating, but I value my privacy and dignity less than I value my fellow human beings' health. Here's the face of one of those "whores" who relies on insurance coverage for birth control.
After my first few years of puberty, I started taking birth control. Let's get this straight; that is NOT because I was bangin' every guy in town. If that's what your mind jumps to, my friend Chris Hansen would like a talk with you. No, the reason I began taking birth control, and the reason I still do, is because without it, I have horrible pain during my menstrual cycle. I'm not talking about cramping. I'm talking about shaking all over, puking, screaming, crying, out-of-my-gorram-mind with pain for at least a full day. So independent, so grown-up, but calling my mom and begging her to come rescue me so I could lie on her couch and sob and moan and scream, pleading with my mommy to please please make it stop help me mommy please. I've broken bones, I've been kicked and trampled by horses, I've had that infamously-painful appendicitis. But no pain I've ever experienced comes close to the pain I feel during that time of the month.
Before starting birth control to address this, I tried all kinds of pain medication - prescription and non - and every wives' tale technique in the book, Western and Eastern, to relieve the pain. Not because I thought that birth control was only for evil sluts; thankfully, my wonderful mom didn't raise me to believe such nonsense. I was just reluctant to alter my hormone levels every day of the month to protect me for one or two days. I wanted to try less-intensive methods first. Finally, I caved.
Now, my cramps, while still painful and taxing, are at a manageable level. Now, I don't have to miss school and work and interviews because I'm incapacitated with pain from a cause too embarrassing to explain to professors and employers. Now, I'm not missing out on a day or two of my life each month. Now, I get to live like a normal human being.
At the moment, I'm still on my family's insurance. And thankfully, my mom continues to choose a health insurance plan that covers birth control. But in just a few short years, I'll be on my own, just like millions of other American women. My best option for insurance coverage will likely be on my employer's group plan. And that group plan needs to cover birth control, not only for people like me, but for others with even more pressing needs - like agonizing and dangerous ovarian cysts, or acutely life-threatening endometriosis.
Recently, I had a glimpse of what it would look like the other way. We switched insurance plans to one that doesn't cover the brand of birth control I was on. The blood drained from my face as I stared at the numbers on the pharmacy computer. I left my purchases on the counter and paced up and down an empty aisle, pale-faced, stomach clenched, fearing what would happen to me in just a few short weeks if I couldn't afford my medicine. I called my mom, panicked and trembling, and she advised me to call my OB-GYN. Thankfully, I was able to switch to a different type of birth control that day, one that was covered by our new insurance.
But what would have happened if I needed a specific type and couldn't switch?
What if I didn't have insurance coverage for birth control at all?
You shouldn't have to be a woman, shouldn't have to go what I and others have gone through, to realize that birth control is not just for contraceptive purposes. We're not asking that insurance cover condoms, which as far as I know are ONLY for sex. We're asking that every woman in America have affordable access to hormonal treatment. For some, like me, it's important for quality of life. For others, it's essential for their health and safety. And yes, for others, it is indeed "only" for contraception. "Only" another line of defense between a faulty condom and an unplanned pregnancy. "Only" saving insurance companies thousands of dollars in prenatal care and deliveries. "Only" saving unwilling fathers from being trapped paying child support to a woman they didn't want a baby with. "Only" keeping people who can't afford a baby off of welfare. "Only" preventing abortions. "Only" giving women the right to control when they reproduce, allowing for a better-educated, more powerful workforce and higher standard of living for all Americans.
No person should have to choose between buying vegetables and gambling with infertility or death. No person should have to go through agonizing, easily-treatable pain because they turned over an unlucky card. No couple should be forced to rely solely on a thin piece of latex when they could have another line of defense. No woman should be denied affordable birth control.
In the 21st century, it just doesn't make sense.
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