I'm Manny and this is Devin, and this is no such thing. The show where we settle our dumb arguments in yours by actually doing the research. Today we're talking about sex ad birth control in the case for pulling out.
I think the general vibe is that everyone does it, but nobody wants to talk about it.
There's no no such thing, no such thing, no such.
Thank thank all Right, fellas, this is gonna be an interesting one. Uh scared. We we as a friend group, do not do a lot of locker room talk like our like our president. So we'll try to keep this a little PG. Thirteen. Yes, if you're listening with young children, I'm glad they're a fan of the show. But maybe they should skip this episode.
Or maybe they should keep listen where they.
Can listen to it. And then at the end we'll they actually should have skipped it.
It's too late now, so.
Let's start the conversation here. Have either of you had the talk? No, no, this is crazy, not from parents, So neither of you had the talk with your parents. No, no, didn't come up.
Yeah, don't worry about this ship. Yeah, your parents were like, you're not gonna have to worry.
I did have the conversation with my dad. I had to be I was young. I had to be like ten, nine or ten. It was you know, it was a very top level conversation. Did so growing up? What was the conversation around like birth control contraceptive did you guys?
Like?
Was it just through school?
Dude?
Your parents weren't like, hey, make sure you stay safe? Yeah?
It was mostly through school, and we we were in one in a neighborhood that school, like public school systems were like, we really got to beat it out of these kids specifically, so we had that kind of sex said that was like everyone, get a ring. You are now a little bit. It was all like abstinence. They sent us home with the baby dolls that yeah.
You know they do that on Love Island.
Come on Beautiful Baby Boy, Cry maybe you and they're like twenty something and that show. Yeah, yeah, I was, I must have been thirteen or something.
How was that experience for you?
I remember it, like, you know, I don't think it works as nearly as well as the programs think it does, because you know, it's not real. It's a fake doll. I like hit it under some pillows and like cover so I didn't hear it crying. It really was like, I know, mean girls has a scene like this, but then they're parioding the kind of sex at that I got, which is like, if you even touch someone, you're gonna die.
I guess we'll never know what I missed on that first day of health class.
Don't have sex because you will get pregnant and die.
And uh yeah, it was not very effective because in my seventh grade uh school trip to d c to the kids were going off in the back of the bus on the bus and she got pregnant. Wait they were wait going off Okay, but anyway, like that was one of the schools I think where they went hard on like sex heads.
Because they were about teenage pregnancies.
Yeah, and it just kind of backfires, I think.
I mean, you know, it was all abstinence based though there wasn't any talk about.
It wasn't like if you're gonna have sex, do this and this and this. It was all like, don't even touch each other.
Look at it.
Yeah, Okay, I really I remember doing like health class. I really don't remember any sex said except for like we watched a baby being born video.
Yeah, but like I don't.
I really don't remember anything. It certainly wasn't like abstinence education. I don't remember anything about like like you see in movies or whatever, like they're putting a condom on a banana.
Abstinence wasn't something that stressed. I don't remember. In school, sex head was very sort of like anatomy based. A lot of the conversation was around anatomy, right, So it wasn't really like real world here's what's gonna happen, here's what you should do, but it was like a big fear of like pregnancy, like you know, both in school and outside of school, was just like, yeah, you're too young to be having sex, but if you are going to be having sex, make sure you're using protection.
Yeah, because you not want it's too pronged. Yes, you shouldn't do it, but if you are, yes, here's what you should be doing.
Yeah.
I kind of what I remember is more just learning about how someone becomes pregnant, like as far as like looking at diagrams and like parts, more than like like reproductive yeah more yeah, just like more reproductive health than like education on like how to, yeah, how to do how to or how not to.
As we hear from Manny he had friends at a young age that were sexually active. What was the sentiment amongst your friends when you were kids around sex and protection, Like, were people talking about using condoms, already talking about not using condoms, already talking about other methods of birth control? Like, for example, I remember in high school the kids who were in sort of like long term relationships talking about how their girlfriends were on the pale so they did not use condoms.
Yeah, I remember, I remember stuff like that. I don't remember much like anti condom sentiment. I think there wasn't enough in my circles going on for it to be like cool to not like it's like all right, if you're going to do it, then you'd use this and that's that's great.
Yeah.
I think there were I remember certainly, you know a few people who like wanted to seem cool or whatever edge you're talking about how, oh my god, it's way better without a.
Condom or whatever.
That went on throughout high school, yeah, and even college.
Okay, so this brings us to the topic that we're going to talk about for today's episode, the pullout method. Do you remember anything specifically about the pullout method? As a kid, I guess I'll start. I remember hearing as a kid, don't do that. It's bad. Yeah. Yeah, pull out method is is not safe. Even before you finish. There may be some things that come out that could think perhaps pre yes, it just.
Takes one second, just takes one second.
Yeah. And it's also like, hey, you don't know when it's gonna happen, do you don't have It was a lot of like, you can't trust yourself to do this. Yep, don't put yourself in a situation where you have to do that.
Yeah.
Essentially, I remember in part of the abstinence program that they had us do uh talking about how pulling out is not going like you think you're safe, but you're not. So don't think that this is a you know, a way you can get out of it. Get around them. You're still gonna have a baby that's gonna be crying all night and your parents won't help you.
And yeah, you're gonna have to drop out of school. Your life is gonna be ruined. You're not gonna go to college, not to be successful, You're gonna be poor.
Yeah yeah, and I and I remember them saying it. But also I was believing it too. Yeah, sense I was like, damn, yeah, okay, there's some science here that I don't understand.
Sounds right to me, or I might argue, yeah, yeah, I'm not going to be the one.
Exactly, I'm not righting the research lab on this.
No, what if I told you that the pull out method, according to this article, is as effective as male condoms when used correctly.
As effective. I'm very surprised to hear that. I'd I'd be scared i'd be able to tell you that.
Let me be accurate. The article says about as effective.
Okay, okay, about as effective. That surprises me. I could you know, I can tell you that it is effective and based on experience, but I would never argue that it's about as effective as I always thought. You know, there's a pretty big risk.
Yeah, I guess I.
I'm curious to hear it out. Am I gonna personally recommend this to someone asking me for, you know, sex advice, which happens often.
Not not at.
This point, but let's hear him out.
So we'll be sitting down with the author of this Slate article, the Case for pulling Out, Andrea Becker. That's after the break Hey, do you have a conspiracy theory that no one in your life can convince you is fake? Well, send us a voice memo at Manny Noah Devin at gmail dot com and we may feature you in our upcoming episode. And by the way, we'll just do this now so we don't have to do it again in the credits. But if you're a fan of this show,
go right now. It's it's a break, so you have time rid us five stars and share it with a front All right, back to the show. Okay, we're back. I'm Manny, I'm Noah Devin. And in the studio today we have Professor Andrea Becker. She is a sexual reproductive health researcher. She's a professor and most importantly, a friend of the pod.
True.
Welcome, Welcome, it's great to have you.
Great to be here.
And thanks for pretending that this is a studio, not my living.
It's a studio to me. These lights, studio lights, it's right lights.
And you have a.
Book coming out, and I have a book coming out. It's called Get It Out on the Politics of Hysterectomy. It's out in July, but available for pre order now.
So Professor last year for Slate, you wrote an article titled the Case for pulling Out. First of all, do you stand by that absolutely? You know, just wanted to make sure. So what was you know, the inception of this article. What was the first time you thought about pulling out.
I've been thinking about pulling out since I was in high school, I guess. Academically, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, academically awesome. So I was in an honors anatomy class, and I guess our teacher was a pretty radical guy, and he told us about the female reproductive cycle and how there's only three to five days where you can actually get pregnant. And I didn't know that, especially compared to the abstinence only sex education that I had had. This was in
North Carolina. They basically say, don't have sex, and we won't explain anything further. Our teacher also implied that if you are even naked in the same room, you could get pregnant, and she didn't elaborate further, so I didn't know what she meant for many years.
I got like vibes based intercourse.
No clue.
Still, I wish I remembered her name so I could ask her. But yeah, so figuring out that there's only five days out of the month where you can feasibly get pregnant, and he said that he himself and his wife had relied on pulling out and that it worked.
Did he use that phrase specifically?
I believe so, though I will.
Say that in the research it's referred to as the withdrawal method or my favorite coitus interruptis is hoitus interrupted?
That sounds like I'm like a kid made up.
That's Harry Potters.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. JK. Rowling came out with that one. So you were told this in high school and then it was sort of on your mind and you wrote this article. So you've been thinking about it this entire time?
Yes?
Or did this something recently happen that you're like, oh my god, I'm remembering my high school teacher talking about pulling out.
No. Nothing, well, I guess getting into the space of sexual and reproductive health researchers, I noticed that there was a big divide among researchers and providers about withdrawal. So some are very adamant that it's part of like sexual and general autonomy, that you should be able to learn about this method, that you should be taught the right ways. And then there are a lot of providers and researchers who say that it's not a form of birth control,
that it's really irresponsible to even talk about it. There's a lot of really stigmatizing language around it.
So some people still.
Call it the pull and prey method, as if you need to use it in conjunction with religious practice, that God needs to intervene in order for it to.
Work, okay, because it's so unreliable.
Most recently, someone that I really admire, a professor, said something like, oh, you know what we call people who pull out parents m So even researchers.
With this is I hate to say, but that's a bar It is a bar line. They're wrong, but it's a great line.
So okay, that's the like you're saying, that's researchers. What has been the vibe with just like your friends and associates? Is that a simil Because we were talking about earlier. I think it's a similar sentiment of just like pulling out like worst case scenario, but like that's not plan A.
Yeah.
I think the general vibe is that everyone does it, but nobody wants to talk about it. And so even within researchers. Interestingly, so the there is a reproductive health conference that I go to every year. It's like a really large conference, and one of the researchers who attends every year did a survey with the various members. I think she surveyed over three hundred people about the various contraceptive methods that they use, and around seventy six percent said they relied on withdrawal.
Wow.
Why so it's the same people counseling patients to not use it and writing papers about how everyone needs to be on the IUD they're they're pulling out. Around sixty five to sixty six percent of the population rely on withdrawal, and this is about equal among young people in adolescents as well. But a lot of people use in conjunction to other methods, So they're using withdrawal and also using
condoms or using withdrawal and birth control. So there's responsible ways to use it, and it doesn't mean you're it's your only method necessarily, So that's okay.
That makes that number make a little bit more sense to me. How much So sixty five percent of people are saying they just use withdrawal period but some combination OLiS people are using withdrawal and combination with maybe birth control or condoms.
But in terms of your primary form of birth control, the latest data from twenty twenty three, so two thirds of women have at least at some point relied on withdrawal as their primary form of birth control.
So we now know how many people rely on pulling out, but I want to know how effective it actually is.
Okay, So in a large national study, eighteen percent of couples who solely rely on withdrawal will have an unplanned pregnancy.
That's anonomy. So what we're talking about.
The condoms is seventeen percent.
Oh yeah, correctly.
I'm not doing this anymore. So these numbers that Dray is referencing actually come from a two thousand and eight paper published in the journal Contraception. The researchers looked at a bunch of studies and found that with typical use, so you know, not getting it perfectly right every single time, eighteen percent of couples who rely on a pull out
method could expect to get pregnant within a year. With typical use, seventeen percent of couples who rely on condoms can expect to get pregnant within a year, and if you're using these methods perfectly. So let's say with the pull out method, the person with a penis pulls out
every single time for ejaculating. Only four percent of couples relying on a withdrawal method can expect a pregnancy within a year, and with perfect condom use only two percent of couples can expect a pregnancy within a year.
What is perfect? U?
Yeah? Yeah, what does that look like? Because I think we all have an idea in our mind, right, but you were talking about even days that you can get pregnant. So yeah, if this is my primary form of a contraception, what am I doing?
Yes?
So there definitely needs to see some communication between partners and so generally the semen should come nowhere near the person's vagina, and then if there are multiple rounds of sex happening, the person needs to urinate in between because the person with the penis.
Good question.
I think everybody, probably.
Everyone should be after sex.
As I'm learning from you know, Hannah Horror asks and girls, it is important to pe after sex.
It is you can get a U t I if you don't did yes.
And with men Hannah Horror from Girls.
Made putting the show called Girl Girls.
A couple of seasons.
But so after ejaculating, sperm can live in the urethra, and so urinating can will kill those spurs, like flush it out.
And push out, So you're gonna clean up eviction p if you're doing multiple rounds both for UTIs and pregnancy purposes. Everybody just go pee?
Yes, everybody just go pee?
Is really good. And then is there a window where you should be doing this?
Right?
You're talking about there's like three or four days where a woman there's the only window that a woman can get pregnant. And now that I think about it, I did know that because when people are trying to get pregnant, they're like, oh, I'm in my window. We gotta go.
Yes.
It's interesting because women and men tend to only learn about this window when they're trying to get pregnant. We don't teach people this when they're trying to not get pregnant.
Wow, that's really interesting.
So around two weeks after your period, so right in the middle of your cycle, you ovulate, and so generally five days before ovulation and the day after you shouldn't have unprotected sex. With the idea that maybe there's sperm in the person's pre com.
Yes, this is one of the primary reasons why I have historically been told to not due to pull out method. Right, it's like whatever, you think, you got it under control, but you may pre come. Yeah, can a woman actually get pregnant from pre com?
Really good question.
So pre com doesn't necessarily have sperm in it, okay, but some people maybe have a little bit of sperm in their pre com. So semen is the general fluid that comes out during ejaculation, okay, and sperm is the sex cells within there.
The likelihood is lower, but it only takes.
One sperm okay. And of course there's really limited research on this. There's a few studies on it, some of them they're typically really small numbers of men that they sample. But we need a huge national longitude survey of pre come.
If I was the.
One, if I was setting the agenda for research, I would be doing that.
So I guess what is your kind of response to our middle school teachers who are like, pre come will do it. I hear you're not necessarily disagreeing with that, But in terms of pulling out as a contraceptive method.
Yeah, I think I understand why public health professionals and sex and teachers don't want young teenagers to know about withdrawal as a legitimate form of contraception, because if it has even higher rates of failure, that's you know, however, many kids that are getting pregnant they don't want to, and so on like a national scale, that's a lot
of people getting pregnant when they don't want to. Yeah, but if you teach people or the proper technique, the right knowledge about their cycle, so yessch pre com can get you pregnant, but not if you're not ovulating. So if you're ovulating, we're a condom.
So basically they're saying they're wanting to be basically misleading for our better good. But you're saying, actually, the best way to do that is be as transparent as possible.
Yeah, knowledge is power.
There's also just like a mistrust that people will use birth control methods correctly at all. So there's this huge bias within sex, said within medical practitioners where they want patients to use the.
Most effective methods.
So they want people to use IUDs because there's very little room for user error. The doctor places the device and then that's it. So with a pill, you can forget to take it, you can take at the wrong time. With withdrawal, you can accidentally not pull out or do it the wrong time of the month. And so there's this huge bias towards just pushing these really high, highly effective methods even if patients don't want to use it.
But I feel like to that point, condoms, there's a lot of room for error there, and that's always the like even more than you know, I feel like IDs are more recently and I feel like even when people are a bit older, but early on, I feel like it's just like condoms, condoms, condoms, condoms like the only
form of birth control. Obviously they talk about women being on the pail, but even still, it's like women on the pail plus condoms, Right, Like, why is condoms always the thing that's being talked about as like so effective.
Well, that's because condoms is the only thing that will prevent STI transmission. And so that's some pushback I get about withdrawal that if we say that withdrawal is an acceptable form of contraception, then STI rates will increase. But other than condoms, no other birth control prevents SDI transmission.
Okay, so we talked a little bit earlier too about how we had different experiences in school about education. You know, many grew up in Ohio, know, in Connecticut, me in New Jersey. What is like sort of like the state of sex education in the US, because we all learned different things.
Yeah, so across the country, there's a really wide range of what is mandated by the state. There's no federal guidelines, so in some there has to be sex education, and others there is no mandate on that, and some it has to be medically accurate, and some they have to teach about consent or LGBTQ sex.
But so it really varies across which state you're in.
It is crazy conversations in school about consent, at least until you get to college, then they talk a lot about consent. But in high school there was very little to no conversations about consent. Consent. I get maybe it's more of a thing now, but I feel like consent was not a conversation even amongst friends or like family members, like yeah, well, pleasure. I guess part of the issue is, like I feel like so much of the conversations around
sex are about not getting pregnant. And it's not about pleasure. It's not about like you know, like pleasuring your partner. It's all about don't get pregnant, try not to do it. If you are going to do it, try to be safe about it. And like there's yeah, none of these other aspects of it. You just sort of like figure it out.
Yeah, that isn't changed with so in research.
Also, the way that demographers and public health researchers talk about birth control, you'd think that people have sex to test the effectiveness of different birth control. Like it's almost radical to talk about pleasure as part of.
Birth Yeah, like does this feel good? Yeah, because I'm not going to use it if it doesn't feel good, because that's why I'm having sex.
Yeah.
So, Jenny Higgins in Wisconsin is one of the only researchers I know who is asking people about sexual pleasure and what birth control they use.
Oh wow, So let me ask you this because you know, I know you wrote this last year. I would say within the last couple of years, there's been a lot of backlash to the pill. You know, I think some women have complained about the side effects of the Hell, we know that in a lot of right wing circles. They've sort of hijacked that movement to be like, no, no woman should be on the pill. It's horrible for every single woman. You shouldn't be using this as a
form of birth control. There have been lots of conversations about will conservatives in this country take away women's ability to get the pill period as a form of birth control. So how much of this sort of research urgence of you know, pulling out is in response to the current state that we're in, not to even mention, you know, abortion in this country and how it's so much harder
for people to get abortions now. I could see people saying, Hey, I don't want to have any risk because if I live in Texas and I'm using the pull out method and it goes wrong, I can't just get an abortion pill. I can't just go, you know, to a planned parenthood and have an abortion. What's your response to that?
So withdrawal isn't for everyone, So you should only use it if you are ambivalent about getting pregnant. So if it would be okay with you to have a pregnancy, that's great, Or if you have access to terminating a pregnancy that you wouldn't want to have, then maybe you'll be comfortable with withdrawal. But if you know, if you live in Texas, as you said, and you don't want to be pregnant, it's way. So I'm not saying everyone should be pulling out. Everyone should be able to have
the choice for what birth control they want. So some people love their IUD, some people love their birth control pill, some people love pulling out. And the number one reason for why someone is satisfied with their birth control method
is sexual satisfaction. And then in terms of the backlash against hormonal methods, we're seeing us horseshoe theory because for decades women have been saying no on the left have been saying we need better hormonal birth control methods, we need better birth control.
Methods in general.
There's all of these side effects, and now we're also seeing right wingers saying hormonal.
Birth control is bad.
Yeah, so we're all coming at the same conclusion from different sides. But it's true that we need a lot more research and investment into more types of birth control for women and also for men, which right now we don't have a single form of male birth control on the market in the US, besides condoms and vsectomy.
Yeah, why can't we take the pill.
We can't take the pill because the medical industry in the US one doesn't think men.
Will take it.
A lot of women don't trust.
I wouldn't trust the god to take no damn pill.
Yeah.
The people think there's no market for it, and so rather than letting men make the decision, we just won't put it on the market. And then when we've had clinical trials around the male birth control pill in the US, trial monitors shut it down because.
They thought the side effects were too extreme side effects.
You know, the side effects were almost identical to the ones that women deal with, so moodiness, lower libido, depression. Hormonal birth control does that for women, but no trub monitor shut that down.
Well, professor, that was very informative. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me when a professor, a doctor and a friend and a friend most important.
All right, well we'll be back after the break. All right, fellas, we just learned a lot. Now. I feel like we just did like ten years of sex ed in about twenty five minutes.
Yeah, I mean that was, I mean, certainly more useful than my sex ed classes in middle school where we didn't learn anything. Yeah, yeah, the absence except for that we shouldn't have sex, don't.
Do it all? Right after hearing from Dre, how are we feeling about the pull out method?
In some ways better? But also I wouldn't say worse, I feel worse about other methods. I suppose, Yeah, like the that's my The fact that the condoms and the pull up method were essentially essentially tide makes it seem makes me definitely change my stance on it as far as I mean again, if someone's coming to me for advice, I'll say, do everything you can.
Yeah, I remain shocked that, you know, based on what we heard growing up. Obviously, as you're younger, a big problem is like, is the guy gonna pull out?
Even though yes, and I would say that's the one thing that you know, to know, what the point he's saying? What would I tell you know, let's say our hypothetical children. You know, if you two decide to have the talk with your kids, I'm good, there's gonna be a point being that I'm concerned about. To your point, manny is I guess put it giving a man uh that much
risk reponsibility. And I know this is this sucks because I think we do this all the time, which is like the women have to take all the responsibility when it comes to sex. But at least I guess if I were talking to someone who can get pregnant, I would want them to do everything within their control to make sure that they do not end up pregnant, which is like an ied birth control making sure their partner
is wearing in condoms. It's a lot harder to be like, hey, well, I guess they can also communicate when they're ovulating, but yeah, then you're putting. I guess it makes more sense to me to do this with someone who you trust, you're in a committed relationship with, and not like a casual partner who you're like, I don't really trust this dude. I told him to pull out, but like hopefully he, yeah, does it. And in that case, yeah, I would think I would feel more comfortable under those conditions.
Yeah, clearly the best way, which was reference in the data that Dre was talking about, is like, yeah, it's withdrawal method in uh, in addition to other methods, and that's like the best way to go.
M Well, I will say this. If you guys, are you know, since you're not talking to your parents about it, you're out of school. If you want to learn some things about sex education, you should actually watch Netflix. Is Sex Education? Great show? I think it's accurate. Well, well, we'll call up Drey afterwards and see. But I learned a lot watching that show.
Are we getting paid for this?
Yeah, they cut the check. If you're in the mood for another spicy episode, check out why are Slurs making a comeback? Episode three of No Such Thing. We'll link to that in the show notes. No Such Thing is produced by Manny Fidel nor Friedman and Me Devin Joseph. Theme song by Manny, audition of music by Zo. Our guest this week was Andrea Becker. Her new book, Get It Out on the politics of hysterectomy, will be out later this summer, but we'll put a link to the
pre order in the show notes. If you want to check out some of the references that we talk about in this episode and see a map of the US and what is required for each state in terms of sex said, we're going to drop that at our newsletter at No Such Thing that show, And if you want to email us a question, feedback, anything, Hit us up at Manny noahdevinat gmail dot com. All right, well, we'll see you guys next week