For more than 15 years, I've taught human sexuality classes to thousands of college students. I've also answered sex questions for magazines, newspapers, and websites. In other words, I've seen and heard it all. And thanks to the barely-there state of sexual education in the US, there are a number of myths that just won't go away. (As of 2014, most schools still preach abstinence as the best way to avoid pregnancy and STD transmission. And only 35 percent of classes teach students how to correctly use a condom, according to the Guttmacher Institute.) These are the six misconceptions I find myself correcting most often—while wishing I didn't need to.
You Can't Have Sex During the Placebo Week of Birth Control I regularly hear from teens and young adults who are worried they might be pregnant after having sex without a condom during the so-called "placebo week" of their birth control pill pack. What this tells me is that many women and men don't know how birth control pills work. They wrongly assume that the pill only "works" to prevent pregnancy on days when active hormonal pills are swallowed, as if every pill provides just 24 hours of protection. Nope!
Read more on Tonic
Advertisement