By Maria Padhila
Are you part of the huge crowd who’s been going around saying ‘I can’t believe it’s 2012 and we’re still talking about contraception’? I’m one of them, too. But on further thought, I realize what I can’t believe is that we believe we’re talking about contraception, when what we’re really talking about is control.
And I don’t mean birth control. I mean woman control.
When a woman has control over whether she gets pregnant or has to worry about getting sick, she gains a lot of freedom. One way to gain this freedom is through abstaining from sex with men. Another is to use birth control and disease control. This means being honest to yourself and to partners that you are having sex for reasons other than reproduction. Those who want to control contraception want to control women’s freedom and everyone’s pleasure.
What this has to do with polyamory is that this relationship form is impossible to live out without using birth control, which can also in some cases be disease control. What this has to do with it is that this life can’t be lived honestly without being up-front about having sex for pleasure.
It’s pretty much acknowledged that in polyamory, women have a lot more control over the relationships and the choices than men do. I don’t know if this is right or fair; it’s just how it works out in America, at least. Women, particularly bisexual ones, tend to call the shots. But without access to birth control, there goes that freedom.
I actually think that people who are poly would find a way to make this work — that the men would open up even more, that there would be more acceptance about people with different diseases, and that people would become less concerned about whose DNA is in whose baby and just raise the kids.