"There are five people in the room right now! I won't work with morons."

May 13, 2010 8:28 PM

In an attempt to correct a surprisingly common myth, the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy created Have Sex Standing Up *, a website dedicated to eradicating this particular misconception. They made a pretty great PSA. Via The Sexist.
posted by NoraReed (48 comments total)

Imagine all you heard about this was:

the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy created Have Sex Standing Up

What do you come away believing?
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:33 PM on May 13, 2010 [8 favorites]

How peculiar that all those yahoo answers pages are from the Australian Yahoo.
posted by hippybear at 8:34 PM on May 13, 2010

Besides, the Baptists can't have sex standing up. It might lead to dancing.
posted by hippybear at 8:35 PM on May 13, 2010 [21 favorites]

I clicked the "Videos" link on the website and was disappointed.
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email at 8:37 PM on May 13, 2010 [3 favorites]

Heh..."misconception."
posted by darkstar at 8:40 PM on May 13, 2010 [8 favorites]

Misconception indeed.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:41 PM on May 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Jesus Christ. I did like the PSA.
posted by smoke at 8:44 PM on May 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

stands up, shakes fist at darkstar, then somehow gets impregnated
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:44 PM on May 13, 2010 [4 favorites]

Dammit, Cold Lurkey, what did we tell you about making out with darkstar while in the horizontal position during the full moon? The only way to take care of that is douching with Coca-Cola.
posted by NoraReed at 8:53 PM on May 13, 2010

what did we tell you about making out with darkstar while in the horizontal position during the full moon? The only way to take care of that is douching with Coca-Cola.

You told me that it would never make it back to the internet. You PROMISED.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:55 PM on May 13, 2010

What kind of blessed childhood and adolescence did I suffer to have never, ever heard of this folk method of contraception? That's hilariously weird and kind of sad at the same time.

That PSA is fantastic.
posted by Neofelis at 9:01 PM on May 13, 2010

Ugh. Now I have to amend my list of rules for my two year old daughter memorize for her future to include, "If he says 'we won't get pregnant if we do it standing up', the next sound he needs to hear is your zipper going up." I can't keep adding things to this list!
posted by Macphisto at 9:21 PM on May 13, 2010

Macphisto, you can save a bunch of time by telling your daughter this instead:

"If he says, 'We won't get pregnant if," you can zip up right there unless he finishes with 'we don't do it,' because otherwise he's full of shit."
posted by Mikey-San at 10:11 PM on May 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mikey-San, there's one notable exception, and that's "We won't get pregnant if we don't let a guy join". Just sayin'.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 10:43 PM on May 13, 2010 [3 favorites]

I have a friend who, ten years ago was an advisor/counsellor to students training to become teachers. This was in a rural and very pleasant setting, but it attracted a certain type of person. To be blunt, I'd never seen so many vicar's daughters in one place before.

I met my friend after work one day and she was gobsmacked. No details given, but she had one girl come to see her, confused about some symptoms she had. Sent off for a medical check up, it was discovered that she was pregnant. She refused to believe this could happen as she had only had sex once, and did it standing up, deliberately as a contraceptive method.
posted by quarsan at 10:48 PM on May 13, 2010

@TheNewWazoo Or if they, you know, don't put any penises in their vaginas. (I guess it's possible for the whole oh-he-fingered-me-with-come-on-his-fingers thing to happen. But you can pretty much figure out that ejaculate and pre-ejaculate come out of a penis and those cause pregnancies thing.) Outercourse, as well as lesbianism, are fantastic forms of birth control (though they are less effective on STDs).

/PSA
posted by NoraReed at 11:11 PM on May 13, 2010

"If he says, 'We won't get pregnant if," you can zip up right there unless he finishes with 'we don't do it,' because otherwise he's full of shit."

So he's full of shit if he says "You won't get pregnant if I wear a condom"? Or "You won't get pregnant if you give me a blowjob"?
posted by delmoi at 11:41 PM on May 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

(yes, I realize condoms only reduce the risk by a large amount)
posted by delmoi at 11:42 PM on May 13, 2010

The point is not in the specifics.
posted by Mikey-San at 11:54 PM on May 13, 2010

A lot of people seem to believe the opposite about the opposite--I couldn't find anything scientific on the question though.
posted by Chuckles at 12:11 AM on May 14, 2010

Also, the withdrawal method is 96% effective when done properly.

Effectiveness is an important and common concern when choosing a birth control method. Like all birth control methods, the pull out method is much more effective when you do it correctly.

* Of every 100 women whose partners use withdrawal, 4 will become pregnant each year if they always do it correctly.
* Of every 100 women whose partners use withdrawal, 27 will become pregnant each year if they don't always do it correctly

That's compared to 98% for condoms, according to the same site.
posted by delmoi at 12:28 AM on May 14, 2010

“Only a celibate could come up with the line: ‘at the point of ejaculation withdraw.’ Oh yeah!?! Is that right Father!?! Well let me tell you something: At the point of ejaculation there isn’t a bloody herd of wild horses that could make my arse go in that direction.”

- Billy Connelly
posted by hardcode at 1:31 AM on May 14, 2010 [5 favorites]

It's probably not entirely safe to link to Wikipedia when you're offering birth control advice. The odds may be small, but someone could check the page during the few minutes someone else's prank edits are visible. "Well, I don't have a condom, but we're in luck! Wikipedia says eating a bag of walnuts just before sex will reduce my sperm count to safe levels!"
posted by pracowity at 1:34 AM on May 14, 2010

“Only a celibate could come up with the line: ‘at the point of ejaculation withdraw.’

Or someone into ejaculating on rather than in his partner. (Which of course does not rule out Father Bukkaka.)
posted by pracowity at 1:41 AM on May 14, 2010

Or, come to think of it, someone who just wants you to get pregnant.

* Of every 100 women whose partners use withdrawal, 4 will become pregnant each year if they always do it correctly.
* Of every 100 women whose partners use withdrawal, 27 will become pregnant each year if they don't always do it correctly

An important third statistic: the percentage who don't always do it correctly is probably close to 100 over a year for any typically sexually active couple.
posted by pracowity at 1:47 AM on May 14, 2010

"We won't get pregnant..."

...if we saddleback.
posted by chillmost at 2:26 AM on May 14, 2010

...if we saddleback.

Have sex after sitting through a sermon in Rick Warren's church? You know, I'll sit through some pretty awful chick flicks, but there are lines I won't cross.
posted by indubitable at 5:23 AM on May 14, 2010

Also, the withdrawal method is 96% effective when done properly.

I don't know about you guys, but at the point that it's necessary to be most vigilant on technique, I'm at my least attentive. So, I guess I'm one of the guys that owes 23 women an apology.
posted by DigDoug at 5:48 AM on May 14, 2010

A friend of mine (F) was with a lad who told her "Don't worry, I won't get you pregnant." She told him to wrap it up, but the fact that he said that means that's worked before. What the HELL people.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:29 AM on May 14, 2010

indubitable, Google "saddlebacking". It ain't about the sermon.
posted by emjaybee at 7:22 AM on May 14, 2010

Yep, saddlebacking was incredibly popular at my HS...I distinctly remember one girl loudly and proudly telling the entire school bus about how she was a virgin still even though she and her boyfriend had anal.
posted by schyler523 at 7:33 AM on May 14, 2010

It's probably not entirely safe to link to Wikipedia when you're offering birth control advice.

If you're not actually going to click the links before snarking, you could at least hover over them to see where the URLs go.
posted by delmoi at 7:56 AM on May 14, 2010

I have a list of three types of people, that I plan to give my kids, about potential partners:

1. Clueless. This person wants to do the right thing, but has no knowledge of how conception and pregnancy work, although they may have bullshit theories, all of which are probably wrong. They may even seem really smart and really sure of themselves, because they don't know how clueless they really are. Your job, as a kid who actually knows this stuff, is to stand firm on your knowledge, and share your knowledge with them so they learn.

2. Hostile. This person may or may not have the knowledge, but even if they do, they won't use it -- because they don't care. If you get hurt physically or emotionally, if you get pregnant|she gets pregnant, if you have a good time, this person doesn't care, and will probably make you a social pariah once they're done using you. It is really hard to tell this person from a clueless person, because they will try to manipulate you. That's why it is so important to stand firm with a clueless person, because they may be a hostile person in disguise.

3. Overwhelmed. This person may have the best of intentions and all the correct knowledge in the world, but still make foolish choices in the heat of the moment, because hormones and sexual drives are powerful, and emotions can be overwhelming. You have to be careful, not only to be the strong one when you're with a partner like this, but also to realize that sometimes the overwhelmed person is going to be you, or both of you.

Obviously this is quite wordy, but I've got several years to distill this down into an elevator pitch.
posted by davejay at 8:01 AM on May 14, 2010 [5 favorites]

Elevator pitch: Trust knowledge not people.
posted by Babblesort at 8:30 AM on May 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

True story:

My fiancee's sister (who is going to be a teacher, oh joy!)(she's also 30) was talking to us about our impending little one, and she explained to us that she had just learned that in order to get pregnant, a girl has to be on the bottom during intercourse...and that if she really wants to get pregnant, she should raise her legs in the air after the act, and lay there for at least 30 minutes.

And then she told us how sex standing up can't get you pregnant.

I just...I mean. This is from the same family that tried to explain to me how they were going to get megarich because they had developed a machine that exploits the "extra" energy created in the conversion of AC to DC and back again, but that Allegheny Power was trying to prevent them from marketing it.

Same girl has had at least 2, but probably 3 abortions.

I should refer her to their site.
posted by TomMelee at 8:37 AM on May 14, 2010

The moral of the story is that you need to teach your kids about frottage.
posted by LogicalDash at 8:46 AM on May 14, 2010

As far as 'safe' sexual practices are concerned, I just wish Teabaggers couldn't have children..
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:52 AM on May 14, 2010

indubitable, Google "saddlebacking". It ain't about the sermon.

Apparently one in five people on MeFi don't "get" obvious jokes. FFS, dude, do you really think indubitable was serious? GUH!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:41 AM on May 14, 2010

Uh oh.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:05 PM on May 14, 2010

stands up, shakes fist at darkstar, then somehow gets impregnated

It's not mah bebbeh! Honest, Maury!
posted by darkstar at 6:14 PM on May 14, 2010

oneswellfoop: Good thing teabagging is perfectly free of pregnancy risk.
posted by MrFish at 7:31 PM on May 14, 2010

I took Accutane, which is apparently likely to cause horrific birth defects. The government mandates in the US you do all kinds of swearing you're not pregnant along with monthly blood tests and every refill you have to go through all the methods of not getting pregnant and how not to kill a rabbit.

I had been celibate for four years at that point, and I protested most heartily having to go through all this education for something that was purely theoretical for me. And besides, I told my dermatologist petulantly, everyone knows how not to get pregnant!

She looked at me with a face full of woe and started unloading a number of myths she had to debunk from her patients. The one that made me the saddest was the 'We can just use Saran Wrap instead of a condom.'

Thanks, abstinence only education! We really needed people to start making up their own crazy ways to avoid destroying their futures!
posted by winna at 8:22 PM on May 14, 2010

Teach your daughters how to put a condom on correctly (i.e., pinch the tip as you roll it on so there isn't an air bubble and the semen has somewhere to go). Many guys don't know how to do it right or get flustered and forget and that's why so many condoms break.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:28 PM on May 14, 2010

delmoi, the havsexstandingup.com site links to the wikipedia as their "facts" page with one of those neat little overlay things. I'm sure this is what pracowity was talking about.
posted by dabitch at 6:05 AM on May 15, 2010

It seems like the problem is that sites which give advice on how to get pregnant often specifically recommend making sure to have sex on your back with your hips raised or at least not standing up. If people who are avoiding getting pregnant are in contact with people who are trying to get pregnant, they may draw the perfectly logical conclusion that if it decreases your chances when you're trying to conceive, it will also decrease your chances when you're trying not to. So I dunno if I'd blame the abstinence only crowd so much as the fertility tricks crowd...
posted by mdn at 10:42 AM on May 15, 2010

Or it could be that a lot of people are stupid fuckers.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:10 PM on May 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Nah, they are just ignorant fuckers.
posted by Mitheral at 11:03 PM on May 16, 2010

Also, the withdrawal method is 96% effective when done properly.
That's compared to 98% for condoms, according to the same site.

In other words, even if done properly, the withdrawal method results in twice the likelihood of pregnancy that condom usage does.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:44 PM on May 18, 2010