Preventions: Part 1

Explicit content warning

04/13/25 • -1 min

The Many Pregnancy Prevention Options

By Everyday Health. Listen to the ► Podcast at How To Sex.

Contraception Options 101: Everything You Need to Know About Birth ControlHere’s the lowdown on pregnancy prevention with pills, patches, implants, and other types of birth control, plus information on effectiveness, availability, cost, and more.
By Cheryl Alkon; By John Paul McHugh, MD courtesy of American College of Lifestyle Medicine
Updated on August 28, 2023
It’s a fact: If you’re a woman, and you have sex with a man, it’s possible you’ll get pregnant. But if you don’t want to have a baby, there are many forms of birth control to help prevent pregnancy.

Birth Control: A Definition and Overview

While abstinence, or refraining from intercourse, is the only way to prevent pregnancy with 100 percent certainty, contraception, or birth control, comes in several different forms, both non-hormonal and hormonal.
Non-hormonal methods generally create a physical barrier between the sperm and the egg; a notable exception is the copper IUD, which changes the uterine environment but does not actually present a physical barrier. Two permanent contraception methods require surgery: sterilization, or tubal ligation, for women and vasectomy for men.
Hormonal methods generally prevent ovulation (the release of an egg), make it more difficult for sperm to enter the uterus, or prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
What’s the Best Birth Control Method?
“It varies, and it depends on you and your lifestyle,” says Keosha T. Bond, an assistant medical professor at The City University of New York School of Medicine in New York City. “I try to explain there’s no one-size-fits-all. It’s more, ‘What can I do, and how does my body react?’ There are so many contraceptive methods out there, but not every one will fit every person.”
How Effective Is Birth Control?
The effectiveness rate of various birth control methods is based on perfect use; meaning the method is used consistently and correctly every single time, and typical use, which includes people who use the method inconsistently or incorrectly.
Knowing what all your birth control options are will help you and your partner choose what works best for you. “I think it’s awesome to be talking about it. A lot of people just don’t know” about birth control, says Christine Carlan Greves, MD, an obstetrician and gynecologist with Orlando Health in Florida.

Birth Control Methods: All Your Contraception Options

Here’s a look at the various kinds of birth control available today.
Hormonal Birth Control

Contraceptive methods that use hormones alter how your body works in order to prevent pregnancy. These range from daily-use options, such as birth control pills, to long-term-use approaches, such as hormonal IUDs, which can stay in place for several years, says Dr. Bond.
Hormonal Contraception Option: Birth Control Pills
There are two types of birth control pills: combination pills that contain both estrogen and a form of progesterone called progestin, as well as progestin-only pills (also known as the mini pill).
The pills work by preventing ovulation, so there is no egg for sperm to fertilize, or by thickening cervical mucus so sperm cannot travel to an egg.
Birth control pills need to be taken every day as directed. Most types of progestin-only pills must be taken within the same three-hour time window every day. Some pills can also be used to stop your period.
How effective are birth control pills? Combined and progestin-only birth control pills are more than 99 percent ef...

The Many Pregnancy Prevention Options

Birth Control: A Definition and Overview

Birth Control Methods: All Your Contraception Options

Here’s a look at the various kinds of birth control available today.
Hormonal Birth Control

Previous Episode

Broken Cock

Recklessness ruptured my plumbing, and permanently curtailed my sex life.

By Anonymous. Listen to the Podcast at How To Sex.

I Fucked up.

I am writing this mainly because there is not a lot of information about this particular injury

Around October of last year I was having sex with my girlfriend, when I thrust too hard at the wrong angle and tore my Urethra and two blood vessels in my penis.

When the injury first occurred I was close to climaxing. Because of this, when the injury happened and the blood vessels and urethra were torn, blood started mixing into my urethra. I was cumming blood

I was not in pain but I could feel that my dick was not pointing in the right direction and turned on the lights, blood was everywhere and pouring out of me at an alarming rate (think you’re cumming but it doesn’t stop and its blood)

At this point I’m panicking and yell out that I need to go to the hospital immediately.

I throw on loose pants without zipping them up, a hoodie, and grab a towel to soak the blood that’s coming out. Then me and my girl go to the hospital.

The hospital near me specialized in bodily injury and doesn’t have the type of urologist doctor that I need to see, so I have to drive 30 minutes away to the closest hospital that has a Urology department.

Once I get to this secondary hospital, I am immediately taken in and put into a room of my own once they see my dick; and about an hour later I see a Urologist who runs some tests and tells me about the ruptured urethra and blood vessels.

I need surgery.

The surgery is a process called “de gloving” where they “de-glove” the skin around your penis, roll it down, and make an incision into the underside of the skin and go in and stitch up the torn vessels and urethra, these are dissolvable stitches and they stay in your penis until they go away on their own.

About 8 hours later I actually went into surgery, I don’t remember anything. I was wheeled into the operating room and the anesthesiologist cracked a dumb joke, and then I was out.

I woke up with my penis wrapped up in bandages and a catheter in me. If you have never had to use a catheter, count yourself lucky. I was told I needed to keep the catheter in for 10 days.

These were the longest 10 days of my life. If you asked me what the pain was on a scale of 1-10, it was 7 with the opioids, and 11 without them.

Any little movement with my penis and I got searing pain. Wearing any type of clothes was out because I just could not take it, I was pretty much naked during those ten days. Anytime the catheter twisted? Pain. Anytime I had to roll out of bed to go get something from the fridge? Pain.

Worst of all? Erections.

As the men reading this will know, erections are not really voluntary, we just get them sometimes. Morning wood is a real thing and its not controllable.

Want to know what getting an erection feels like when you have stitches in your dick and a catheter? Worse than words could ever explain.

I woke up screaming three times a night. I would tear something and I could see the stale blood along the catheter as my erections came and went. The blood became crispy, and if I didn’t clean it when it happened, the next erection would be 5 times as painful because it would grow along the stale, sharp leftover blood on the catheter.

I quickly learned how to kill erections, but it was still really bad. I’m actually leaving out some details because I’m not fully recovered yet and the phantom pain comes back as I’m trying to recall it.

As of today, I have the catheter out and can walk around again, but erections are still painful, I imagine that will go away in the next few weeks.

Yes, You Really Can Fracture a Penis shaft — Here's What That Means

Proceed with caution if you're squeamish.

BY SOPHIE SAINT THOMAS - 2018

There are a lot of sexual myths out there, but doctors confirm that broken penises aren't one of them. Remember when Lexie Grey supposedly broke Mark Sloan's penis back when all our favorite characters on Grey's Anatomy were still alive? Nope, Shonda Rhimes wasn't making that up. While there aren't actually bones in the penis, a penile fracture is a real-life injury. We spoke to several urologists to learn how it happens, what a broken penis looks like, and how to treat one.

What exactly is a fractured penis (often known as a "broken dick")?

First, a quick refresher on what inside a penis can break in the first place: A penis co...