LogFAQs > #940480021

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Conflating the risk of pregnancy wrt prophylactics and the risk of STDs is pretty disingenuous...

The risk of pregnancy with prophylactics or birth control is very, very low. With respect to STDs, if you know your status you can avoid trouble but you're right in that it's still a risk.

If we stick with just pregnancy the numbers are about the same.

If you use condoms perfectly every single time you have sex, they're 98% effective at preventing pregnancy. But people aren't perfect, so in real life condoms are about 85% effective that means about 15 out of 100 people who use condoms as their only birth control method will get pregnant each year.

Some people consider "the pull out method" safe sex, and that has an even worse rate

For every 100 people who use the pull out method perfectly, 4 will get pregnant. But pulling out can be difficult to do perfectly. So in real life, about 22 out of 100 people who use withdrawal get pregnant every year

Let's go to "the pill"

If you use it perfectly, the pill is 99% effective. But people aren't perfect and it's easy to forget or miss pills so in reality the pill is about 91% effective. That means about 9 out of 100 pill users get pregnant each year.

So when people say "oh I do safe sex" the things they are talking about have like a 9-22% chance of creating a baby. Bringing a human life into the world. How can anybody in good conscious treat that as effectively 0%? Because that's what most people do.

---

"joe is attractive and quite the brilliant poster" - Seiichi Omori
https://imgur.com/TheGsZ9