June 1, 2019 • 35 mins
A while back, a court decision to lift age restrictions on purchasing Plan B emergency contraception set off a firestorm of controversy. In light of current events, let's revisit this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and this is Samantha, and welcome
to Stuff. I'm never told to your production of Iheartradios
How Stuff Works. We have another Saturday Classic episode today,
and as we've mentioned and previous Classic episode, Um, we're
(00:28):
talking about abortion a lot lately in this country and
on this very show, so we're we're playing some of
the episodes that past host have done around this topic,
and for this one, this episode delves into Plan B, Yes,
which has come under fire, is involved in some of
(00:51):
these really restrictive abortion laws that we're seeing in right,
and the access of Plan B has been less and
less per state. Yeah. Um, I know Samantha B did
that joke of her like walking out the day after
Donald Trump was elected with all of the plans. Oh,
and it's I think it's skyrocketed in Amazon. That's one
(01:14):
of the first things that people looked up and stocked
up on and you could get like multi packs. Wow. Yeah, yeah,
that's really exciting. I'm both not surprised and just hadn't
really thought about buying Plan BE on Amazon. But yeah,
when I found that out, I think it was actually
Caroline from a ladylike former host of Stuff Mom that
I told you she was the one like, yeah, I'm
looking at it up right now, and oh maybe I
(01:35):
should do the same. Yeah, yeah, maybe I should do
what a what a positive state of affairs? The conversation
was when does it expires? Was the date? That was
another conversation, Yes, and another conversation that comes up sometimes
around this And what this episode is about, UM is
the argument that Plan B access is bad for girls
(01:59):
right right, So to to learn more about that argument,
we present to you this classic episode and we hope
that you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told
You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
(02:21):
to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline and Caroline.
A couple of years ago on the podcast, we did
an episode on the Morning After pill and what it
is UH, and we're going to revisit the Morning After
pill and specifically the branded Plan B emergency contraception because
(02:42):
it has made some headlines of late and we want
to talk about the legal debate surrounding access to Plan BE,
specifically access for younger girls UM. And also what emergency
contraception is Yeah, because prebviously UM Morning after pills, the
(03:03):
more appropriate name being emergency contraception because you don't have
to necessarily take them the morning after. The whole rigamarole
was that they were only available to girls seventeen and
up with an i D and a prescription. So the
evolution becomes that the FDA basically says it's okay for everybody.
They study the safety and efficacy, they say it's okay.
The administration kind of freaks out. The Obama administration kind
(03:26):
of freaks out. That's it's not okay for everybody. It's
oh my god, we have so many things to worry about.
We can't just be handing out drugs like candy. The
f d A in response, kind of tucks their tail,
and then we get a whole bunch of lawsuits. That's
that's kind of glossing over how everything's evolved. Now. What
we're dealing with is this push to get rid of
age restrictions versus the push to maintain the older age
(03:49):
limit with I D. And what's interesting about this fight
that we'll get into is that both sides, For instance,
groups like the Family Research Council and groups like Planned
Parenthood are both saying that this is an argument of
politics versus science and they're both both sides are accusing
each other of putting politics before what is best for
(04:11):
our children. Yeah, and that's a Family Research Council obviously
representing more of the conservative side of things, whereas Planned
Parenthood is arguing more on the the liberal side of stuff.
Not just to to boil it down to black and white,
but the drug in question that we're talking about is
called leave on a gestural and we hear about it
(04:32):
under the brand name Plan B. And just for a
little bit of historical context, emergency contraception is nothing new
to medicine. It's not like doctors recently figured out, oh,
you know what, we can actually uh give women a
drug that could halt the egg from being fertilized after
(04:53):
they have unprotected sex or in the case of sexual assault.
And this brief timeline is coming from the paper Emergency Contraception,
An Underutilized Resource out of the University of Wisconsin's School
of Medicine and Public Health, and it talks about how
hormonal emergency contraception was first studied in the nineteen twenties,
when researchers figured out that estrogenic ovarian extracts interfered with
(05:18):
pregnancy in animals, and so it started out as a
high dose estrogen only formula, and vets were the first
ones to use it on dogs and horses who had
made it when the owner didn't intend to not with
each other. Right, I had to read that twice. I'm
not I'm not joking. It's like dogs and horror. Okay,
So dogs and dogs and horses were the first, the
(05:42):
first UH animals to receive this kind of emergency contraception.
And let's not forget though, about how women took emergency
contraception into their own hands even before the FDA had
a drug approved if douching, as we talked about in
(06:02):
one of our favorite stuff Mo've Never Told You episodes,
Down with the Douche Apparently not only did it, we
talked about in the podcast about how women would douche
with lysol and a lysol competitor, Zone Night, and apparently
also with Coca cola. It is abrasive. Yes, we are
(06:23):
in no way endorsing any of that. Don't do that.
We're just saying that it happened. Keep coke on ice,
not in your vagina, and that's a quote we can wrap. Yeah, Okay,
So moving on through the sixties and seventies, there was
a lot of research done on different combinations of drugs
(06:43):
to prevent UH pregnancy, and in the mid sixties we
have the first documented human clinical cases of postquotal estrogens,
and this is when doctors in the Netherlands use that
veterinarian proved method on a thirteen year old girl who
had been raped in order to prevent pregnancy. But by
the late nineteen sixties in the US, high dose estrogen
(07:04):
regiments became the standard, and then going into the seventies,
we have the development of regiments that are a combination
of estrogen and progestine. In nineteen seventy four, some of
our older listeners might be familiar with the use Pay method.
This was named for Canadian Dr Albert use Pay, which
was an estrogen progestine combination and it replaced for a
(07:27):
while the high dose estrogen treatments because it had fewer
side effects. And now Plan B is a progestin only
formula and it has greater efficacy in terms of blocking
that pregnancy as well as fewer side effects, and in
the US Food and Drug Administration approved Plan B with
(07:52):
a prescription and since two thousand nine, the FDA has
approved it for over the counter sales for women seventeen
years old and over, and in two thousand eleven, this
is when the legalities start to get really dicey. In
two thousand and eleven, Health and Human Services Director Kathleen
Sibelius blocks Plan B slash one step from being available
(08:15):
to all women of all ages over the counter, and
has happened in response to an application from drug maker Tiva,
who makes Plan b UM. When the FDA went back
and looked at it and recommended that it be made
available to all women, saying that it's very safe, and
so Sibelia says, you know what, I'm going to overrule that,
(08:38):
And in response, reproductive rights groups such as Planned Parenthood
sued the Health and Human Services Department for that. And
so in the middle of all of this we have
Judge Edward Corman of the District Court of Eastern New York,
who was the one who in April five, two thousand
thirteen this year, overturned the US Health and Service Says
(09:00):
ruling to put an age limit on obtaining Plan B.
So it's just been it's it's almost like watching a
ping pong match between the courts and the f d A,
and then also you have Health and Human Services stepping in,
and so people are kind of on the one hand
flipping out saying, you know what, we need to put
some kind of age restriction on it. But the interesting
(09:21):
thing is Judge Edward Corman, who has been presiding over
this whole plan B legality since two thousand five in
terms of overseeing whether or not it should be made
available to everyone, he is basically at the end of
his rope with all of this. Uh, there is an
NPR story about this, and it's sites from the legal
(09:44):
brief that he wrote. The effort to convert these leave
on adjustural based contraceptives from prescription to over the counter
status has gone on for over twelve years, even though
they would be among the safest drugs available to children
and adults on any drug store shelf. And and and then
he signed it with a giant snap. No really, I
(10:05):
mean I read the entire brief, his recent brief, and
it was not only fascinating and enlightening, uh kind of
get a better understanding of what's going on politically and
in the courts about this whole issue right now. But
it was just the most entertaining thing I may have
ever read outside of a David Sadari's book, because I mean,
(10:26):
this is like the most intelligent snark in the world.
Judge Corman basically calls Sibelius's decision to overrule the strike
of the age limit as politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and
contrary to agency precedent. He goes on to say that, look,
it's really only the f d A that has the
(10:48):
necessary information and expertise to make these decisions about the
safety and efficacy of drugs. A principle he says that
Sibelius flagrantly violated, and so in response to the defendants,
who are you know, Sibelius and the Commissioner of Food
and Drugs seeking a stay of the the strike of
(11:09):
the age rules to pursue an appeal, he says it's
something out of an alternate reality and says that one
of their arguments that if you let it go over
the counter now and then reverse it later without a stay,
it's largely an insult to the intelligence of women, because
he's like, dudes, you're the ones who have made this
process for obtaining Plan B so freaking confusing, and some
(11:32):
abroad the fact that it's telling that Corman is having
such an intense response against the Obama administration's wish for
that fifteen year old age limit on it. Because Corman
was appointed by President Reagan, so he was part of,
you know, a more politically conservative administration's appointments, and so
(11:56):
they're saying, well, you know, if he if he's freaking
out over this, maybe also for me thinking about being
on the same case since two thousand five, maybe he
just needs a vacation. Perhaps he's just tired of but
he frustration leads to some of the beautiful things that
he wrote. I'm okay with it. I highly recommend you
search out this brief and read it now. Of course,
(12:30):
in April, when Judge Corman said, you know what, enough
of all this, you need to make Plan B available
over the counter to all women of all ages. Also
side note, men, you can buy Plan B as well. Um.
But of course when he said, you know, the age
(12:51):
limit should be removed, Q freak out because not only
do you have well you have that. And then the
Obama administration coming back and saying, nope, we're gonna have
a fifteen year old cap for that, and you're gonna
need an i D so Planned Parenthood said in response
basically like thanks, but you know what, you need to
lift all restrictions to this. And then on the more
(13:13):
conservative side, you have Concerned Women for America saying, well,
if Plan B is so safe, then why do we
need prescriptions for birth control? Huh? Yeah, they they get
a little snarky. Also, this is like a big theme
among this this debate is some snark. The Concerned Women
for America wrote that the same quote women's rights advocates
who want every decision to be between quote a woman
(13:35):
and her doctor, are now eliminating the doctor and putting
politics ahead of our kids. To see, there's that debate
of like everybody's accusing everybody else of being too political
in this discussion, right, And then the more liberal National
Women's Law Center said, Hey, you know, with this whole
I D issue, women who don't have i d s
are going to be denied access That could create problems.
(13:58):
How many fifteen year olds do we know who already
have I d s? And even if you you know,
if if one of us, for instance Carolina, older women
who are plenty above the age limit to get Planned B,
if we go to the drug store and all of
a sudden, oh, you know what, actually we've forgot our
I D. Then we can't get it. The whole timing
issue with the access to emergency contraception is important. Even
(14:22):
if it means oh, well you gotta leave and then
you might have to come back the next day. Well,
in the time that has passed, that low worse the
efficacy rates of emergency contraception. So this timing issue is
very important. Um and then we have people from the
Family Research Council saying, well, you know what, what about
what this hormone is gonna do to the pre pubescent
(14:42):
female body, because really a lot of this ties into
fear of whether or not access to emergency contraception over
the counter without an I D two girls of all
ages is somehow going to set off as domino effect
in younger girls brains that oh, you know what, I
(15:03):
can start having sex whenever, because if something happens, then
I can just go to Walgreens the next day and
take care of it. So the Family Research Council points
out that plan be distances the girls who are at
high risk of sexual abuse and s T I S
from the medical supervision they need. And I think That's
(15:25):
an important question of access because are these girls who
the Family Research Council is so concerned about, are they
even getting medical intervention? Do they even have access to it?
Are they able to go to the doctor and ask
questions and get a prescription for this stuff? Um? I mean,
what group of people are we talking about? Not everybody?
(15:47):
Not every Uh young girls parents are involved in her
life and can drive her to a pharmacy, you know. Well,
And when I was I was listening to Dan Savage
talking about this not too long ago, and he brought
up a pretty distressing but relevant point of let's say, Okay,
a girl is raped by her father and then she
(16:09):
has to turn around and ask him to drive her
to the drug store to go get planned beat you
know what I mean. Like, it's it's pretty telling to that.
In November of two thousand twelve, the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommended that advanced emergency contraception prescriptions be allowed because
kids are more likely to use it when that's the case.
(16:32):
Like basically, if if it's already there, if they have it,
then if something happens, then they're more likely to use it,
which is one reason why new York Times parenting blogger
kJ del Antonia suggested that maybe you know what, as parents,
maybe we need to go ahead and just stock up
on Plan B at home, and she advised that it
be kind of as hard as it would to maintain this,
(16:52):
it being no questions asked. Policy like, just come come
to me and come get it if you need it,
and we'll deal with it. Then just tell her, you know,
tell your daughter that you that you have it and
why you hope she'll never need it. Yeah, And I
mean one thing to to point out with with these
understandable concerns about opening up a gateway to young girls,
(17:15):
girls who you know, it might not be a good
idea for them to be sexually active at such young
ages when we're thinking about girls under fifteen possibly needing
emergency contraception. But the Goodmaker Institute also highlights that very
few young girls are sexually active. Only point three percent
(17:36):
of ten year olds, point six percent of eleven year olds,
one point three percent of twelve year olds, and three
point four percent of thirteen year olds are sexually active.
But something happens between thirteen and fourteen, where that percentage
jumps from three point four percent of thirteen year olds
to eight point six percent of fourteen year olds, and
(17:57):
in two thousand and eight there were over ten send
pregnancies among fourteen year old girls in the United States.
But among all that, there is no evidence that that
jump has anything to do with the availability of emergency
contraception exactly. But at the same time, it says, you
know what, putting this fifteen year old age restriction does
(18:18):
leave out a population that could be in need. Now,
before we get into some of the reasons why Plan
B is really just part of a broader discussion that
we need to be having if we really do want
to address lowering unintended pregnancy rates and specifically team pregnancy
in the United States, let's take a quick detour though,
(18:41):
to talk about what exactly emergency contraception is. This is
something that we covered in our two thousand ten episode
What Is the Morning After Pill? But it's worth going
over right now as well. Right So, Plan B, like
we said, contained the justin hormone called leave an adjustrial,
(19:02):
and you should take it as soon as possible, typically
less than seventy two hours after unprotected sex. But it
is worth noting that if you're already pregnant. It will
not harm the embryo. You will experience some side effects, though,
the most common of which are nausea and vomiting. You
might also experience abdominal pain, breast tenderness, dizziness, fatigue, headaches,
(19:23):
and irregular bleeding. Yes, emergency contraception is not, I repeat,
not the same thing as a medicated abortion um and
most women are satisfied with the results of Plan B.
There's a nine study which found that of emergency contraceptive
(19:43):
users would recommend it actually to friends and family. But
it is not cheap though. That's another thing with this
whole you know question about access. We're all freaking out, well,
you know what, Uh, fifteen year olds or fourteen year
olds might not even be able to afford it if
they were even allowed to buy it, because it ranges
is from fifty to sixty dollars. And one thing too,
that Judge Corman is concerned about is the fact that
(20:05):
this over the counter stuff is only affecting one brand
and not a generic, and that is going to do
absolutely nothing to possibly lower the price of emergency contraceptives
and may in fact have the market effect of increasing
the price. Because TIVA that drug maker can say, oh, well,
you know what, we're the only OTC brand, so you're
gonna have to pay what we say, which is awful. Yeah.
(20:30):
But other methods include the Paraguard copper i U D,
which must be inserted five days after unprotected sex and
is one of the best emergency contraception methods UH. They're
also combination birth control pills estro with estrogen and progestine,
which you have to take less than five days after
unprotected sex. And these methods typically prevent pregnancy by preventing
(20:53):
or delaying ovulation, blocking fertilization, and preventing a fertilized egg
from implanting in the uterus. Again, it's not terminating a
pre existing pregnancy, right, And in terms of the success rate,
it depends on that time factor that we talked about. Generally,
one to two out of women who use emergency contraception
(21:17):
will still get pregnant. Um It may also delay their
period for a week. But then if your period doesn't
come around for three to four weeks, you have a
dominant pain, you have a spotting, doctors say, you know,
you need to go ahead and take a pregnancy test,
but those success rates will diminish. The longer that you
wait to take emergency contraception, get the paraguard I U D,
(21:41):
use the combination birth control pills, whatever your doctor, nurse
practitioner recommends in that case. Okay, so we've told you
a little bit about the fight that's going on over
Plan B, and we've looked at other methods of emergency contraception,
but we haven't talked about maybe the downside of Plan
B and how it's not just a cure all for
(22:03):
all that ails us um. It doesn't. It's not a
panacea for lowering unintended pregnancy and team pregnancy rates because,
as we talked about, there are a lot of barriers
to access, not just the idea and prescription, but also
the costs. And this is coming from New York Times
writer Rony Karen Raven who wrote that a lot of
(22:23):
studies suggest that many women don't even know a morning
after pill exists, or if they do know it exists,
they literally think it only works the morning after, right.
And these studies also point out that the patterns of
use generally don't really do much at all to diminish
unintended pregnancy rates, because emergency contraceptive use is highest among
(22:47):
women with the lowest risk of pregnancy, because usually the
women who go and get the morning after pill and
take it are the ones who are already practicing safe
sex and maybe the condom broke or something happened, they
forgot to take their birth control pill and had sex.
And you know, there are women who were already mindful
(23:08):
of preventing unintended pregnancy, and so they then go and
get emergency contraception, so their actual risk of pregnancy is
very low. The issue is about getting it into women's
hands sooner, and also these women filling that education gap
among girls and women who you know, think that it
either only has that twenty four hour window or don't
(23:31):
really know that it exists. Yeah, and a lot of
the argument against h granting access to Plan B two
younger girls, a lot of that fear has to do
with kind of culturally ingrained fears about casual sex, team pregnancy,
single motherhood, taking parents and doctors out of the decision
(23:53):
to take this medicine. And all of that is summed
up in one quote in The New York Times from
Dr Mary Avenport, the recent president of the American Association
of Pro Life Obstetrictions and kinnecologists who said fear of
pregnancy is a deterrent to sexual activity. When you introduce
something like this, it changes people's behaviors and they have
(24:13):
more risky sex. Teams will be counting on this morning
after pill to bail them out, and they'll have more
casual encounters. And I'm sorry, that's just unlikely because of
everything we just talked about, not only the lack of
awareness that it even exists, but so many barriers to
acts of well. And also the fact of the matter is,
studies have looked into the connection between access to emergency
(24:36):
contraception and quote unquote risky sexual behavior and the correlation
does not stand. I mean, I feel like, like I
get a little frustrated when people seem to assume that women,
some women just think of abortion, medicated abortion, emergency contraception,
(24:58):
all of these things that are not pleasant processes for
our bodies as just pleasant parachutes that we can just use.
You know, Hey, we wanna just have some risk of
sexual behavior, but it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna have
ab cramps and abnormal bleeding for a little while. But
it's fine, like a small price to pay. I don't
know that that many women are thinking like that, but
(25:22):
my personal thoughts aside. The American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists have said point blank that making emergency contraception more
readily available does not promote risky sexual behavior or increase
the rate of unintended pregnancy among adolescents. Ready access of
(25:43):
emergency contraception among adolescents is not associated with lower hormonal
contraceptive use, lower condom use, or more unprotected sex. It
seems like, in fact, like we said with that study
finding that it's the women who have the lowest risk
of pregnancy who are actually the highest users of ec
(26:05):
emergency contraception, that that would probably extend down to teen
populations as well. It's more about providing comprehensive sex ed
because really the fact of the matter is this is
I mean, it's emergency conscious. It's called emergency contraception for
a reason because the focus really should be on consistent
(26:28):
use of reliable forms of contraception, right, and and you
talked about, um, you know, the groups of women who
are getting easy access to this are maybe not the
ones who need it the most. Philip Levine and Melissa
Kearney for an article in the Atlantic talked about how
this issue is really bigger than just contraception. The teen
(26:49):
pregnancy rate issue is so much bigger than just having
access to contraception like emergency contraception. For instance. They wrote
that policies like access to plan be family planning, abstinence only, education,
and sex said, don't really address the fundamental economic and
(27:10):
social issues that drive teen pregnancy um. They argue that
we have to improve educational attainment for young girls, show
them valid reasons to delay motherhood, and prove to them
that they have a reason to invest in their future
and not just say well, I'm never going to get
out of this small town, I'm never going to have money,
I'm never going to find a man worthy of marrying.
(27:32):
Why not have a baby now? Right? And they're saying
this because the fact of the matter is that girls
from disadvantaged backgrounds, from lower socio economic groups, who live
in places with a larger gap between the poor and
middle class are much more likely to give birth as
teens than girls who have similar backgrounds but face less inequality. Yes, so,
(27:54):
income inequality leads to lower economic mobility, which results in
girls who don't see a chance to better their lives
so they are the ones who are more likely to
have a child. So it's not just that they're like
going out and having risky sex, you know, for whatever,
They're not necessarily being so cavalier about it. But it's like, well,
you know what, what else? You know, what else is there? Right?
(28:18):
And I mean with all of this, it's no one
is arguing that, you know, kids should be having sex
at younger ages, or that we should be a cavalier
at all in our approach to sex or having risky
sexual behavior. One thing that we have not mentioned about
emergency contraception is that hello, it does not protect against
(28:39):
STDs and s t I, s UM. So it's but
it's just part of this broader contraceptive education that it's
not just team girls who needed, it's all of us.
And also gets at a massive fear and discomfort over
teen sexuality, which as much as as adults, I'm sure
(29:00):
you know, there's a lot of repression going on. You
don't want to think about kids having sex. But it's like,
what are we gonna do do You either pretend that
it's not there and just hope to put the fear
of you might get pregnant and end up in a
terrible situation and hope to god they just never have sex,
which is unrealistic because hormones exist, or you educate them
(29:24):
and you grant access and you hopefully are you know,
a wise and brave parent. I say that on an
up end because it is such a huge challenge. But
the answer isn't fear. And I feel like a lot
of the combat against this kind of stuff of access
(29:45):
to Plan B is very fear motivated because kids are
gonna do what kids are gonna do, you know. And again,
I think, you know, to tie all of this up, uh,
it's sort of like when we talked about the topic
of a abortion a long time ago on the podcast.
It's like, that's not the ideal situation. You know, that's
(30:06):
never an emergency. Contraception is not the ideal situation. That's
why it's the emergency, like we said. But you know,
I'm now I'm just repeating myself. Now, Well, I mean
people aren't popping it like Candy. I mean, you know,
like young girls aren't just going out and having sex
like you said and being like oh it's okay, I'll
just go get an abortion tomorrow, or I'll just go
get emergency contraception at the at the drug store. It's fine.
(30:28):
You know, I think that's far less common than than
something accidental has happened or something terrible has happened. And
you know, like we saw with that huge jump in
sexual activity and pregnancy race with fourteen year olds, we
are by by setting what seems to me to be
an arbitrary age limit of fifteen, we're shutting out a
(30:51):
huge group of girls who need access. Yeah, access and
and just education all around. Um. So we're recording this
episode in May. You are listening to it right now
in June. So I'll be curious to see it between
now and when this podcast publishes, if there will be
(31:13):
any movement legally. But I have a suspicion that the
age limit will be lifted. I think at some point
that will go away. But I want to hear from
listeners about this access. I mean, is is it too
is it too young? You know it should fifteen? Is
it fine to leave that age limit at fifteen? Parents?
What do you do? Would you do? As that in
(31:36):
Why Times parenting blogger advice and say maybe we should
just stock it for them? Hey, why not? Um, let
us sell your thoughts on this more political than we
usually go issue. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot Com is
where you can send your letters. We'd also love to
hear from you on Facebook or you can tweet us
at Mom's Stuff podcast. And before we get to a
(31:59):
couple of mess y'all have sent us, let's take just
a quick break and we'll be right back. And now
back to our letters. Well, it got a couple of
(32:21):
letters here, and the first one I have is in
response to an episode we did quite a while ago
on a sexuality, and this is from Victory who wrote
in saying I just wanted to thank you for your
excellent podcasts and helping me understand my a sexuality. They've
seen me through many a Monday morning and taught me
so much about myself in the world from a feminist perspective.
(32:43):
When you released your podcast on a sexuality, that was
actually when I figured out that I was a sexual
and everything that you described was what I had been experiencing.
That was quite an eye opening experience for me because
I finally realized where all of the confusion involving my
sexuality came from. I came out to my friends when
I was fifteen and had been openly a sexual ever since.
(33:04):
Thanks again for everything, and thank you for writing in Okay.
I have an letter here from Ashley. She says, I'm
a biologist living in Baltimore, and I have an interesting
topic that I hear from men now that I'm married.
I call it the wedding ring phenomenon. I first heard
about it right before we moved to Baltimore. We were
having a goodbye dinner with a couple of friends when
(33:26):
the guy, let's call him John, told us about how
he will wear a wedding ring while trying to pick
up women. I thought it was appalling and completely ludicrous,
but my husband thought it made sense. The next time
I heard about it, it it was from my husband's old boss,
and more recently from his current boss. Apparently, they think
that men wearing rings are considered ideal mates and that
(33:46):
women will be attracted to them and hit on them.
I don't agree with this at all. Back when I
was single, when I saw a ring, I immediately thought
that property has taken and moved on. My husband thinks
that is more of a male view and believes that
most other women think differently. He believes that when the
average females he's a male with a wedding ring that
she thinks that he must have desirable traits and then
(34:08):
immediately wants the desirable man and acts on that desire.
I was curious if you know of any research backing
this wedding ring phenomenon or if the men in my
life are just full of themselves. If you do find
any research, she says, then I have some questions. Does
it work both ways? Does it only happen between straight people?
And to that, I say, we do have some answers,
(34:30):
and if you want to read them, you should go
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com
and you know, check out some cool stuff while you're there,
including answers to wedding ring phenomenon. Yeah, and um, while
you're at it, if you want to drop us a
line about what whether or not you have ever witnessed
this wedding ring phenomenon in action, you can email us again.
(34:51):
Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can
send your letters. We also love to hear from you
on Facebook and on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and
like Caroline said, we're tumbler as well. You can follow
us where It's stuff I'm Never Told You dot tumbler
dot com, and don't forget to watch us three times
a week coming at you on YouTube. A YouTube dot
com slash stuff mom never told you. Go on over
(35:12):
there and subscribe for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com
Hey, this is Annie and this is Samantha, and welcome
to Stuff. I'm never told to your production of Iheartradios
How Stuff Works. We have another Saturday Classic episode today,
and as we've mentioned and previous Classic episode, Um, we're
(00:28):
talking about abortion a lot lately in this country and
on this very show, so we're we're playing some of
the episodes that past host have done around this topic,
and for this one, this episode delves into Plan B, Yes,
which has come under fire, is involved in some of
(00:51):
these really restrictive abortion laws that we're seeing in right,
and the access of Plan B has been less and
less per state. Yeah. Um, I know Samantha B did
that joke of her like walking out the day after
Donald Trump was elected with all of the plans. Oh,
and it's I think it's skyrocketed in Amazon. That's one
(01:14):
of the first things that people looked up and stocked
up on and you could get like multi packs. Wow. Yeah, yeah,
that's really exciting. I'm both not surprised and just hadn't
really thought about buying Plan BE on Amazon. But yeah,
when I found that out, I think it was actually
Caroline from a ladylike former host of Stuff Mom that
I told you she was the one like, yeah, I'm
looking at it up right now, and oh maybe I
(01:35):
should do the same. Yeah, yeah, maybe I should do
what a what a positive state of affairs? The conversation
was when does it expires? Was the date? That was
another conversation, Yes, and another conversation that comes up sometimes
around this And what this episode is about, UM is
the argument that Plan B access is bad for girls
(01:59):
right right, So to to learn more about that argument,
we present to you this classic episode and we hope
that you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told
You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
(02:21):
to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline and Caroline.
A couple of years ago on the podcast, we did
an episode on the Morning After pill and what it
is UH, and we're going to revisit the Morning After
pill and specifically the branded Plan B emergency contraception because
(02:42):
it has made some headlines of late and we want
to talk about the legal debate surrounding access to Plan BE,
specifically access for younger girls UM. And also what emergency
contraception is Yeah, because prebviously UM Morning after pills, the
(03:03):
more appropriate name being emergency contraception because you don't have
to necessarily take them the morning after. The whole rigamarole
was that they were only available to girls seventeen and
up with an i D and a prescription. So the
evolution becomes that the FDA basically says it's okay for everybody.
They study the safety and efficacy, they say it's okay.
The administration kind of freaks out. The Obama administration kind
(03:26):
of freaks out. That's it's not okay for everybody. It's
oh my god, we have so many things to worry about.
We can't just be handing out drugs like candy. The
f d A in response, kind of tucks their tail,
and then we get a whole bunch of lawsuits. That's
that's kind of glossing over how everything's evolved. Now. What
we're dealing with is this push to get rid of
age restrictions versus the push to maintain the older age
(03:49):
limit with I D. And what's interesting about this fight
that we'll get into is that both sides, For instance,
groups like the Family Research Council and groups like Planned
Parenthood are both saying that this is an argument of
politics versus science and they're both both sides are accusing
each other of putting politics before what is best for
(04:11):
our children. Yeah, and that's a Family Research Council obviously
representing more of the conservative side of things, whereas Planned
Parenthood is arguing more on the the liberal side of stuff.
Not just to to boil it down to black and white,
but the drug in question that we're talking about is
called leave on a gestural and we hear about it
(04:32):
under the brand name Plan B. And just for a
little bit of historical context, emergency contraception is nothing new
to medicine. It's not like doctors recently figured out, oh,
you know what, we can actually uh give women a
drug that could halt the egg from being fertilized after
(04:53):
they have unprotected sex or in the case of sexual assault.
And this brief timeline is coming from the paper Emergency Contraception,
An Underutilized Resource out of the University of Wisconsin's School
of Medicine and Public Health, and it talks about how
hormonal emergency contraception was first studied in the nineteen twenties,
when researchers figured out that estrogenic ovarian extracts interfered with
(05:18):
pregnancy in animals, and so it started out as a
high dose estrogen only formula, and vets were the first
ones to use it on dogs and horses who had
made it when the owner didn't intend to not with
each other. Right, I had to read that twice. I'm
not I'm not joking. It's like dogs and horror. Okay,
So dogs and dogs and horses were the first, the
(05:42):
first UH animals to receive this kind of emergency contraception.
And let's not forget though, about how women took emergency
contraception into their own hands even before the FDA had
a drug approved if douching, as we talked about in
(06:02):
one of our favorite stuff Mo've Never Told You episodes,
Down with the Douche Apparently not only did it, we
talked about in the podcast about how women would douche
with lysol and a lysol competitor, Zone Night, and apparently
also with Coca cola. It is abrasive. Yes, we are
(06:23):
in no way endorsing any of that. Don't do that.
We're just saying that it happened. Keep coke on ice,
not in your vagina, and that's a quote we can wrap. Yeah, Okay,
So moving on through the sixties and seventies, there was
a lot of research done on different combinations of drugs
(06:43):
to prevent UH pregnancy, and in the mid sixties we
have the first documented human clinical cases of postquotal estrogens,
and this is when doctors in the Netherlands use that
veterinarian proved method on a thirteen year old girl who
had been raped in order to prevent pregnancy. But by
the late nineteen sixties in the US, high dose estrogen
(07:04):
regiments became the standard, and then going into the seventies,
we have the development of regiments that are a combination
of estrogen and progestine. In nineteen seventy four, some of
our older listeners might be familiar with the use Pay method.
This was named for Canadian Dr Albert use Pay, which
was an estrogen progestine combination and it replaced for a
(07:27):
while the high dose estrogen treatments because it had fewer
side effects. And now Plan B is a progestin only
formula and it has greater efficacy in terms of blocking
that pregnancy as well as fewer side effects, and in
the US Food and Drug Administration approved Plan B with
(07:52):
a prescription and since two thousand nine, the FDA has
approved it for over the counter sales for women seventeen
years old and over, and in two thousand eleven, this
is when the legalities start to get really dicey. In
two thousand and eleven, Health and Human Services Director Kathleen
Sibelius blocks Plan B slash one step from being available
(08:15):
to all women of all ages over the counter, and
has happened in response to an application from drug maker Tiva,
who makes Plan b UM. When the FDA went back
and looked at it and recommended that it be made
available to all women, saying that it's very safe, and
so Sibelia says, you know what, I'm going to overrule that,
(08:38):
And in response, reproductive rights groups such as Planned Parenthood
sued the Health and Human Services Department for that. And
so in the middle of all of this we have
Judge Edward Corman of the District Court of Eastern New York,
who was the one who in April five, two thousand
thirteen this year, overturned the US Health and Service Says
(09:00):
ruling to put an age limit on obtaining Plan B.
So it's just been it's it's almost like watching a
ping pong match between the courts and the f d A,
and then also you have Health and Human Services stepping in,
and so people are kind of on the one hand
flipping out saying, you know what, we need to put
some kind of age restriction on it. But the interesting
(09:21):
thing is Judge Edward Corman, who has been presiding over
this whole plan B legality since two thousand five in
terms of overseeing whether or not it should be made
available to everyone, he is basically at the end of
his rope with all of this. Uh, there is an
NPR story about this, and it's sites from the legal
(09:44):
brief that he wrote. The effort to convert these leave
on adjustural based contraceptives from prescription to over the counter
status has gone on for over twelve years, even though
they would be among the safest drugs available to children
and adults on any drug store shelf. And and and then
he signed it with a giant snap. No really, I
(10:05):
mean I read the entire brief, his recent brief, and
it was not only fascinating and enlightening, uh kind of
get a better understanding of what's going on politically and
in the courts about this whole issue right now. But
it was just the most entertaining thing I may have
ever read outside of a David Sadari's book, because I mean,
(10:26):
this is like the most intelligent snark in the world.
Judge Corman basically calls Sibelius's decision to overrule the strike
of the age limit as politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and
contrary to agency precedent. He goes on to say that, look,
it's really only the f d A that has the
(10:48):
necessary information and expertise to make these decisions about the
safety and efficacy of drugs. A principle he says that
Sibelius flagrantly violated, and so in response to the defendants,
who are you know, Sibelius and the Commissioner of Food
and Drugs seeking a stay of the the strike of
(11:09):
the age rules to pursue an appeal, he says it's
something out of an alternate reality and says that one
of their arguments that if you let it go over
the counter now and then reverse it later without a stay,
it's largely an insult to the intelligence of women, because
he's like, dudes, you're the ones who have made this
process for obtaining Plan B so freaking confusing, and some
(11:32):
abroad the fact that it's telling that Corman is having
such an intense response against the Obama administration's wish for
that fifteen year old age limit on it. Because Corman
was appointed by President Reagan, so he was part of,
you know, a more politically conservative administration's appointments, and so
(11:56):
they're saying, well, you know, if he if he's freaking
out over this, maybe also for me thinking about being
on the same case since two thousand five, maybe he
just needs a vacation. Perhaps he's just tired of but
he frustration leads to some of the beautiful things that
he wrote. I'm okay with it. I highly recommend you
search out this brief and read it now. Of course,
(12:30):
in April, when Judge Corman said, you know what, enough
of all this, you need to make Plan B available
over the counter to all women of all ages. Also
side note, men, you can buy Plan B as well. Um.
But of course when he said, you know, the age
(12:51):
limit should be removed, Q freak out because not only
do you have well you have that. And then the
Obama administration coming back and saying, nope, we're gonna have
a fifteen year old cap for that, and you're gonna
need an i D so Planned Parenthood said in response
basically like thanks, but you know what, you need to
lift all restrictions to this. And then on the more
(13:13):
conservative side, you have Concerned Women for America saying, well,
if Plan B is so safe, then why do we
need prescriptions for birth control? Huh? Yeah, they they get
a little snarky. Also, this is like a big theme
among this this debate is some snark. The Concerned Women
for America wrote that the same quote women's rights advocates
who want every decision to be between quote a woman
(13:35):
and her doctor, are now eliminating the doctor and putting
politics ahead of our kids. To see, there's that debate
of like everybody's accusing everybody else of being too political
in this discussion, right, And then the more liberal National
Women's Law Center said, Hey, you know, with this whole
I D issue, women who don't have i d s
are going to be denied access That could create problems.
(13:58):
How many fifteen year olds do we know who already
have I d s? And even if you you know,
if if one of us, for instance Carolina, older women
who are plenty above the age limit to get Planned B,
if we go to the drug store and all of
a sudden, oh, you know what, actually we've forgot our
I D. Then we can't get it. The whole timing
issue with the access to emergency contraception is important. Even
(14:22):
if it means oh, well you gotta leave and then
you might have to come back the next day. Well,
in the time that has passed, that low worse the
efficacy rates of emergency contraception. So this timing issue is
very important. Um and then we have people from the
Family Research Council saying, well, you know what, what about
what this hormone is gonna do to the pre pubescent
(14:42):
female body, because really a lot of this ties into
fear of whether or not access to emergency contraception over
the counter without an I D two girls of all
ages is somehow going to set off as domino effect
in younger girls brains that oh, you know what, I
(15:03):
can start having sex whenever, because if something happens, then
I can just go to Walgreens the next day and
take care of it. So the Family Research Council points
out that plan be distances the girls who are at
high risk of sexual abuse and s T I S
from the medical supervision they need. And I think That's
(15:25):
an important question of access because are these girls who
the Family Research Council is so concerned about, are they
even getting medical intervention? Do they even have access to it?
Are they able to go to the doctor and ask
questions and get a prescription for this stuff? Um? I mean,
what group of people are we talking about? Not everybody?
(15:47):
Not every Uh young girls parents are involved in her
life and can drive her to a pharmacy, you know. Well,
And when I was I was listening to Dan Savage
talking about this not too long ago, and he brought
up a pretty distressing but relevant point of let's say, Okay,
a girl is raped by her father and then she
(16:09):
has to turn around and ask him to drive her
to the drug store to go get planned beat you
know what I mean. Like, it's it's pretty telling to that.
In November of two thousand twelve, the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommended that advanced emergency contraception prescriptions be allowed because
kids are more likely to use it when that's the case.
(16:32):
Like basically, if if it's already there, if they have it,
then if something happens, then they're more likely to use it,
which is one reason why new York Times parenting blogger
kJ del Antonia suggested that maybe you know what, as parents,
maybe we need to go ahead and just stock up
on Plan B at home, and she advised that it
be kind of as hard as it would to maintain this,
(16:52):
it being no questions asked. Policy like, just come come
to me and come get it if you need it,
and we'll deal with it. Then just tell her, you know,
tell your daughter that you that you have it and
why you hope she'll never need it. Yeah, And I
mean one thing to to point out with with these
understandable concerns about opening up a gateway to young girls,
(17:15):
girls who you know, it might not be a good
idea for them to be sexually active at such young
ages when we're thinking about girls under fifteen possibly needing
emergency contraception. But the Goodmaker Institute also highlights that very
few young girls are sexually active. Only point three percent
(17:36):
of ten year olds, point six percent of eleven year olds,
one point three percent of twelve year olds, and three
point four percent of thirteen year olds are sexually active.
But something happens between thirteen and fourteen, where that percentage
jumps from three point four percent of thirteen year olds
to eight point six percent of fourteen year olds, and
(17:57):
in two thousand and eight there were over ten send
pregnancies among fourteen year old girls in the United States.
But among all that, there is no evidence that that
jump has anything to do with the availability of emergency
contraception exactly. But at the same time, it says, you
know what, putting this fifteen year old age restriction does
(18:18):
leave out a population that could be in need. Now,
before we get into some of the reasons why Plan
B is really just part of a broader discussion that
we need to be having if we really do want
to address lowering unintended pregnancy rates and specifically team pregnancy
in the United States, let's take a quick detour though,
(18:41):
to talk about what exactly emergency contraception is. This is
something that we covered in our two thousand ten episode
What Is the Morning After Pill? But it's worth going
over right now as well. Right So, Plan B, like
we said, contained the justin hormone called leave an adjustrial,
(19:02):
and you should take it as soon as possible, typically
less than seventy two hours after unprotected sex. But it
is worth noting that if you're already pregnant. It will
not harm the embryo. You will experience some side effects, though,
the most common of which are nausea and vomiting. You
might also experience abdominal pain, breast tenderness, dizziness, fatigue, headaches,
(19:23):
and irregular bleeding. Yes, emergency contraception is not, I repeat,
not the same thing as a medicated abortion um and
most women are satisfied with the results of Plan B.
There's a nine study which found that of emergency contraceptive
(19:43):
users would recommend it actually to friends and family. But
it is not cheap though. That's another thing with this
whole you know question about access. We're all freaking out, well,
you know what, Uh, fifteen year olds or fourteen year
olds might not even be able to afford it if
they were even allowed to buy it, because it ranges
is from fifty to sixty dollars. And one thing too,
that Judge Corman is concerned about is the fact that
(20:05):
this over the counter stuff is only affecting one brand
and not a generic, and that is going to do
absolutely nothing to possibly lower the price of emergency contraceptives
and may in fact have the market effect of increasing
the price. Because TIVA that drug maker can say, oh, well,
you know what, we're the only OTC brand, so you're
gonna have to pay what we say, which is awful. Yeah.
(20:30):
But other methods include the Paraguard copper i U D,
which must be inserted five days after unprotected sex and
is one of the best emergency contraception methods UH. They're
also combination birth control pills estro with estrogen and progestine,
which you have to take less than five days after
unprotected sex. And these methods typically prevent pregnancy by preventing
(20:53):
or delaying ovulation, blocking fertilization, and preventing a fertilized egg
from implanting in the uterus. Again, it's not terminating a
pre existing pregnancy, right, And in terms of the success rate,
it depends on that time factor that we talked about. Generally,
one to two out of women who use emergency contraception
(21:17):
will still get pregnant. Um It may also delay their
period for a week. But then if your period doesn't
come around for three to four weeks, you have a
dominant pain, you have a spotting, doctors say, you know,
you need to go ahead and take a pregnancy test,
but those success rates will diminish. The longer that you
wait to take emergency contraception, get the paraguard I U D,
(21:41):
use the combination birth control pills, whatever your doctor, nurse
practitioner recommends in that case. Okay, so we've told you
a little bit about the fight that's going on over
Plan B, and we've looked at other methods of emergency contraception,
but we haven't talked about maybe the downside of Plan
B and how it's not just a cure all for
(22:03):
all that ails us um. It doesn't. It's not a
panacea for lowering unintended pregnancy and team pregnancy rates because,
as we talked about, there are a lot of barriers
to access, not just the idea and prescription, but also
the costs. And this is coming from New York Times
writer Rony Karen Raven who wrote that a lot of
(22:23):
studies suggest that many women don't even know a morning
after pill exists, or if they do know it exists,
they literally think it only works the morning after, right.
And these studies also point out that the patterns of
use generally don't really do much at all to diminish
unintended pregnancy rates, because emergency contraceptive use is highest among
(22:47):
women with the lowest risk of pregnancy, because usually the
women who go and get the morning after pill and
take it are the ones who are already practicing safe
sex and maybe the condom broke or something happened, they
forgot to take their birth control pill and had sex.
And you know, there are women who were already mindful
(23:08):
of preventing unintended pregnancy, and so they then go and
get emergency contraception, so their actual risk of pregnancy is
very low. The issue is about getting it into women's
hands sooner, and also these women filling that education gap
among girls and women who you know, think that it
either only has that twenty four hour window or don't
(23:31):
really know that it exists. Yeah, and a lot of
the argument against h granting access to Plan B two
younger girls, a lot of that fear has to do
with kind of culturally ingrained fears about casual sex, team pregnancy,
single motherhood, taking parents and doctors out of the decision
(23:53):
to take this medicine. And all of that is summed
up in one quote in The New York Times from
Dr Mary Avenport, the recent president of the American Association
of Pro Life Obstetrictions and kinnecologists who said fear of
pregnancy is a deterrent to sexual activity. When you introduce
something like this, it changes people's behaviors and they have
(24:13):
more risky sex. Teams will be counting on this morning
after pill to bail them out, and they'll have more
casual encounters. And I'm sorry, that's just unlikely because of
everything we just talked about, not only the lack of
awareness that it even exists, but so many barriers to
acts of well. And also the fact of the matter is,
studies have looked into the connection between access to emergency
(24:36):
contraception and quote unquote risky sexual behavior and the correlation
does not stand. I mean, I feel like, like I
get a little frustrated when people seem to assume that women,
some women just think of abortion, medicated abortion, emergency contraception,
(24:58):
all of these things that are not pleasant processes for
our bodies as just pleasant parachutes that we can just use.
You know, Hey, we wanna just have some risk of
sexual behavior, but it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna have
ab cramps and abnormal bleeding for a little while. But
it's fine, like a small price to pay. I don't
know that that many women are thinking like that, but
(25:22):
my personal thoughts aside. The American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists have said point blank that making emergency contraception more
readily available does not promote risky sexual behavior or increase
the rate of unintended pregnancy among adolescents. Ready access of
(25:43):
emergency contraception among adolescents is not associated with lower hormonal
contraceptive use, lower condom use, or more unprotected sex. It
seems like, in fact, like we said with that study
finding that it's the women who have the lowest risk
of pregnancy who are actually the highest users of ec
(26:05):
emergency contraception, that that would probably extend down to teen
populations as well. It's more about providing comprehensive sex ed
because really the fact of the matter is this is
I mean, it's emergency conscious. It's called emergency contraception for
a reason because the focus really should be on consistent
(26:28):
use of reliable forms of contraception, right, and and you
talked about, um, you know, the groups of women who
are getting easy access to this are maybe not the
ones who need it the most. Philip Levine and Melissa
Kearney for an article in the Atlantic talked about how
this issue is really bigger than just contraception. The teen
(26:49):
pregnancy rate issue is so much bigger than just having
access to contraception like emergency contraception. For instance. They wrote
that policies like access to plan be family planning, abstinence only, education,
and sex said, don't really address the fundamental economic and
(27:10):
social issues that drive teen pregnancy um. They argue that
we have to improve educational attainment for young girls, show
them valid reasons to delay motherhood, and prove to them
that they have a reason to invest in their future
and not just say well, I'm never going to get
out of this small town, I'm never going to have money,
I'm never going to find a man worthy of marrying.
(27:32):
Why not have a baby now? Right? And they're saying
this because the fact of the matter is that girls
from disadvantaged backgrounds, from lower socio economic groups, who live
in places with a larger gap between the poor and
middle class are much more likely to give birth as
teens than girls who have similar backgrounds but face less inequality. Yes, so,
(27:54):
income inequality leads to lower economic mobility, which results in
girls who don't see a chance to better their lives
so they are the ones who are more likely to
have a child. So it's not just that they're like
going out and having risky sex, you know, for whatever,
They're not necessarily being so cavalier about it. But it's like, well,
you know what, what else? You know, what else is there? Right?
(28:18):
And I mean with all of this, it's no one
is arguing that, you know, kids should be having sex
at younger ages, or that we should be a cavalier
at all in our approach to sex or having risky
sexual behavior. One thing that we have not mentioned about
emergency contraception is that hello, it does not protect against
(28:39):
STDs and s t I, s UM. So it's but
it's just part of this broader contraceptive education that it's
not just team girls who needed, it's all of us.
And also gets at a massive fear and discomfort over
teen sexuality, which as much as as adults, I'm sure
(29:00):
you know, there's a lot of repression going on. You
don't want to think about kids having sex. But it's like,
what are we gonna do do You either pretend that
it's not there and just hope to put the fear
of you might get pregnant and end up in a
terrible situation and hope to god they just never have sex,
which is unrealistic because hormones exist, or you educate them
(29:24):
and you grant access and you hopefully are you know,
a wise and brave parent. I say that on an
up end because it is such a huge challenge. But
the answer isn't fear. And I feel like a lot
of the combat against this kind of stuff of access
(29:45):
to Plan B is very fear motivated because kids are
gonna do what kids are gonna do, you know. And again,
I think, you know, to tie all of this up, uh,
it's sort of like when we talked about the topic
of a abortion a long time ago on the podcast.
It's like, that's not the ideal situation. You know, that's
(30:06):
never an emergency. Contraception is not the ideal situation. That's
why it's the emergency, like we said. But you know,
I'm now I'm just repeating myself. Now, Well, I mean
people aren't popping it like Candy. I mean, you know,
like young girls aren't just going out and having sex
like you said and being like oh it's okay, I'll
just go get an abortion tomorrow, or I'll just go
get emergency contraception at the at the drug store. It's fine.
(30:28):
You know, I think that's far less common than than
something accidental has happened or something terrible has happened. And
you know, like we saw with that huge jump in
sexual activity and pregnancy race with fourteen year olds, we
are by by setting what seems to me to be
an arbitrary age limit of fifteen, we're shutting out a
(30:51):
huge group of girls who need access. Yeah, access and
and just education all around. Um. So we're recording this
episode in May. You are listening to it right now
in June. So I'll be curious to see it between
now and when this podcast publishes, if there will be
(31:13):
any movement legally. But I have a suspicion that the
age limit will be lifted. I think at some point
that will go away. But I want to hear from
listeners about this access. I mean, is is it too
is it too young? You know it should fifteen? Is
it fine to leave that age limit at fifteen? Parents?
What do you do? Would you do? As that in
(31:36):
Why Times parenting blogger advice and say maybe we should
just stock it for them? Hey, why not? Um, let
us sell your thoughts on this more political than we
usually go issue. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot Com is
where you can send your letters. We'd also love to
hear from you on Facebook or you can tweet us
at Mom's Stuff podcast. And before we get to a
(31:59):
couple of mess y'all have sent us, let's take just
a quick break and we'll be right back. And now
back to our letters. Well, it got a couple of
(32:21):
letters here, and the first one I have is in
response to an episode we did quite a while ago
on a sexuality, and this is from Victory who wrote
in saying I just wanted to thank you for your
excellent podcasts and helping me understand my a sexuality. They've
seen me through many a Monday morning and taught me
so much about myself in the world from a feminist perspective.
(32:43):
When you released your podcast on a sexuality, that was
actually when I figured out that I was a sexual
and everything that you described was what I had been experiencing.
That was quite an eye opening experience for me because
I finally realized where all of the confusion involving my
sexuality came from. I came out to my friends when
I was fifteen and had been openly a sexual ever since.
(33:04):
Thanks again for everything, and thank you for writing in Okay.
I have an letter here from Ashley. She says, I'm
a biologist living in Baltimore, and I have an interesting
topic that I hear from men now that I'm married.
I call it the wedding ring phenomenon. I first heard
about it right before we moved to Baltimore. We were
having a goodbye dinner with a couple of friends when
(33:26):
the guy, let's call him John, told us about how
he will wear a wedding ring while trying to pick
up women. I thought it was appalling and completely ludicrous,
but my husband thought it made sense. The next time
I heard about it, it it was from my husband's old boss,
and more recently from his current boss. Apparently, they think
that men wearing rings are considered ideal mates and that
(33:46):
women will be attracted to them and hit on them.
I don't agree with this at all. Back when I
was single, when I saw a ring, I immediately thought
that property has taken and moved on. My husband thinks
that is more of a male view and believes that
most other women think differently. He believes that when the
average females he's a male with a wedding ring that
she thinks that he must have desirable traits and then
(34:08):
immediately wants the desirable man and acts on that desire.
I was curious if you know of any research backing
this wedding ring phenomenon or if the men in my
life are just full of themselves. If you do find
any research, she says, then I have some questions. Does
it work both ways? Does it only happen between straight people?
And to that, I say, we do have some answers,
(34:30):
and if you want to read them, you should go
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com
and you know, check out some cool stuff while you're there,
including answers to wedding ring phenomenon. Yeah, and um, while
you're at it, if you want to drop us a
line about what whether or not you have ever witnessed
this wedding ring phenomenon in action, you can email us again.
(34:51):
Mom Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can
send your letters. We also love to hear from you
on Facebook and on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and
like Caroline said, we're tumbler as well. You can follow
us where It's stuff I'm Never Told You dot tumbler
dot com, and don't forget to watch us three times
a week coming at you on YouTube. A YouTube dot
com slash stuff mom never told you. Go on over
(35:12):
there and subscribe for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com
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