Those of you that read my first Odyssey article know I was on birth control and had a blood clot as a result. But, before and after I started taking it, I was not in a sexual relationship nor have I ever been.
There’s a stigma around virgins taking birth control. I know there was for me, for a long time. If a woman is taking birth control, most people automatically assume she is sexually active. However, for some women such as myself, that is not the case.
Here’s why:
Birth control regulates your period.
This is the reason I started birth control in the first place. Since I was 10 years old, my time of the month was Hell Week. My periods were irregular, heavy, and the cramps were awful. When I was in middle school, my mother had offered to take me to a gynecologist to get me on the Pill. I had refused because, at 15, birth control meant sex. I finally started taking the Pill when I was 22. By then, I couldn’t take it anymore. And I learned I wasn’t the only woman Mother Nature liked to torture: lots of my friends started birth control young to deal with their periods as well.
When I started the Pill, there were the usual side effects such as nausea and weight gain. But my time of the month was much more comfortable—if it can ever be. My body adjusted. I wasn’t running to the bathroom at every hour and I was no longer doubled over in pain. I no longer cared that I was a virgin taking the birth control pill.
When you do decide to have sex, you will already be prepared.
OK, confession time: when I started taking the Pill, there was slight hope I would get lucky my senior year. That never happened for me, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen for someone else.
Just because you are a virgin does not mean you don’t have the desire to have sex. Most virgins won’t admit that they do, but the feelings are totally normal. Sexuality is a part of human nature. By taking birth control, you are practicing your right to your body. You are acknowledging the fact that you have the urges but are willing to hold back until you are ready to do it with someone worthy of you.
Because you can and it is your right.
If you want to take birth control, for whatever reason, it is your right to do so. If you don’t want to take birth control, whether for personal or religious reasons, that is your right, too. And no one is allowed to judge you for it, regardless of your sexual habits or lack thereof.
They did not mean anything by it, but I know some of my more experienced friends were a little confused when I told them I was on birth control. But if you are a virgin on birth control or thinking of going on it, whether or not you are in a relationship, and someone asks why you are taking it, tell them this: “I’m showing my uterus who’s the boss.”
