emergency contraception

This is called condom failure. You treat the situation as if you did not use a condom. You cannot rely on the condom to protect you against pregnancy or infections. First, you retrieve and properly dispose of the slipped condom. Sometimes, if the condom slips off, it gets stuck in the vagina or...

For birth control pills to be effective in preventing pregnancy, they have to be used correctly and consistently. Taking a birth control pill after sex won't do anything to prevent pregnancy. And yep: it can sure make you feel a little loopy and confuse the heck out of your cycle. In order for your...

When you and a partner have no clothing on, and direct genital-to-genital contact, please understand that it isn't dry sex anymore. The "dry" in dry sex is pretty critical: it means that sex was had in which there was no chance of any fluid contact or exchange. If you've got a naked penis rubbing...

Hey there, freakout. I'm so glad you've found so much help here, and kudos to you for thinking about all of this in advance of sexual activity! Really, that's an ideal we're always all hoping for. If everyone had all of this information in advance, we'd all be a lot healthier, and probably have much...

Yes. Please understand that becoming pregnant isn't about how long someone lasts, if someone is having sex for the first time, if someone reaches orgasm or not. There is ALWAYS a risk of pregnancy if a man and a woman have vaginal intercourse, and a high risk if during that intercourse the male...

If sperm went into a vagina and the person with the vagina is not on any form of birth control, then YES, they could get pregnant. Even if they're on top, and some semen trickles out, chances are just enough sperm cells could make their way up into their reproductive tract to result in a pregnancy...

If your period is only five days late, it'd be pretty unusual, even if you had become pregnant, for you to be having symptoms this soon. Plus, the symptoms you're describing are also common PMS symptoms, as you said. Since the condom was spermicidal and there wasn't a full ejaculation, your...

Risk-taking is a very, very normal (I'm going to say it again in case you missed it: VERY normal) part of adolescent and young adult -- and overall human -- development. When the risks we're taking are sound risks to BE taking, which involve the possibility of real benefits, that not only isn't a...

Your body doesn't really care how long intercourse goes on for. Whether it's 30 seconds or fifteen minutes (and it's worth mentioning that five minutes of intercourse is about average, so that's not a short period of time for that activity), what your body cares about if it has been exposed to...

It has NEVER been safe to try and terminate a pregnancy with a wire hanger, for crying out loud. PLEASE hear that. Abortions with wire hangers are remnants of the horror stories -- true ones, sadly -- from the days when abortion was illegal. Many women had to have backalley abortions at high cost...