Finally. We have news about birth control that isn’t gut-turning.

Important delivery

Nurx, a new app service, is making getting a birth control prescription written and delivered to your home a breeze.

The app was created to help women in “contraceptive deserts” get prescriptions without visiting a doctor. A contraceptive desert is defined as “an area without at least 1 clinic to every 1,000 women in need of publicly funded contraception,” TechCrunch reports.

Once a doctor prescribes the pill, a pharmacy near the subscriber mails the prescription to the patient’s door. Price for pills range from $0 to $15 depending on insurance coverage. The app also allows a patient to ask their prescribing doctor questions about their prescription.

In addition to providing birth control, patients also can get Truvada for PrEP, a pill that helps treat the HIV-1 infection.

Right now, the service is only available in California, New York, Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Texas.

Women in Texas, which is a well-known contraceptive desert state, could greatly benefit from this accessible service. Current statistics from Nurx show that 54 percent of women have unplanned pregnancies in Texas. That cost to tax payers comes to $2.9 billion. Gross public savings could come to $2.14 billion if unintended pregnancies are stopped.

But Texas isn’t the only state with contraceptive issues. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy reports that nearly 20 million women in the U.S. live in contraceptive deserts, Leslie Heyer, global contraception expert and founder of Cycle Technologies, says.

“Even for women who do have reasonable access, seeing a health provider can be cumbersome,” Heyer adds.

“It requires time off work, travel, costs, etc. Having the ability to have safe contraceptive options available on-demand is a huge improvement.”

Access for all women

Access = empowerment. That fact is plain and simple.

Once women can choose from the vast variety of birth control options on the market, they can better find an option they like. And when a woman is happy with her birth control, she’s more likely to take her medication correctly and consistently, Heyer says.

“Mobile technology is giving women access to many contraceptive options and even changing the contraceptive options themselves,” Heyer adds. The Pill Club, PillPack, Pandia Health, and Planned Parenthood Care, are similar to Nurx. Other options include digital fertility apps.

Want to subscribe to Nurx? Click here to find out more.

Related on EcoSalon
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Is the American Healthcare System Failing Women? #NowWhat

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Hobby Lobby isn’t the only company that thinks not paying for contraception is good for business. Popular organic food brand Eden Foods is seeking similar rights.

The Michigan-based organic food company, Eden Foods, has been fighting the U.S. government for more than a year over whether or not its employee insurance program must cover contraception for women.

Sound familiar?

Even though this reads an awful lot like the recent Hobby Lobby case, the Supreme Court separated the suits, and in its recent ruling, vacated a judgment against Eden Foods. The suit is now heading back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for review.

Eden Foods says that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is violating its religious beliefs about contraception. “We were convinced that actions of the federal government were illegal, and so filed a formal objection,” the company said in a statement on its website. “The recent Supreme Court decision [on Hobby Lobby] confirms, at least in part, that we were correct.”

Founder and CEO of Eden Foods, Michael Potter, is a devout Catholic who compared contraceptives to “lifestyle drugs,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Potter does not believe companies “should be forced to fund insurance that includes that coverage.”

Regardless of where the Supreme Court stands on Hobby Lobby or Eden Food’s position, the discussion brings up a lot of questions about insurance and employees rights (and what in the world is wrong with employers these days). But no question seems more looming than whether or not we should still support these companies. In particular, should we still buy Eden Foods’ products? While Hobby Lobby may have its devoted consumers, Eden Foods’ story is of a different ilk. One that matters a little bit more to a progressive future. Or at least, used to.

One of the “original” natural and organic food brands  (the company claims to be the oldest natural food brand in North America), Eden has long honored a commitment to organic farming practices. In fact, it is so picky about organics that it refuses to put the USDA organic seal on its products claiming that the National Organic Program doesn’t do organics justice. It supports local farmers when it can and was one of the first brands to remove BPA from its canned goods. It has taken a stand against GMOs, and Eden Foods is one of the last privately held organic brands of its size (annual revenues around $50 million). It has long stood for integrity and quality in the organic food sector. It’s Facebook page header reads “Organic agriculture is society’s brightest hope for positive change.” But now maybe it should read more like “Now leaving the Organic Garden of Eden, please dispose of your apple cores in the compost bin.”

So perhaps the better question here is: What matters most to Eden Foods? Is it an employer’s right to not pay for contraception or is it integrity in our food system? Because I’m guessing Potter and Eden can’t have it both ways. Even Potter admits that most of the feedback has been negative. The organic customer comes in all shapes and sizes, but if you average her out, chances are good she wants the right to do with her body whatever she pleases. And if that means buying her black beans and soymilk from another brand to safeguard that right, I’m guessing she’s going to leave Eden… for good.

Related on EcoSalon

Hobby Lobby Is a Person, but You? Not So Much: That Happened

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10 Infographics on Women and Health

Image via ann arbor

The post Eden Foods’ Hobby Lobby Approach to Contraception: Not Exactly Organic appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnA new book called “Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Get Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control” has sparked a controversial discussion about sex, contraception, “pulling out,” and “pregnancy ambivalence.”

I haven’t read the book yet, but I agree with part of its premise, that the pill can wreak massive havoc on women’s bodies. I’ve experienced it, as have dozens of my friends and colleagues. That doesn’t mean that the pill isn’t the right choice of contraception for some women; it is and will remain so. In the meantime, from New York Magazine to Jezebel and Slate, we’re talking about the delicate balance of politics, pleasure and the responsibility of being a sexually active woman. And that’s a very good thing.

I’m a pro-sex feminist, and when asked about contraception, especially from teens, college students, and young women, I take an “all of the above” approach. Truly – the most important thing is that women know what their choices are and how their bodies work. For the sake of this post, let’s establish that we’re talking about women in long-term, monogamous relationships, where STIs aren’t an issue. For singles or others with multiple partners, hands-down, condoms are the best (if not the only) choice. (Remember, wrap it up if you’re unsure of your partner’s STI status. Period.)

Over at New York Magazine, The Cut’s recent post, “No Pill? No Prob. Meet the Pullout Generation” generated hundreds of comments after suggesting that legions of women in their thirties have given up on birth control and just let their partners pull out after sex. Reasons cited: hatred of condoms because of the way they feel, disgust with the pill, (unwarranted?) fear of the IUD, and more. A recent study suggests that of the one in three women between the ages of 15 – 24 who used the pull out method, 21 percent had accidental pregnancies. Those statistics aren’t exactly fabulous.

For those of us who live on kale, quinoa, and yoga (hello, lovely EcoSalon readers), the pill’s myriad dangers aren’t exactly news. From cancer to low libido to breakthrough bleeding and depression, hormonal birth control comes with so many minuses, it’s easy to forget about the one big plus: pregnancy avoidance. The pill liberated women in the 1960s, putting them in control of their own sex lives. For that, it’s profoundly revolutionary. But fifty years on, we know how it makes us feel, and many of us don’t want that anymore. Being in control of our reproductive lives means being in control of our bodies overall. Women no longer automatically believe everything their doctors dictate. We openly question the side effects of pharmaceuticals and do our due diligence; research is part of the process getting and staying well.

Are You Part of the Pullout Generation?

If you’re pulling out willy-nilly, consider these facts: there can be sperm in pre-cum. You can get pregnant ANY time in your cycle, even if you use a period tracker. Thank goodness that Plan B exists. But you know what? Plan B is NOT fun to take. Plan to be super nauseous if you need to take Plan B. If you had an unwanted pregnancy, the constitution still affords us the legal right to an abortion (at least for now). It’s there for you if you need it — but I’m sure you’d prefer not to need it, right?

Amanda Marcotte expanded on the pull out fray in her piece on pregnancy ambivalence. Women who’ve seriously contemplated having kids (or already have them) seem, to me, to be in a different category altogether. Not everyone is in that situation, and even if some women feel emotionally ambivalent about having kids, screwing around with birth control probably isn’t the smartest way to deal with it.

My take on the recent spate of articles about the pull out method and pregnancy ambivalence is that they reveal how little women really know about their bodies. If you really want to avoid pregnancy, you need more than a period tracker app – you need to know how your lady business really works. If your period came on day 28 last month, there’s no reassurance that it’s going to happen again, exactly like that, next month. Say you and your guy have hot sex and he pulls out – but just a moment later than he should. You can ovulate earlier and later than you typically do any month, without warning – so you need to know more than just the last time you bled. Fertility Awareness can work very well – but only if you do it right.

If the IUD isn’t for you, if your guy isn’t ready to get the snip, and if  an accidental pregnancy is something you can work with right now, take the time to learn about your cervical mucus, the height of your cervix throughout your cycle, and track your basal body temperature. This is the way that women who WANT to get pregnant do it – and those of you who DON’T necessarily want to get pregnant should take your body just as seriously.

Truly safe, healthy, non-invasive birth control that no one has to think much about may be a part of our future. But until it is, a combination of open communication, health and awareness of options must be the starting point for our reproductive lives. When we talk about sex, the discussion about what women want often gets swept under the rug. That’s why it’s taken so long for us to start this dialogue.

Revolutions come in waves — let’s hope the next one honors the depths of women’s desires and our health, wellness,  emotional and intellectual needs — all on equal footing.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email her at stefanie at ecosalon dot com, and she’ll answer it in her next Sexual Healing column.

Related on EcoSalon:

What Women Want Matters, A lot: Welcome to the Sexual Revolution 2.0

For 2012, Pleasure is the Revolution We’ve Been Waiting For

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

Image: Ariadna Bruna

The post Is Pulling Out a Safe Method of Contraception? Sexual Healing appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

It’s nice to know that in a rapidly-evolving world, people are always happy to write predictions about the future market for sex robots. Some things do not change, and never should.

61 to 39: Margin by which the decision not to change the United Methodist Church oppositional stance toward gays, lesbians and the transgendered passed at last week’s Tampa convention

2050: Year in which Futures magazine predicts that human sex workers will have been largely replaced by robotic ones

$8000: Approximate retail value of a sex robot (named “US Roxxxy”) available today

13%: Increase in contraception use among sexually active girls between the ages of 15-19 since 1995

Four: Number of the “world’s most eligible bachelors” that will be featured on Fox’s new celebrity dating show, “The Choice”

2: Number of President Obama’s ex-girlfriends whose lives and love letters are excerpted in David Maraniss’ upcoming biography

14,258: Number of “nontraditional” Mother’s Day cards on offer from Greeting Card Universe, including cards for My Two Moms, Like a Mother to Me, Mr. Mom, and From the Pet (Fur baby)

6: Hours a day that concealed speakers play “swallow courtship songs” in the San Juan Capistrano mission in an attempt to bring back flocks of the migrating birds

Image: Eric_I_E

The post Sex by Numbers: Bring on the Sexbots appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

If you’re looking for reasons to feel better or worse about your own sex life (or the value of your home), you’ll find it in this week’s Sex by Numbers.In fact, there’s a little something for everybody.

$9.65 million: asking price for a townhouse featured in Sex and the City

Number of New York sex shops currently fighting a lawsuit from Mayor Bloomberg: 1

1000+: number of sex toys Nat Garvey has tested since becoming an official tester two years ago

2625: Arizona bill that would enable employers to fire women for using contraception

2.5 million: number of gay people in India, according to a recent governmental study

67: percentage of adults who have sex once a week

300: number of daily orgasms for one sufferer of Restless Genital Syndrome

American adult women who have never experienced orgasm either alone or with a partner: 5-10%

The post Sex by Numbers: A Little Something For Everybody appeared first on EcoSalon.