Ranting Lady Blogger Hates Birth Control, Only Uses Plan B
XOJane.com blogger Cat Marnell attempted to write a column about Plan B today. Instead, she ended up with a bizarre 1000-word treatise on why she never uses birth control or condoms, just the morning-after pill, even though she thinks it's murder:
OK, so for the exactly three women left in this world, apparently, who don't know what Plan B is, it is sort of the world's greatest contraceptive. [...] What Plan B does: Zap that sucker at the source! No, I don't actually think there is a "sucker." I would not talk in such a... glib tone about abortion, which I believe, yes, is murder
As if that premise weren't off-putting enough in the health section of a women's website, Marnell appears to have a writerly form of multiple personality disorder, alternating between talking about her sex life and vowing never to discuss her sex life. Behold, the deterioration of Cat Marnell's superego:
1) Letting the man come somewhere besides where it will get me pregnant. Which is always (vaguely) fun. SO, why not? Because I always instruct someone to do it the dangerous way. FYI, this will be the first and last time I discuss my sex life on this website. It's just not my thing; I just can't do it. I'm doing it only because this is a birth control issue.
2) Birth control pills. NO. They will make me fat; they will make me "spot" (another thing I squeamishly just DON'T LIKE TALKING ABOUT; don't worry, though, everyone else who works here does); they will give me acne; and quite frankly, they will NOT prevent me from getting pregnant! I know this because IT HAPPENED TO ME™.
No, I didn't take my pills right; I forget things like this unless they are FUN pills, or what I BELIEVE, delusionally, to be a "fun" pill at the time; anyway, the point is, unless a pill gets me speedy or doped up as all hell I will NOT remember to take it, and then I will get pregnant! I JUST WILL. (IHTM™.)
3) The Depo-Provera Shot. Uh-huh. Same concept as the pills, if you get my drift. Egads, but it's true.
4) Condoms. Nope! As if. I don't know. I don't sleep with that many people and so I just don't do condoms! ARG I HATE TALKING ABOUT MY SEX LIFE; LET'S END THIS.
Unfortunately, she keeps going for another 500 words. (Does Jane Pratt have a gun to her head? Or maybe a slave-driving editrix alter-ego showed up?)
5) Abortion. This shouldn't even be on the list though obviously I've had them. Abortions are not birth control and I hate them! I'm OBVIOUSLY pro-choice but I think they are terrible and wrong and I hate having them. And I mean terrible for everyone involved. It breaks my heart all around.
6) A diaphragm. Ooh! The wild card! I had one of these in college, and by college I mean the year I was 18 and living in Soho and going to "acting school" and blowing my trust fund on cocaine and champagne at all of the best clubs. Anyway, I lugged around a diaphragm with me in a little case and would OCCASIONALLY use it. I was very slutty back then and never got preg, so I guess it worked. Amazingly I did not get herpes, though. Or anything else!
SO. That leaves us with Plan B. I don't even want to describe how Plan B works, mainly because I'm too lazy to look it up. Here, analyze this, um, diagram:
AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHH
THIS IS TOO, TOO TERRIFYING AND I REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND IT.
Won't somebody get this poor girl some decent health care? She needs a sex ed class, a chill pill, and maybe an intervention. She has the sex blogging equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, and seems to believe the only way out is self-destruction:
We should all stop letting dudes come inside of us and take some responsibility because I am feeling increasingly guilty about being an AVID participant in an abortion-friendly culture. Attack me in the comments section — GO.
Oh dear. This could get ugly. Don't give up, Cat! There's still hope! Pry the 'I' button off your keyboard and start using condoms, you'll be fine. [XOJane via TheGloss, Images via Plan B and XOJane]
Update: To be clear, Cat Marnell is the "Beauty and health director for xoJane.com." In the comments section of her Plan B post, she notes, "i have really low self-esteem about my abilities as a health editor, but i promise i'm working on it and hang in there with me."