three cheers and dammit, c'est la vie

[pensnest]

Back in the early days of my marriage, I used a contraceptive diaphragm + spermicidal lubricant. I never read about this form of contraception any more - is it never used? It's not as strong a protection as a coil or pill, but it's non-hormonal so it doesn't make you fat or murderous, can be used specifically when one is actually going to have sex, and in tandem with a condom is probably pretty good. So, what gives?

*

My chorus participated in the Norfolk County Music Festival on Thursday evening. It's a complete contrast to Convention, but it was mostly as an attempt to get us used to performing to an audience. Convention is organised quite literally to the minute: you know when you can go into the changing room, the warm-up room, the corridor behind the stage, onto the stage. For this, there was an order given but no specific times—which is fair—but, despite having checked well in advance that there would be a warm-up room, when we got there we discovered that the 'warm-up room' was 'over there' and a vague wave in the direction of the cloakrooms. I think there was a choir congregated in the café area. We did not, as I'd anticipated, have a chance to go out of the auditorium while the choir before us competed, to get organised and warm up - just got out of our seats and marched on to the stage. So very different from the life of our own, dear Queen barbershop world, where warm-ups are absolutely expected and provided for.

However, we did well. We and the men's chorus got Outstanding awards. And we introduced the other choirs to barbershop's habit of whooping and making many encouraging noises, which I think they rather enjoyed, as we did not discriminate against them while noisemaking. The adjudicator (obviously a barbershop virgin) was quite taken with it, too.

*

A quickie from my Mad March Listicle: Do you have, or have you ever had, an imaginary pet?

I don't currently, but I have. For quite a while I used to read the late, much lamented Shakesville, and Zelda was my imaginary pet, or at least, the pet I used to give to my imaginary characters.

Aside from Zelda, it's been Chocolate Labradors. When I was a child, my family had a beautiful bitch who was half Rhodesian Ridgeback, half Irish Setter. She was quite petite for a Ridgeback, and a bit darker in colour, and her ridge was only half-sized. She did not had long, slightly shaggy hair, or really, look like a red setter in any way. Anyway. Rather than reinvent Anna for fic, I've gone with the idea of a dark brown version with the soft, velvet ears and the half-sized ridge. Sometimes he's called Toby (for Toblerone), sometimes not. Adam acquires one in the extended version of Wanna Tell Me About It?

I'm not sure why I have imaginary dogs. Perhaps it's because I don't want to own a dog. I have a cat.

Comments

[yarnofariadne]

Congrats on the Outstanding awards!

[pensnest]

Thank you!

[scribblemoose]

Congrats!


I think the diaphragm went out of fashion a bit with the rise of HIV in favour of condoms. True, you definitely don't hear much about it these days.

[pensnest]

I suppose it wasn't really reliable enough for single women who *really* didn't want a baby to go with. I didn't like the side effects of the pill, so when I got married, the diaphragm was a good choice. With current abortion laws in the USA, I guess it's not surprising that the diaphragm isn't so popular as it was.

[word_geek]

I know when we were being taught contraception in the 80s, the implication was that it was a bit fiddly, not going to protect you from AIDs and not as good as condoms at protecting you from pregnancy. It sort of came up as something you could do to "take control of your fertility", rather than avoid STDs, which were very much the primary purpose of using a barrier method.

The subtext I got was that you could hide that you were using it from a partner, if you needed to, and that was an advantage in some circumstances. It pretty much only showed up in popular culture in Parenthood, where it's the method being used by Rick Moranis and his wife (which she deliberately sabotaged)

It does pop up in Call the Midwife, as the option offered to married ladies

[pensnest]

I guess all of your first paragraph is absolutely true - I stopped worrying about AIDS even being a remote possibility when I got married, in the early '80s. Hadn't really thought about being able to hide it if you wanted to....

[word_geek]

My memory is fuzzy, but it was definitely not directly said, more an implication of the fact that you either interrupt proceedings when you know you definitely need it, or put it in early on the off chance, combined with the fact that one advantage was that it was all under your control and didn't really *need* your partner's cooperation like a condom did

I can see why it was a good choice for young married women, basically

[turlough]

Congratulations to the award! It does sound a bit disorganised even by ordinary con standards.

I have to confess to not even knowing imaginary pets could be a thing. I had a hamster when I was a kid and then we had a small parrot when I was a teenager and my aunts always had dogs and cats. And when I was a kid my grandparents also had a dog. So pets were just a part of everyday life, I guess.

[pensnest]

I didn't really have imaginary pets for a long time, I think they arrived with fanfic, when sometimes the characters' pets would feature. And then Shakesville posted about the household animals so often, I got to feeling quite proprietorial about them!

[(Anonymous)]

Random stranger dropping by...when I was newly single back in 2015, I tried in vain to get a diaphragm, because my new partner lived out of state and I didn't need birth control every day (and I was old enough that the likelihood a diaphragm would be insufficiently protective was pretty slim). I couldn't get one! My gyn clinic didn't prescribe them at all. They sent me to Planned Parenthood, apparently the only place one could get them. PP wrote me the prescription but...yep, no pharmacy would fill it, said they couldn't get those anymore. It was crazy. I understand reasons why it's not optimal for a lot of people (no STD prevention, kind of messy/inconvenient) but to not have it available at all, wow.

[pensnest]

That is disappointing, indeed. A hormone-free, entirely controllable form of contraception that a woman can use (rather than having to rely on a man to use a condom properly) ought to be an obvious thing to provide. It was ideal for me as a married woman who wanted children but not necessarily right now. I wonder if they can be obtained online?

Anyway, thanks for dropping by!

[turps]

That's excellent news about the awards!

[pensnest]

Indeed! Thank you.