Sorry darlings — the joke is actually on us. Two of the women who most changed our lives in the 20th century might shudder if they only knew what would come to be in the 21st.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, many media outlets having been looking at its social and political impact. Time, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal have covered the story. But what may in fact be more relevant to our everyday lives is the convergence between The Pill’s 50th birthday and the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
In my recent book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable (Crown Publishing/Ten Speed Press) I explore some of the dangers of hormonal contraception to our body, and how that is inextricably linked with the health and survival of the planet.
An excerpt from the birth-control chapter:
Birth Control Pills
We’ll give the Pill its due: it did indeed change the world. Feminists give thanks to Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan, but the Pill set us free in radical ways. Margaret Sanger, a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and birth control, underwrote the research for the birth control pill in the 1950s and raised $150,000 for the project, which had a huge impact on women’s lives in the second half of the twentieth century.
Unfortunately, there was no way for us to foresee the environmental and health problems the pill would engender years later. The EPA has found that excreted or discarded birth control pills are ending up in our waterways, where they have a DNA- altering, gender-bending effect on fish and marine life. Any woman who’s been on the Pill or considered it has heard that it can cause health complications after the age of thirty-five and for smokers, but it gets worse, far worse.
Pharmaceutical literature warns of migraines, strokes, high blood pressure, blood clots, and heart attacks for women with certain risk factors. These may be rare side effects, but they should serve as a warning: a woman’s cycle should not be trifled with. We ovulate, and then we menstruate in order to cleanse our bodies of eggs that haven’t been fertilized. This natural process is inhibited by the Pill, which serves to trick the body into thinking that it is pregnant all the time. It shuts off ovulation. Many women, after years of being on the Pill, find that they can’t get pregnant for months or years later—their fertility can be impaired over the long term. They are warned, in fact, not to try to get pregnant for some time after stopping the Pill because it depletes folate, a nutrient needed by pregnant women in order to prevent spina bifida in their babies. Studies have also found that oral contraceptives deplete several nutrients, including vitamins B2, B6, and B12, zinc, vitamins C and e, magnesium, and even coenzyme Q10. These nutrient depletions have far- reaching effects; they can contribute to everything from depression, migraines, and anemia to cervical dysplasia—the precursor to cervi- cal cancer. They can also cause inflammation, even in young women. Many gynecologists are Pill happy—they prescribe the Pill for the bulk of sexually active women in monogamous relationships if they’re under thirty-five and don’t smoke. And that doesn’t even include the dermatologists who prescribe it for their acne-prone patients. It’s true that the higher-estrogen pills of the past were more dangerous, but the ones being prescribed today can still wreak full-on havoc with your body’s precious ecosystem.
And there is one last, rather scary item. Anecdotally, many women have revealed that their experience with the Pill made them question their sanity. Its effects on the hormones are such that being on it can make you feel like you have full-throttle PMS all the time, every day of the month. There are stories of women becoming violent with their partners, imagining affairs, and even feeling like they were being followed home by imaginary predators. Just Google “the Pill made me crazy,” and go through some of the hundreds of postings on message boards. With all of this in mind, consider that the Pill is probably also causing our fish to become transgendered. We ingest these pills and flush them back out into the oceans when we urinate. Hermaphroditic fish are a very bad development for the ecosystem, and the birth control pill should be an eco-sexual’s very last choice.
But lucky us! We have a choice. In fact, we have many choices. From Fair Trade condoms made of natural latex to the IUD to getting the snip, there are enough healthy, green and safe options out there. Breaking away from Big Pharma’s hold on our health, sex, emotional and personal lives isn’t easy, but once free, you’ll wonder why you ever needed it in the first place. And that, my friends, is a reason to celebrate.
It’s Time to Get Off the Oil Teat and Suck on Something Sustainable
After a month-and-a-half of Top Hats, Top Kills, robots with saws and other absurdities, today the news is that the damaged riser pipe has been severed close to the well. They say that this is good news, but let’s just wait a few days to be sure. How many times have we been misled by BP so far?
The vast majority of Americans feel helpless watching plumes of oil filling the Gulf of Mexico, and anger is rising like a tide of fetid fossil fuel. The people of Louisiana aren’t just angry, they’re livid, and yet the BP executives keep putting on a show and keeping the media as far away as possible. It seems clear that the earliest resolution for this horrible disaster will be August. But we’ll be living with the devastating consequences on marine life and fishing communities for many years to come.
It’s too late to stem this awful tide, but what if we could prevent future disasters? Obama has finally decided to temporarily halt offshore drilling. But the operative term is temporarily. Oil industry lobbyists are gearing up to make sure the moratorium doesn’t last long.
We’re absolutely, resolutely, and irrefutably addicted to oil, but not in the way that you might think. It’s not all about the way you fill your tank at the gas station. I’m talking about the ubiquitous presence of plastic in our lives everyday, in every way. Look around the room you’re in right now. Plastics rule us. They are in the keyboard you’re typing on, the mouse you’re clicking, the screen you’re reading these words on, they’re in your TV, your refrigerator, your microwave, your DVD player, your remote control, your suitcase, your contact lenses, your toothbrush, and much, much frighteningly much more. Petroleum is also in shampoo, cleansers, moisturizers, lubes, and just about every personal care item you can name. And many plastics aren’t just keeping us on a steady diet of oil — they are literally making us sick. Welcome to the scary world of phthalates. Check any conventional product in your medicine cabinet that has “fragrance” on its ingredients list, and you can be sure that it’s a bottle of endocrine-disrupting poison.
Green chemistry can and eventually will change the game, but until then, it’s up to us. So you take a reusable bag to the grocery store — good for you. That’s a nice start, as the bags themselves do more than just choke sea animals — they keep us tethered to our corporate petroleum overlords. If you’re struggling with how to bag your garbage, check out Biobags, the largest brand of 100 percent biodegradable and compostable bags made from GMO-free starch and other renewable resources. I am addicted to these need little bags (the t-shirt shopping bag fits nicely in my under the sink NYC-sized garbage pail.)
You can also drive less, and walk and bike more. (Not just better for the environment, but better for your body.) But here’s a totally radical idea. Why not buy less stuff? Consumption is the altar at which we all worship, and it’s a big part of the reason that corporations have such a hold on us. Even if you’ve already seen it, a refresher course in The Story of Stuff is a stark reminder of the hamster wheel that is modern life. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Next time you’re at your local Walmart, play the “Need & Want” game. Do you truly need what you’re throwing in your basket, or do you just want it? Experiment by sticking to your needs for one week, and see what happens. Only in America could we have a show like “Hoarders” where our lust for stuff has literally become a disease. If we all took an honest look at ourselves and our habits, perhaps we’d discover a small bit of this pathology. It’s not innocuous — it’s a condition that is polluting one of our most sacred and beautiful seas right now.
If we say yes to reducing, reusing, recycling, and DIY’ing, we can eventually kick BP to the curb and wash that dirty petroleum right out of our hair.
Like I say in my new book, Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable, it’s time for us to break the cycle and find better energy boyfriends.