99% of sexually active women in the U.S have used birth control before (ACOG)! One of the critical differences between men and women is the asymmetric investment that women are responsible for being the sole caregiver for 9 months while they carry the baby, and then complete dependency during the first year of development. She is bearing all of the risk. No wonder at puberty a woman’s sensitivity to negative emotion increases (He et al., 2014). It has to in order to protect her newfound liability–her sexual maturity. If she is fooled by a man the consequences are dire for her and her baby. Poverty being the most apparent and social denigration being not far behind. This unspoken law which has governed women since the beginning helps make sense of why women are as selective as they are about the men they choose as partners. Having sex was incredibly risky for women until the invention of the birth control pill in 1950. A more complete education about all of its impacts is owed to mothers and daughters who are considering taking it for its obvious advantages.
Birth control gave women control precisely when they wanted to have children. This unlocked complete sexual and financial freedom that was not previously available. It opened the door to professional opportunities in fields that were predominantly male. Additionally, they would now be able to engage in sex for fun without the constant risk of pregnancy. Third-wave feminists took hold of the pill for good reason, but their big mistake would be in thinking it could do no harm, and the harm of their ignorance is largely unknown.
Birth control influences far beyond the targeted effect of contraception or hormonal balance. The entire female psyche is changed by sex hormones. Women’s sex hormones naturally follow cyclical change. They oscillate between estrogen and progesterone. Hormonal birth control, including IUDs, works by emitting relatively high levels of progesterone or its synthetic version called progestin along with relatively lower levels of estrogen (daily). This mimics a state in which a woman’s biology and neurology is tricked into responding that she may be pregnant. Thereby interrupting (in some way) the dynamic cycle of ovulation and menstruation.
The balance of sex hormones plays a large role in, believe it or not, sex and sexual desires. The hormonal makeup helps determine what man a woman is attracted to. Multiple studies with a total of 300 women point to women high in estrogen naturally choosing a man that is high in testosterone, while the woman on birth control prefers men with less testosterone (Craig & Birnbaum). Likewise, when a woman is higher in estrogen, she is made imperceptibly more attractive to men in terms of sight, smell, voice, and even movement.
One of the other side effects that is surfacing from the use of hormonal contraception is the effect on stress. The female stress response changes because of these hormonal disruptors. Women who are on hormonal birth control experience a blunted cortisol release according to a UCLA Health study with 130 women. This inhibited response is characteristic of PTSD and trauma survivors. These are real structural changes in the brain chemistry that could lead to an inability to cope with stress, difficulty regulating emotions, and even learning and memory impairment.
As birth control and the sexual revolution continue to shape our society and the generations that follow, it is important that the women who might bear its consequences know the full truth of what it could mean for their mental health and who they choose to spend life with, because just like the atomic bomb…we can’t go back to a time without it.
Written by Ethan Runyon
Bibliography
Dr. Sarah Hill
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Access to Contraception.” Accessed February 12, 2025.
UCLA Health. “Study Shows How Birth Control Pills Affect Women’s Stress Responses.” Accessed February 12, 2025. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/release/study-shows-how-birth-control-pills-affect-womens
He, J., Sun, S., Zuo, M., Cheng, Y., Li, L., Zhu, W., … & Li, C. (2014). Different patterns of puberty effect in neural oscillation to negative stimuli: Sex differences. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 8(4), 299-306.
Roberts, S. Craig. (2014). Effect of Birth Control on Women’s Mate Preferences. In T.K. Shackelford & V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science (pp. 299-306). Springer International Publishing AG.
Birnbaum, G. E. (2024). Do Contraceptive Pills Affect Attraction? Psychology Today.
Copilot AI. (2025). Assisting with Research and Data Analysis. Microsoft Copilot.
Leave a Reply