By Intelligent-Store321 • Score: 1 • April 11, 2025 3:59 PM
I (23F) love my best friend (22F). We met a few years ago, while she was still with her culty ex-husband. She went to less-good-quality schools than I did, and I know that a feature of shitty schooling is shitty sex education - I get that it's not her fault for receiving sub-par tuition.
She got a divorce about a year ago, and has been sowing her wild oats, which, kudos for her! She only slept with her ex-husband a few (like less than five) times during their marriage, so she didn't have a lot of experience at first. She's now happily getting into casual relationships and fwb flings, and one night stands - all the things she wants to do to live out her early twenties.
I found out recently that she has not ever been, and is not planning to get on birth control. She's also not in any single relationship, isn't ready for kids, and doesn't think she'd be comfortable having an abortion if she got pregnant. I had the fear of God put into me as a youth about avoiding pregnancy - and I personally think that was a good fear to be instilled. During my university days, I worked to assist a handful of people to get adequate sex education and information on contraception options, specifically including people coming out of various cult-ey high-schools. This is an issue that's pretty close to my heart.
When I first heard that she wasn't on any form of contraception, I gave her the rundown on the various options and provided recommendations, just as I did with all the other people I've educated. She was adamant that each option didn't work for her (giving reasons that I think are silly, but that's her prerogative), and she was only comfortable using condoms (which have about an 87% efficacy rate with typical use, which isn't very high imo). I accepted that she didn't want advice, so I backed off, and reminded her that I'm happy to help if she wants to revisit the subject.
It's been a few months, and she has continued to sow her wild oats, but has started engaging in more risky behaviour, such as not using condoms at all. As her best mate, she tells me about these things in detail, and the riskiness makes me incredibly worried and uncomfortable. I've started revisiting the idea of contraception again, offering to assist with booking doctors appointments, or any blockers she might have.
She's now expressed that she doesn't like that I have continued to encourage/pressure her to get on birth control. However, I feel that it's incredibly risky to sleep around without it, and it's disrespectful to any sexual partners, and possibly a violation of informed consent as she does not always advise them that she doesn't use contraception. Especially in the somewhat-likely case that she gets pregnant, and makes someone a father against their intentions.
I know that people's bodies and medical decisions are their own choices, but I am incredibly uncomfortable with the choices that my friend is making. Am I The Asshole for continuing to bring up the topic of contraception, and attempting to encourage her to use it?
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