The key words are “perfect use” Withdrawal has a much poorer rate of “perfct use” than condoms, especially with teenagers.
I’m also not buying the numbers for condoms. I think realistically, condoms are probably like 97% effective and pulling out porno style is maybe around 80% (and probably more like 50/50 for teenagers).
This is simply incredible. Maybe I just haven’t interacted with you much but, wow, I thought the bar was set much higher here on the Dope. Now you’re just making up numbers to prove your point. Wow. Seriously.
Put it this way. Even if we go with the worst case typical numbers for withdrawal, we only get one in five couples getting pregnant over the course of an entire year. When a typical pregnancy rate is 85% over the year for a couple not using any birth control of any sort, it’s absolutely positively insane to say withdrawal is ineffective as a method.
Those numbers come from the stats that have been posted. I’m just assuming that “perfect use” is the norm for condoms and not for withdrawal – especially for teenagers.
Show your math. The numbers have 19% failure for typical use. You’re claiming 20% overall. Obviously, there must be plenty of couples of who are capable of perfect use because where else would the 4% number come from? In other words, if you are somehow weighing typical use and perfect use, your final number should land somewhere in the 4-19% range. Not 20%.
edit: Even so, these numbers directly contradict your assertion that “Withdrawal is not a form of birth control.” It is. 2 out of 10 couples getting pregnant in a year is a hell of a lot less than 8.5 out of 10 couples getting pregnant.
That’s fair. I’m going to assume the opposite is true, and I have hereby proven that withdrawal is safer than condom use.
Yes, I’m discarding the alleged “typical use” number for condoms because they can’t possibly prove that and it sounds like bullshit. I’m accepting the “perfect” rate for condoms and acceoting the “typical” rate for withdrawal.
How convenient. Anyhow, check up on my last edit. The withdrawal method most definitely controls birth. There is no amount of weaseling that could get you out of that contradiction.
Anything with a 20% failure rate does does not control birth any more than a umbrella with hole in it “keeps out the rain.” You get wet more slowly but you still get wet.
Same could be said for a condom. Like I said, I know condom births.
Ooo, ooo. The analogy game! Can I play? Let’s say you have a medicine. In people not taking the medicine, 85% die in the first year. People taking the medicine, only 19% die. Would you consider this medicine ineffective?
I disagree that the same thing can be said for condoms. I don’t accept that misuse (or neglected use) of condoms occurs anywhere near as frequently as slipping up with withdrawal.
I woulkd consider it effectively useless if another medicine existed which caused only a 3% fatality rate.
You’re trying to say that pulling out is better than nothing. That’s true, but it’s still not as good as wearing a condom.
But the typical use numbers are from ACTUAL studies of people who intend to do perfect use. They are perfectly analogous.
You’re reading it wrong again.
We obviously have much, MUCH different definitions of useless. Lowering your chances of death from 85% to 19% is not “effectively useless” in my book. Just because there’s better ways to do it doesn’t make ways that increase your survival more than fourfold “ineffective.” I mean, what, are you gonna reject the 19% drug just because there’s a 3% drug out there? Ah, fuck it, 19% is as good as 85%, might as well not take it and die, it’s all the same. Really? 
Not only that, I’m saying pulling out is MUCH better than nothing. Even if you’re sloppy and only fall into the “typical use” category, it would take you 9 years practicing the withdrawal method to catch up to the 85% pregnancy rates of using no method at all. (About 3 1/2 years to get to the 50% rate).
Has anyone said this? The closest we’ve said is that in both typical and perfect use, withdrawal is only slightly less effective than a condom. My personal experience with withdrawal would put me in the perfect use column. I’ve never ever come close to accidentally coming inside a woman. If you don’t trust yourself to do this, don’t use withdrawal as birth control.
I’m reading it correctly, I’m just calling the numbers for typical use of condoms bullshit. They have to rely on self-reporting, and I don’t buy the self-reporting. It’s certainly not scientific proof.
You told him he was parroting what “They” said. Who are “They”? Who is this oppressive “Man” who is lying to kids, as you allege? I would posit that “They” as deceitful boogeymen don’t exist, but that sex educators of teens tell kids that withdrawal is not a reliable means of birth control, and doesn’t do jack for STD’s, so it is very dangerous to rely on and that they should use condoms. That’s not a lie, and I think it’s wrong that you’re characterizing it as such and insinuating that teachers are lying to kids.
More like 43% after 2 years. That’s not good odds either. Yes, it’s better than nothing, but if I were educating kids, I’d steer them away from thinking that withdrawal is a good idea. It’s not.
I’m not supporting Diogenes’ claims. I’m disputing the premise of yours, which is that deliberate lying is going on when educators discourage kids from using withdrawal. Is it useless? No. Is it playing Russian roulette with your dick? Hell yes.
Exactly who are you accusing of lying? I’m curious.
Is everyone else getting as turned on by the thread as I am???
Deleted. TMI.
But it’s hell on a monitor screen… 
It was a rhetorical device, Rubystreak. You’re overthinking it.
But, since you insist, **Diogenes **is lying to them. Whoever taught him that withdrawal is ineffective lied to him. The teacher I had in high school who told us that withdrawal might as well be called “pull and pray” lied to me.
Perhaps “lied” is harsh. It’s possible that they were just all ignorant instead. Or perhaps they were constrained by what the teaching materials told them to say. Or maybe they hadn’t read the latest statistics or good stats weren’t available back then. So maybe they weren’t lying, but just didn’t know any better. Well, except for Diogenes. He’s read too much here to be ignorant now, that brings it pretty squarely back to lying.
The danger is that some kids hear that and, instead of choosing a more effective, more expensive, more time consuming and more side effect heavy method, decide they might as well do nothing at all. And so that’s 96 girls knocked up instead of 45, in the course of *two *years.
You have yet to articulate what the “lie” is. Telling kids that withdrawal is not a reliable means of birth control is truthful. Trying to argue that it’s better than nothing does not make it a “lie” to say that it’s ineffective and a bad idea. Nobody is saying they should do nothing, so that’s a strawman.