Ranting Lady Blogger Hates Birth Control, Only Uses Plan B

XOJane.com blogger Cat Marnell attempted to write a column about Plan B today. Instead, she ended up with a bizarre 1000-word treatise on why she never uses birth control or condoms, just the morning-after pill, even though she thinks it's murder:

OK, so for the exactly three women left in this world, apparently, who don't know what Plan B is, it is sort of the world's greatest contraceptive. [...] What Plan B does: Zap that sucker at the source! No, I don't actually think there is a "sucker." I would not talk in such a... glib tone about abortion, which I believe, yes, is murder

As if that premise weren't off-putting enough in the health section of a women's website, Marnell appears to have a writerly form of multiple personality disorder, alternating between talking about her sex life and vowing never to discuss her sex life. Behold, the deterioration of Cat Marnell's superego:

Ranting Lady Blogger Hates Birth Control, Only Uses Plan B1) Letting the man come somewhere besides where it will get me pregnant. Which is always (vaguely) fun. SO, why not? Because I always instruct someone to do it the dangerous way. FYI, this will be the first and last time I discuss my sex life on this website. It's just not my thing; I just can't do it. I'm doing it only because this is a birth control issue.

2) Birth control pills. NO. They will make me fat; they will make me "spot" (another thing I squeamishly just DON'T LIKE TALKING ABOUT; don't worry, though, everyone else who works here does); they will give me acne; and quite frankly, they will NOT prevent me from getting pregnant! I know this because IT HAPPENED TO ME™.

No, I didn't take my pills right; I forget things like this unless they are FUN pills, or what I BELIEVE, delusionally, to be a "fun" pill at the time; anyway, the point is, unless a pill gets me speedy or doped up as all hell I will NOT remember to take it, and then I will get pregnant! I JUST WILL. (IHTM™.)

3) The Depo-Provera Shot. Uh-huh. Same concept as the pills, if you get my drift. Egads, but it's true.

4) Condoms. Nope! As if. I don't know. I don't sleep with that many people and so I just don't do condoms! ARG I HATE TALKING ABOUT MY SEX LIFE; LET'S END THIS.

Unfortunately, she keeps going for another 500 words. (Does Jane Pratt have a gun to her head? Or maybe a slave-driving editrix alter-ego showed up?)

5) Abortion. This shouldn't even be on the list though obviously I've had them. Abortions are not birth control and I hate them! I'm OBVIOUSLY pro-choice but I think they are terrible and wrong and I hate having them. And I mean terrible for everyone involved. It breaks my heart all around.

6) A diaphragm. Ooh! The wild card! I had one of these in college, and by college I mean the year I was 18 and living in Soho and going to "acting school" and blowing my trust fund on cocaine and champagne at all of the best clubs. Anyway, I lugged around a diaphragm with me in a little case and would OCCASIONALLY use it. I was very slutty back then and never got preg, so I guess it worked. Amazingly I did not get herpes, though. Or anything else!

Ranting Lady Blogger Hates Birth Control, Only Uses Plan BSO. That leaves us with Plan B. I don't even want to describe how Plan B works, mainly because I'm too lazy to look it up. Here, analyze this, um, diagram:



Won't somebody get this poor girl some decent health care? She needs a sex ed class, a chill pill, and maybe an intervention. She has the sex blogging equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome, and seems to believe the only way out is self-destruction:

We should all stop letting dudes come inside of us and take some responsibility because I am feeling increasingly guilty about being an AVID participant in an abortion-friendly culture. Attack me in the comments section — GO.

Oh dear. This could get ugly. Don't give up, Cat! There's still hope! Pry the 'I' button off your keyboard and start using condoms, you'll be fine. [XOJane via TheGloss, Images via Plan B and XOJane]

Update: To be clear, Cat Marnell is the "Beauty and health director for xoJane.com." In the comments section of her Plan B post, she notes, "i have really low self-esteem about my abilities as a health editor, but i promise i'm working on it and hang in there with me."