Why I took the morning-after pill three times

And lube is for more than just an*l.

Sophie Kemp is the author of the novel Paradise Logic.

This was Brooklyn at the end of the 2010s. And by that I mean I was at a Pitchfork party at Kinfolk on Wythe and N. 11th, and Sky Ferreira was there. I was 22, almost 23. At this point in my life I was an assistant at Vogue. I was wearing a dress I originally purchased for my senior prom from an ebay seller in Hong Kong. I had been wearing it all day, since I got to work and had the very glamorous task of orchestrating an office move for my boss. I remember unpacking a giant watercolor painting of Walter Benjamin then tacking it up on her wall, literally with a thumb tack.

What I’m trying to say is that I was young, dumb, and trying to have fun. I got a drink from the open bar and made eye contact with Sky. Then I got another drink. And then another. I’m pretty sure Sky’s music was playing. I went to the bathroom with my friends where we all huddled in one stall and none of us did any drugs, mostly because we were so new to New York that we wouldn’t even know how to find them. I pulled my phone out of my purse and texted my boyfriend. We had been dating, at this point, for about four months. Do you see where this is going? I think I said something like: lol what r u doing tn.

Sometimes, it happens. One minute you are living in one kind of Girls episode, then the next, you’re living in a different Girls episode. You leave your glamorous magazine party and take the G train to your terrible apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn. Your boyfriend meets you there and you’re a little drunk. You have sex. It’s fun. You get up to go to the bathroom after and just as you’re sitting down a tiny piece of latex flutters into the bowl. You do a self exam and find out, actually there is a fair amount of that latex condom inside of you. Then you pee and it’s not pee. Also, in this totally hypothetical scenario, you’re not on any birth control. You whimper something to your boyfriend, and into the night he goes, all the way to Flatbush, to a 24/7 Walgreens. He pays for it, obviously.

I didn’t feel amazing the next day. But I also didn’t feel terrible. The morning-after pill is a form of hormonal contraceptive, and hormonal contraceptives have never exactly been my best friend. (It’s why I had to take the morning-after pill to begin with!) But I got through it. My boyfriend was extra sweet to me. I went to the Condé Nast cafeteria and got whatever I wanted for lunch. I let myself be a little bit of a diva. I took it easy in the evening and stayed in and watched TV. It wasn’t a big deal. My life went back to normal. I went to more magazine parties and had little cocktails with my friends and went out to dinner with my boyfriend. I was glad I wasn’t going to have a baby.

The next time I took the pill was early on in a new relationship. Same deal as the time before. My barrier method unexpectedly failed. It was July of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. My roommates didn’t want me to have anyone over because of Covid. I didn’t want to have to sneak around in my own home. We decided to get a hotel room in what is essentially the worst part of industrial Gowanus. We went to a dive bar before and were the only people there. We sat outside and drank terrible beer while looking out at Fourth Avenue. It felt cool to be breaking the rules, to be acting out just a little bit. It felt less cool when the condom broke a few hours later. But again, it was fine. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t like I was in a movie and threw up or was writhing from pain on the floor. I felt some minor physical discomfort. I took it easy.

One minute you are living in one kind of Girls episode, then the next, you’re living in a different Girls episode.

There was a third time shortly after that, same boyfriend. I began to realize my problem is that I needed to use lube. Not that I was using mysteriously defective condoms. I needed a little extra help, like a zillion other people. Sex is something you spend your whole life learning how to do. In my early 20s I might have thought I was some kind of world-class slut, but I also was immature and did not know that some people need to use lube during sex. I thought that was just for anal. I thought that was for girls who weren’t me.

I haven’t taken the morning-after pill ever since I had my earth-shattering revelation about lube. I don’t regret anything. I’m glad I’ve had the experience of taking the morning-after pill three times. It never felt like a big deal. If I have to take it again, it won’t feel like a big deal. And that’s because it isn’t a big deal. Each time I took the pill it was a personal choice about my personal health. I’ve always known I wanted to have children, but I also have always known I want to have them on my own terms. I knew when I wasn’t about to have children when I was a 22-year-old assistant making minimum wage in a bed-bug-infested hovel above a Hasidic laundromat. I also wasn’t about to have children in the middle of the pandemic with someone I had been on four dates with. That was not in the cards for me. (To fast forward a little bit: We ended up dating for two years, amicably split up, and are now close friends.)

If I want my life to be like a shitty Girls episode, let it be of the corny magazine party variety, not the impregnated by a surf instructor variety. People should be able to get pregnant on their own terms. I’m grateful for the three times I took the morning-after pill. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Men have to pay for that kind of thing.