People Did WHAT to Prevent Pregnancy?!

There are many reasons to be grateful to be alive in 2014, and this insane video about ancient contraceptives from the Discovery Channel's Anyhoo show gives us seven scary reasons to love our condoms, Plan B pills, IUDs, and other forms of modern-day birth control. Back in ancient times, people were still trying to figure out certain aspects of how the human body worked. They definitely knew how to have sex, but they weren't so sure about how to prevent pregnancy. There was plenty of trial and error — and judging by these old-school ideas about pregnancy prevention, probably a lot of error.

One method involved women sticking crocodile dung and honey into their vaginas before sex. A very sick mind thought up that one, and this comes from the ancient Egyptians! The people who brought us the great pyramids! How did these intelligent, worldly people determine that it would be a good idea to have women stuff such messy substances up there? Seems like it would be a good way to prevent pregnancy, though, because surely no one would even want to have sex when reptile feces is part of the game plan. The other methods aren't any better and at least one is deadly — putting lemons up there? Drinking mercury?

I don't know about you, but it makes me much more appreciative of our current contraceptive options. And speaking of, now that we have proven birth control methods at our disposal, how is it that we still have surprise pregnancies? Sex can lead to a case of the babies, folks. In a developed country with free condoms and reproductive information in reach, it seems pretty easy to not get pregnant if you don't wish to get pregnant. No contraception is 100 percent effective, of course, and certain medications and medical conditions can make contraceptives even less reliable, but come on. For the sake of all the women before us who stuck poop up their vaginas, we should be taking advantage of what modern science has brought us for our family planning needs.