Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 30, 2026
Treatment Model for Young Patients with Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction and Resultant Infertility
Published on: May 30, 2025
Pleasure, prophylaxis and procreation: a qualitative analysis of intermittent contraceptive use and unintended
Jenny A Higgins1, Jennifer S Hirsch, James Trussell
1Office of Population Research and the Center for Health and Wellbeing, Princeton University, USA. jennyh@princeton.edu
Context:
Although pregnancy ambivalence is consistently associated with poorer contraceptive use, little is known about the sexual, social and emotional dynamics at work in pregnancy ambivalence.
Methods:
During in-depth sexual and reproductive history interviews conducted in 2003, 36 women and men were asked about the relational and emotional circumstances surrounding each pregnancy, as well as their thoughts about conceiving a baby with both current and previous partners. An ethnographic, inductive approach was used to analyze the data.
Results:
Half of respondents had experienced at least one unintended pregnancy. Respondents described three categories of pleasure related to pregnancy ambivalence: active eroticization of risk, in which pregnancy fantasies heightened the charge of the sexual encounter; passive romanticization of pregnancy, in which people neither actively sought nor prevented conception; and an escapist pleasure in imagining that a pregnancy would sweep one away from hardship. All three categories were associated with misuse or nonuse of coitus-dependent methods.
Conclusions:
For some individuals, the perceived emotional and sexual benefits of conception may outweigh the goal of averting conception, even when a child is not wholly intended. Future behavioral studies should collect more nuanced data on pregnancy-related pleasure. Clinicians and patients would benefit from clearer guidelines for assessing ambivalence and for linking ambivalent clients with longer-acting methods that are not coitus-dependent.
Related Concept Videos
01:22Birth Control Methods
01:21Intrauterine Drug Delivery Systems
01:23Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
01:12Analysis of Population Pharmacokinetic Data
01:24Testing a Claim about Population Proportion
There are two methods of testing a claim about a population proportion: (1) Using the sample proportion from the data where a binomial distribution is approximated to the normal distribution and (2) Using the binomial probabilities calculated from the data.
The first method uses normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution. The requirements are as follows: sample size is large...
01:24Gonadal and Placental Hormones
In males, testosterone is the primary gonadal androgen. It plays a central role in the maturation of male reproductive organs — the penis and testes. Additionally, testosterone is instrumental in the development of secondary sexual characteristics — a deep voice as well as facial and pubic hair growth — and...