Private message to Poppy Pomfrey

[alt_sinistra]

Poppy -

Have a moment for a question? If you're not caught up from the chaos earlier this week, this can certainly wait.

My sister Tempest asked me about something about those pamphlets from Wizarding Repopulation. I usually toss them as soon as I get them, but I just got the latest round and had a closer look.

Have you seen their The Reality of Contraceptive Charms and Potions: The Risks You May Not Know? It’s not even the worst of the lot on the surface (that title goes to either Enticing Him To Ask: Getting Your Wizard To Propose for sheer manipulative nastiness, or Don't Let Your Time Turner Run Out!: What Every Witch Needs to Know About Her Internal Clock which includes the line “Fellow witches, the future of the Protectorate lies between our hipbones.” and gets worse from there.)

Anyway, Temp’s question was about their recommendations. They imply that longer-acting charms and potions are less safe, may lead to fertility concerns later, and are also less effective. They suggest the calendaring option, or an as needed potion or charm, but avoiding the commercial preparations entirely (While also intimating that most witches don’t have the skills to handle these things reliably themselves.) What options remain - besides pregnancy - is left as an exercise to the bewildered reader.

But Mum’s always told me that calendaring’s far more useful for those trying to conceive than those trying to avoid it, and that the long-acting or daily charms and potions are both more reliable and less likely to be forgotten in the moment. (As she put it, rummaging for a potion or your wand is easy to put off when you’d rather cuddle in a warm bed.) Though, of course the WRO also implies one should talk to the experts (theirs, preferably), rather than trust one’s family.

Any rate: I’m happy enough with my own choice (the Adsimilis Silphion charm), but Temp’s less comfortable with any charm that doesn’t involve food, so I thought I’d check with you for alternatives. I was going to suggest Madame Selene’s Prophylactic Precaution, and I know some people like the Felicitous Ferula one, too.

I can bring the pamphlet by, but it might be a bit - I’m still working through creating exams. (Oddly, the projections should make for much better exams, but they're more complicated to prep.)

Comments

[alt_sinistra]

No, I never had to come see you myself - always been fortunate that way. And my first monthly was over the summer, so Mum talked me through all the practical, having done the theory before I started school.

I must say I'm more and more grateful to her for being so matter of fact about it. Temp mentioned that so many of her friends don't dare talk to their mothers about that kind of thing. Not in any detail, and especially if it's a relationship that may not be serious. (Except, of course, that Mum hasn't needed the pregnancy prevention precautions for a bit now, and doesn't know the best recent options. That's what older sisters are for.)

On the one hand, I can't blame people. I didn't tell Mum and Dad much about most of my relationships. (Especially Dad. He's sometimes a bit prone to worry.) But then they were all when I was off on research projects, and we both knew they were short-term only, and I was in my 20s by then. But I'd never have hesitated to ask if I needed help.

I do agree on the protections perhaps being a disservice, though I do think Helga was in the right to put them in in the first place. And yet, that isn't the only worry, either - well, given that whole mess with Orion Sandoval, or the students I know Raz sent to you for some further education before the Ball this winter.

[alt_poppy]

Actually, I was on the verge of saying that I almost wish we had a case of the clap every year or so, just as a reminder to the rest of them that pregnancy is not the only matter for concern.

And, of course, for the ones who are not attracted to the opposite gender, there's the danger that they'll not think they could ask me--for information or counsel or physical concerns--because, somehow, they get it in mind that preventing pregnancy is my only brief when it comes to sexuality. Or perhaps they expect I'll disapprove.

[alt_sinistra]

It did seem to keep the concern nicely front and center, yes. And then there's all the other issues, bodies being the complicated things they are.

One of the slightly older women on the same project, the summer of my first relationship, sat me down and ran through a lot of that, and then more beside. Not just the stuff you need to know, but the things that make the whole experience of sexuality that much more pleasant and enjoyable. (I've been grateful to her - and that first relationship - ever since, mind you. Much better than fumbling through it.)

Though, of course, I suspect that either of us even suggesting at that kind of information would go badly awry here, much as it's actually useful and needful.

On the latter - yes. Gilly and I've talked about it, more than a little. She and her Juniper have been doing their best to quietly chat with people who could use a little info of that kind, as they can. But it's not easy.

And the more so, I suspect, the more pressure there is to have children. In confidence, I might tell you that Gilly a friend of mine's had her own experiences with the WRO there. Got called in not too long ago, and carefully told (this, they don't have pamphlets for) that preferring women to men is no reason she couldn't have a child, and they'd be glad to help coordinate a donor father of suitable background.

She found the whole thing distasteful. And they couldn't seem to decide how to handle it - she's a halfblood, but with some skills that they'd clearly like to see if they can encourage in the next generation.