A new distributor is bringing the female contraceptive known as the sponge back to store shelves. The Today Sponge is expected to appear in thousands of CVS and Longs Drug Stores locations across the nation this week, and Walgreens this summer, reports Natasha Singer for the New York Times.

Since appearing in 1983, the sponge has been a here-again, gone-again female contraceptive. Factory compliance issues spotted by the FDA led to its 1995 disappearance; the sponge contraceptive re-emerged in 2005 with new owners and was later sold to still other owners who declared bankruptcy in … Read More

A trial is set to test a new hormonal contraceptive for men in 400 couples across the globe (60 in the UK and 340 in nine international locales). In the study, University of Manchester researchers will initially give male volunteers ages 18 to 45  up to four courses of injections of a combination of two hormones, testosterone undecanoate and norethisterone enantate, over six months. Both hormones have already been tested in trials for safety and were shown to cause only mild side effects in a small group of participants.

The couples will then be asked to rely on the hormonal method … Read More

This is what we've known from the get-go: that the pill is good for people who want to avoid babies and menstrual cramps.

This is what we've learned in the years since: that the pill is not so good for people who are scared of developing blood clots and dying of a stroke.

But this is what you might be surprised to hear: that the pill can play a role in everything from how we lose our hair to what we choose to eat. I'm Just Not That Into His Weight Gain

Below, a list of eight facts you might never … Read More

Researchers in China may have succeeded in developing what people have dreamed about for centuries: effective, reversible male birth control that has no serious side effects (at least in the short-term).

Consisting of 500 mg of testosterone undecanoate in tea seed oil, this experimental contraceptive injection was tested on 1,045 healthy males, aged 20-45 years old, for 30 months. Each study participant had fathered a child within the two years before the study began. Their female partners were between 18 and 38 years old. All had normal medical histories. 7 Signs He May Have Spring Fever

The study … Read More

Love Bytes: three must click sex, dating and relationship links.Raising kids is expensive on two salaries, and even more expensive on one. [Sirens]Are you a nympho? Or do you just like getting it on? [Ask Dan And Jennifer]Women who truly enjoy sex often get labeled as nymphomaniacs, or "nymphos" for short. Just because a woman likes sex and enjoys having it, does that make her a "nympho?" What if she’s recently lost weight or had a big life change and has started to see herself in a more sexual way?Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore have been … Read More

This past Sunday, season two of 17 Kids and Counting kicked off on TLC with "A Very Duggar Wedding."Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Duggars, allow us to give you a very brief introduction. Jim Bob is the patriarch of the family and a former Arkansas state legislator. Michelle is the matriarch of the family, Arkansas's 2004 Young Mother of the Year, and Jim Bob's high school sweetheart.Early on in their marriage, the two experienced a miscarriage that they came to believe was brought on by Michelle's use of the birth control pill. Afterwards, … Read More

Second to black protestant teens, white Evangelical Christian teens have sex earlier than any other cultural or religious teen group, according to a government study of adolescent behavior called Add Health.

Next week's New Yorker magazine explores the possible explanations behind this surprising statistic in an article titled "Red Sex, Blue Sex." For better or worse, Bristol Palin, Sarah's 17-year-old expectant daughter, has become the poster child for all that fails in the abstinence-only, virginity-pledge system. As the article points out, virginity pledge groups work only when participation is kept below 30 percent of a specific … Read More

Starting sometime in the 1950s, when female contraception was virtually nonexistent, legend has it some inventive women would shake a bottle of Coca-Cola and open it into themselves after having sex to prevent pregnancy. While this seems as effective a contraception method as standing on one's head is to getting pregnant, a Boston ob-gyn professor put the soft drink to the test in the early '80s and found it does indeed kill some sperm.

Taiwanese doctors who replicated Dr. Deborah Anderson's 1985 findings determined Coca-Cola is not an effective contraceptive, but both findings found that Diet Coke is … Read More

Starting sometime in the 1950s, when female contraception was virtually nonexistent, legend has it some inventive women would shake a bottle of Coca-Cola and open it into themselves after having sex to prevent pregnancy. While this seems as effective a contraception method as standing on one's head is to getting pregnant, a Boston ob-gyn professor put the soft drink to the test in the early '80s and found it does indeed kill some sperm.

Taiwanese doctors who replicated Dr. Deborah Anderson's 1985 findings determined Coca-Cola is not an effective contraceptive, but both findings found that Diet Coke … Read More

Women's website Dear Sugar recently asked users to sound in on what birth control method they recommend. The answers ranged from celibacy and condoms to patches and intrauterine devices (IUDs).

While the methods varied, the users' endorsements of this product or rants against that one were universally resolute. Because, for a woman, birth control is not only a hormone or a shield or a sponge, it's so much more; the Pill, the gateway female-controlled form of contraception, has long represented a social, political and moral battlefield embodies freedom for some and fear for others. Let's just say its … Read More