Crushing that sex stigma: here’s everything that happened at our UL #MyMorningAfter talk

Brought to you by ellaOne

Well, we certainly had a good old chat, didn't we?

It's been a bit over a week since we had our #MyMorningAfter chat in the University of Limerick with morning-after pill brand ellaOne and we really didn't hold anything back with this one. We had such a great time chatting with all of you about the morning-after pill and all those other sex-related topics. (No taboo here, ladies!) And, more than that, we had SO many laughs. Thank you to the ladies who joined our ellaOne panel and turned our talk about sex and the morning-after pill into a full-on comedy show. Speaking of the lovely ladies, our guest panellists on the day were author Stefanie Preissner, model Shauna Lindsey and Niamh Webb O'Rourke, and the panel was lead by Girls with Goal's Niamh Maher. While we may indeed have had many, many laughs we were, in the end, there to crush a stigma that has been rife in Ireland for far too long. We were on a mission to end the stigma associated with the morning-after pill. (With a little help from some #MyMorningAfter themed goodies, of course!) For far too long, women have been made to feel ashamed for taking the morning-after pill and it's about time it stops. Look, lads, mistakes happen. That's life. And while we suggest you don't make a habit of these mistakes, you should be able to deal with them when they do happen without any sense of shame or judgement from anyone else. We think a lot of the shame and stigma comes from the lack of talk about and education surrounding sex and contraception. Seriously though, up to recently, sex education in most schools usually ranged from poor to non-existent. And when it did exist, it was often overshadowed by such a feeling of disapproval that we felt too scared to ask the teacher to either confirm or deny certain sex-related rumours that we had heard outside of class. For example, anyone heard that you can only take the morning-after pill three times? Yeah, not true. Or that you can get pregnant from sitting in a hot tub? Thanks for that one, Glee. The ladies on our panel at UL had heard their own set of rumours too. Stefanie Preissner had heard some interesting things about toilet seats. "It was, like, just that you could get STDs from toilet seats and that you could get pregnant from toilet seats." It seems that the rest of our panel had also heard this one so it obviously made the rounds at some schools. Who knows how people have been going around, terrified of using public toilets in case they get pregnant? As Stefanie says, though, to end up pregnant from that, "you'd want to be doing some *** serious stuff with a toilet seat..." Our own Niamh Maher had been informed that if the girl goes on top on the bottom, they can actually get more pregnant. We have no idea what that entails. Twins, maybe? Or a four-and-a-half month pregnancy instead of nine months? Don't listen to the rumours, ladies. Just remember to use contraception. And if you do forget, know that you can take emergency contraception without the fear of infertility (yes, even if you've already taken it three times - there is no limit). Until all of those rumours have well and truly disappeared, we will continue having these discussions along with ellaOne, talking the talk, fighting the stigma, and letting everyone know the proper truths about safe sex and the morning-after pill. So keep an eye out for our next panel - our chats and doughnuts could be coming to you next time. Brought to you by ellaOne ellaOne is an emergency contraceptive pill that is available from pharmacies without a prescription. No other morning-after pill is more effective at preventing pregnancy after unprotected sex. ellaOne consists of one film-coated tablet which should be taken as soon as possible, but no later than 5 days (120 hours) after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. Each film-coated tablet of ellaOne contains 30 mg ulipristal acetate. Always read the label.