You can not get pregnant from taking a shower with a man.

–

Taking a bath, or a shower, together is quite literally “Good, Clean Fun.”

Having sex in the shower or bath, however, is another thing entirely…

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant by going scrub a dub dub with a man in the tub:}

_{Being wet and naked with a man is not a risk for pregnancy since it doesn’t actually involve his sperm getting near your eggs. Well, unless being all soapy and scrubby makes you jump each others bones. You can get pregnant by having sex in a shower or bath. Just because there’s water on the outside doesn’t mean there can’t be insemination on the inside.}

You can not get pregnant by picking up a condom.

–

You can grab it with your toes…

You can sniff it up with your nose…

You can pinch it with your fingers…

You can squeeze it like a wringer…

But unless you are picking up that condom with your vagina there’s no chance it’s going to get you pregnant*.

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant by cleaning up after the people who inexplicably leave condoms in public places:}

_{There is no way for sperm to get into your body through your hands and travel to your uterus. Picking up used condoms is not going to get you pregnant. It could, however, conceivably infect you with a disease, particularly if the condom is still wet. If it’s your partner’s condom, wash your hands well after throwing it away. If it’s a stranger’s condom… it might be best to leave it alone unless you have a convenient pair of gloves or can grasp it from the other side of a plastic bag – and you’ll want to do a good hand wash after.}

*More power to you, if you can, but for most people the vagina isn’t a useful grasping instrument. Things have to be inserted first for it to hold onto.

You can not get pregnant by getting sperm on your jeans.

–

Even if those jeans are so tight that elderly women can tell from three blocks away that you’re not wearing underwear.

What you actually need to be worried about is getting sperm in your genes…

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant by making a bad fashion choice:}

_{There is no way for the sperm on your jeans to get into your vagina, climb up through your cervix, and fertilize a fashion-forward egg. In fact, although the moisture from the semen might seep through the fabric of your jeans to get onto your skin, it’s not even terribly likely that the sperm would go with it. There’s a far better chance that the whole mess would dry into a nice crusty stain. Don’t worry though. Even if the dried semen gets onto your underwear while you’re washing it, you still won’t get pregnant.}

You can not get pregnant by swimming in a pool where a man has recently ejaculated.

–

It doesn’t matter how big (or small) the pool is.

It doesn’t matter if you’re naked.

It doesn’t matter if he ejaculates while swimming right next to you holding you in a fond embrace.

The only way you can get pregnant from swimming in a pool where a man has recently ejaculated is if said recent ejaculation happened while he was having vaginal intercourse with you in that pool… and if that’s the case I recommend you pick up a life preserver along with a package of condoms. You’re not just risking pregnancy… you could drown!

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant by swimming in sperm infested waters:}

_{The vagina is a potential space, not an open cavity waiting to engulf any passing sperm and suck it up through the cervix to where it can fertilize an egg. There is no way for the sperm in the pool to get inside you unless it is hand delivered by a penis. Penis delivered by a penis? Unless is delivered, during intercourse, by the penis express.}

You can not get pregnant if, when fooling around with your boyfriend you touch a wet spot on his jeans (that might be semen… or vaginal secretions… or spilled cola…) and then go to the bathroom and use that hand to hold the toilet paper that you wipe yourself with.

–

For that matter, you can also not get pregnant if, when fooling around with your boyfriend he actually ejaculates on your hand and then you go to the bathroom, pee, and hold your toilet paper in that hand while wiping yourself. Still, in that case I’d wash my hands first. Sticky. Yuck.

_{See the explanation from #4 for why you can not get pregnant by touching semen and then going to the bathroom. You can, of course, get pregnant from touching seamen and then going to the bathroom and having sex with them… but that’s an entirely different story.}

You can not get pregnant from sitting on sperm.

–

You can not catch sperm from a chair. You can not catch it from a stair. Unless you sit upon a man* there won’t be sperm inside your can.**

_{Explanation for why you can’t get pregnant from sitting on sperm – and a big thank you to the numerous people who searched for our site using variations on that question and gave me some much needed inspiration:}

_{In order to get pregnant, the sperm have to reach the egg. They’re good swimmers, but they’re not sneak thieves – if you sit on them, there’s no good way for them to stealthily climb up into your body, slide through your cervix, and have a hot date with an ovum. They don’t, after all, have rappelling gear, and the sperm not only have to get up into your vagina they have to make it into your uterus!}

*and by “sit on”, I mean “have sex with”
**and by “can” I mean “vagina” – a word which rhymes with absolutely nothing useful.

You can’t get pregnant if your boyfriend cleans himself up with a tissue after he ejaculates, you pick up that tissue to throw it away, and a few hours later you go to the bathroom and wipe yourself. Not even if, in all that time, you haven’t washed your hands.

–

For gods sake, though, if you’re going to go around picking up dirty tissues and throwing them away… WASH YOUR HANDS AFTERWARD. Eww. Better to leave them all over the floor until they dry out, get all crusty, and are no danger to anyone.

_{Explanation for why you can’t get pregnant from picking up a semen covered Kleenex (and then touching yourself hours later):}

_{It’s hard to get pregnant. The sperm have to make it through the vagina, get up into the cervix, and find an egg. Wiping the outside of your body with toilet paper held by a hand that happens to have been in the general vicinity of semen a few hours earlier just won’t do it. The semen, and the sperm it contains, have to get INSIDE your vagina.}

You can not get pregnant from a “facial”*

–

*A “facial”, in this context, is when a man ejaculates on his partner’s face.

That having been said, cucumber salt scrub is also incapable of making a woman pregnant.

Plus, you shouldn’t eat it on your salad, no matter how good it smells.

Live and learn.

_{Explanation for why you can’t get pregnant from a facial:}

_{Sperm are not distance swimmers. The journey from your face, down your body, into your vagina, and then up through your cervix and into your uterus is simply beyond their endurance. It doesn’t even matter if you get semen in your mouth – there’s no direct connection to where they’d need to go to make you pregnant, and they’d never survive the journey through your stomach if there was. Sperm do not like acid. Given that the normal pH of the vagina is a moderately acidic 4, it takes all the buffering power of the semen for the sperm to survive long enough to make you pregnant as it is!}

_{To quote one of my favorite pieces of science writing…}

_{“Ascending the female genital tract… may be likened for the male gamete to a dramatic suicidal epos”-F.C. Chretien in “The Saga of Human Spermatazoa Throughout the Jungle of the Female Genital Tract.}

–

You can not get pregnant from sitting on a toilet seat.

–
… unless there is a man underneath you on that toilet seat and you are having sex with him – vaginal intercourse, to be precise, where there are no condoms or other forms of birth control in use.

Personally, I think there are far more hygienic places to have sex than on a toilet seat, but if you’re going to do it… at least use protection. A good seat cover can save you a world of mess. (What? did you think I meant condoms? You should probably use those too.)

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant by sitting on a toilet seat:}

1. _{The sperm has to get inside you, swim up through your cervix, and find a nice egg to cuddle up to. Unless you have installed an industrial strength vacuum cleaner in your uterus, it’s just not going to happen. The vagina is not designed to suck random objects up off the floor… or a toilet seat.}

You can not get pregnant if your partner has been using a condom correctly, it doesn’t break, and you’re on the pill.

–

The sheer impossibility of it is kind of fun to picture. Imagine, if you will, a bunch of sperm banging their fists on the glass window of a really hip (get it?) bar. They’re guys! All they want to do is have some fun and meet some nice eggs, only they can’t seem to get through the door. The best part is the irony of the whole thing. Even if they could get in, they wouldn’t meet any hot eggs. They all stayed home to do their nails and watch reruns of Sex in the City.

_{Explanation for why you can not get pregnant if you have sex with an intact condom when you’re on the pill:}

1. _{The pill, assuming you’re taking it properly, and have been on it long enough, is preventing you from ovulating. Therefore, there is no egg around for the sperm to fertilize and make an embryo.}
2. _{Even if there were an egg, the sperm have to get into your body… they can’t do that from inside a condom.}