It simply does not work. The woman who employs this method finds herself in the same predicament as the one who believes that she is not in danger of pregnancy when she does not respond passionately to her husband. That this woman is more likely to conceive than the emotional one, is a well-known fact. The woman who refuses to use contraceptives, but who rejects sex expression except for a few days in the month, is likely to learn too soon the fallacy of her theory as a birth-control method. It was also the one method of birth control countenanced by the ecclesiastics.
Some women are never free from the possibility of conception from puberty to the menopause.
Here again, continence must give way, as a method of birth control, to contraceptives. Those who regard it as a method of family limitation are likely to find themselves disappointed. As a form of continence, however, if it can be called continence, it is asserted to bring none of the long course of evils which too often follow the practice of lifelong abstinence, or abstinence broken only when a child is desired. Its devotees testify that they avoid ill effects and achieve the highest possible results. These results are due, probably, to two factors.