I thought this one would be easy because I wrote it in a comment reply on a post many years ago, and broke the DW comment limit in the process. Twice. I always kind of wanted to expand it, polish it up and repost it here, but then I ended up rewriting a little more extensively than I'd expected, to nobody's surprise.

This is, in rough paraphrase, meant to answer the question: I want to write sexually active cis female characters in a world with pre-industrial technology, without having them be tied to childbearing and childrearing. How can I do that, realistically, without having to rely on "because magic" or "because I say so"?

So below the cuts are various ways people have used to control and limit their reproductive and childcare roles across cultures and histories. It's heavy on historical European and Mediterranean cultures - that's way easier to research if you only read European languages, and also I'm less likely to completely screw them up. But most of these things, at least in broad strokes, would apply to most human cultures more or less. Warnings for... most things you can think of regarding gender, sexuality, reproduction and/or unwanted children, and possibly a few things you can't.

( Ways to avoid the problem )

( Ways to end a pregnancy or prevent conception with PIV sex )

( Things to do with a baby you don't want )

( Things to do with your kids other than become a full-time mom )


...and this just hit 6,000 words, so I'll leave it there. A lot of this is based on memories of things I studied in college quite awhile ago now, so no guarantees on accuracy, but if you want me to try to expand on any particular thing or offer recommended reading I will do my best to either give you something more or admit I don't have it.