hy think about taking birth control every day? So says the NuvaRing website.

Back in 2008, I had found a pamphlet at my local Planned Parenthood. I was a freshman in college — 19, dating a 24-year-old with a steady line of marijuana and a Volkswagon Jetta.

We’ll call him Ryan.

Ryan was a lot of things. A musician, a sweetheart — a cocaine-addict with a four-foot bong by his bed. He didn’t really have his shit together, which is probably why he was dating someone five years his junior who had just moved out from her parents’ house. But for young me, he was kind of a dreamboat. A chaotic, problematic, charming dreamboat who lived with his parents.

The NuvaRing seemed like a good, less-stressful option compared to the pill. Here’s how it works, for those of you not in the know: the NuvaRing is a relatively small, flexible ring that releases controlled amounts of hormones in similar doses to the pill.

However, you can leave it in your pussy for an entire month before it needs to be replaced.

It’s more forgiving than birth control pills and less of a commitment than an IUD; a perfect solution for a flakey young adult.

So one night, Ryan invites me over. We get stoned and started making out. Now, when things usually began to escalate, I would take my NuvaRing out in the most unflattering, knees-bent-in-the-air-and-pincer-fingers-in-my-vajayjay posture imaginable.

You could take it out for up to six hours without issue. However, you could also just leave it in there, which is what I did this time as Ryan got on top of me. You could barely feel the NuvaRing, anyway. The penis usually just kind of pushed it out of the way.

Usually.

Imagine you’re about to put your penis into a vagina you’re fairly familiar with. You know its curves, its undulations, its depths. After a few minutes of fairly good, but still unalarming sex, there’s something different. Something has wrapped around your penis. You might be a little shocked. You might even have a knee-jerk reaction.

My NuvaRing was supposed to just get shoved to the side like a hormonal third-wheel. What happened instead is that it lassoed my boyfriend’s cock like a cowboy, making him momentarily think he was in Teeth. Ryan yelped, yanking his dick from the gooey maw between my legs.

The NuvaRing hung on to him, and the inertia from his sudden withdrawal flung the wet ring of plastic across the room like a rubber band. It hit the mirror on the opposite wall with a loud, wet slap. We both watched silently as it slowly slid down, leaving a trail of slime behind it until it finally fell on the floor.

When I got up to retrieve it, I walked by his bedroom window. I looked out in the backyard and Ryan’s mother was there.

I waved, trying to look less naked. It didn’t work.