film / tv / politics / social media / lists celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / politics / web / celeb

OliviaRodrigoGutsTour.jpg

‘It’s Brutal Out Here’: Olivia Rodrigo Stops Distribution of Contraceptives at Shows After Backlash

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | March 18, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | March 18, 2024 |

OliviaRodrigoGutsTour.jpg

Pajiba favorite Olivia Rodrigo proved she’s my kind of “All American Bitch” when she invited abortion funds and reproductive health care foundations to distribute free emergency contraceptives like Plan B as well as condoms and information about abortion access to concertgoers on her “Guts” world tour. The initiative, part of her Fund 4 Good, started at her March 8th show in Charlotte, North Carolina, and went viral at her recent Missouri shows, where fans were offered a cute little branded package that included two boxes of a morning-after pill called Julie, and information about abortion access and the Missouri Abortion Fund. There were also free condoms and stickers widely available.

Do you know how excited I would be to receive an Olivia Rodrigo branded condom and morning-after pill? I would have paid money for it! It’s a collector’s item!

But if you read all of that and thought, “It’s too good to be true,” congratulations! You win the Disillusioned Dystopian Award! There was, of course, right-wing backlash the likes of which I will not quote here because it’s too stupid. But you can imagine it, I’m sure.

Sources from organizers say they were informed by Rodrigo’s team Thursday afternoon that they would no longer be allowed to hand out their resources because “children are present at the concerts.” …Yeah, no shit, Sherlock! (Variety)

“The reality is that youth have sex, and youth need access to birth control and emergency contraception,” said communications manager for the DC Abortion Fund, Jade Hurley. “What we are doing is completely legal in all 50 states.”

“There is something really positive about a 16-or-15-year-old having Plan B and a few condoms in her dresser to use as she needs it,” said Destini Spaeth, chair of the Prairie Abortion Fund. “Sex and sexual health tools—whether that be abortion, Plan B, condoms—are villainized because you’re [seen as being] promiscuous. We don’t look at it as a sign of responsibility…If the kids aren’t getting the education that they need in school, at least they can rely on reproductive health organizations in their communities to get that information and resources to them.” She says she and her team will still be there handing out informational materials, hats, buttons, and stickers.

Seriously, though, I cannot stress enough how much it would have meant to me to have free, anonymous access to these kinds of contraceptives as a teenager. When I was in high school, discovering sex and losing my virginity, you had to hope your boyfriend had a condom, or you had to go to the school nurse, who looked at you like you were the biggest slut alive, to get them. Sex ed was taught by the creepiest old man they could find, and I heard that man utter the words “mutual masturbation” and promptly blacked out. To be in possession of a female reproductive system in high school is to live in constant fear of being impregnated. My friends and I talked about it constantly and tracked our periods with ferocious anxiety. Plan B and pills like it didn’t exist as far as we knew, or they weren’t available to us. It was not uncommon to find pregnancy tests discarded in the trash cans of the girls’ restrooms at school. I sat outside the stall while friends took one more than once. Most of us finally got on the pill in college, but the lucky few who got a prescription in high school were whispered about viscously.

I also want to stress the importance of these resources being handed out at a pop concert. My early concertgoing experiences included the Jonas Brothers (shut up) and grungey, local shows, where my teeny-bopper friends and I would get dropped off by someone’s mom and then throw our bodies around in the mosh pit with much older guys who thought we were much older girls. A grown man once gave me, a virginal 16-year-old, his number at one of those shows. Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d texted him and met up with him somewhere?

But can you imagine what would have happened if I’d been given a free morning-after pill and a handful of condoms at that show? No, me neither. Too good to be true.

I’m positive Olivia Rodrigo herself had little to do with this disappointing decision, but it’s disappointing nonetheless. The least she could do is address it.