Look, I don't have to tell you how quickly the fear of accidentally getting someone pregnant can kill your sex drive. Chances are you've been there—maybe as a 17-year-old clumsily fumbling around on the couch in your parents' basement, or maybe as an undergrad panic-searching for a condom in a dorm desk drawer, or maybe as a frazzled dad with enough kids already screaming downstairs. It's a real and universal anxiety for guys (and, as a woman, I imagine it might almost hold a candle to the anxiety we feel at the prospect of accidentally getting pregnant. Almost).

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But you know who's been out there for the last eight years tirelessly waging a war on this horrible, boner-killing feeling of dread? President Obama. If you've had sex with a woman in the last four years and found the encounter totally, gloriously un-plagued by angst about the risk of surprise fatherhood, you probably owe Barry O. a moment of gratitude.

A central provision of Obama's Affordable Care Act—one that went into effect in 2012—was the elimination of out-of-pocket costs for contraceptives for women, including the morning-after pill, IUDs (you know, those fishing-tackle contraptions that quietly prevent pregnancy for several years), and even sterilization. The ACA aimed to guarantee every insured woman at least one cost-free way to counteract an unwanted pregnancy—and in a broader sense, to guarantee every insured woman the right to control, regulate, modify, or hack her own reproductive system as she pleased.

The Obama administration committed to reassuring women that kids were only in their futures when and if they wanted them—and in the process, ushered in a golden era of low-risk sex for fun.

As a result, the second term of Obama's presidency, and the year 2016 in particular, is already being called a "golden age of birth control." Between 2012 and 2014, the percentage of women paying $0 for birth control pills more than tripled; for the vast majority of women the out-of-pocket price of an IUD dropped from hundreds of dollars to free. Even at the dawn of Obama's last year in office, his administration was still working to ensure that women—including women who worked for religious nonprofits—would have access to free birth control through their insurance.

This is all a long-winded way to say: Obama spent his presidency fighting for every American woman to be entitled to a worry-free sex life—the undersung bonus side effect of which is plenty more worry-free sex for men, too. He and his administration made a firm commitment to putting women's minds at ease, reassuring them that kids were only in their futures when and if they wanted them. And in doing so, Team Obama also gifted you a golden era of fun, low-risk banging with your wife, your girlfriend, or the friendly gal who was nice enough to accompany you home from the bar. Because, surprise! Turns out we're all more fun to have sex with when we're not preoccupied with the worry of not accidentally creating babies.

And now, our—your—four years of freaky freedom are coming to an end. No-copay contraceptives were one of the first casualties of Republicans' swift dismemberment of Obamacare last week. And if state-level measures like New York's proposed mandate fail, some 55 million American women may have to start paying as much as $50 a month for birth control pills again (or upwards of $1,000 for an IUD). In other words, some 55 million American women may have to start choosing again between low-risk sex with men and all the other myriad out-of-pocket expenses of adult life. Anxiety-free sex, or dinner on the table? Anxiety-free sex, or the rent? For many women, these could soon become everyday tradeoffs. (And that's not to even mention that legal abortions—long a trusted escape hatch for women and couples facing unwanted-pregnancy crises—could soon be harder to come by than they've been for most of our lifetimes.)

So thanks, Obama, for fighting for women's freedom to have sex enthusiastically and fearlessly. Dude really did us all a solid in the process, and it sure was fun while it lasted. And in the meantime, call your local representative and ask how he or she is working to protect access to contraceptives, or donate to an organization that aims to help women get better access to birth control. Obama gave us a vision for an America where sex for the pure joy of it was a human right—so don't let the dream die now.

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