Legend has it that the noneteenth-century Parisian provider known as La Dame aux Camellias (and to opera-lovers as La Traviata) used the camellias she wore to advertise her menstrual status to her clientele, and that she held herself unavailable during the five days days per month when she wore a red flower instead of a white one.  How is this delicate matter handled by today's providers, I wonder?  Some providers post calendars of availability, but they never seem to have monthly five-day gaps in them.  I read somewhere that the oral contraceptive, if taken every day of the year rather than on the standard monthly on-and-off cycle, will simply prevent menstruation altogether--and that this is if anything less of a problem than the typical modern woman's lifetime record of four or five hundred periods.  (What with more frequent pregnancies, later menarche, and shorter life spans, women racked up vastly lower lifetime numbers through most of the history of our species.)  Is this way of using the oral contraceptive a popular strategy among today's professional providers?  Or are barriers used, such as the cervical cap?

This is not entirely idle curiosity, as the matter affects the HIV risk of DATY.