Dr. Stieve gained renown for his contributions to medicine, including disputing the “rhythm method” of birth control and studying the effects of stress on the menstrual cycles of doomed female prisoners.

Luardo and her boyfriend opted for a calendar rhythm method to avoid pregnancy, considered one of the least effective forms of birth control.

It tends to be conflated with the rhythm method, which is ineffective, but when done properly, fertility awareness can be as or more effective than hormonal birth control pills.

The 2010s were the decade in which we were reminded that science is just a method, like the rhythm method.

The word “disruption” proliferated, and everything was ripe for or vulnerable to it: sheet music, tuxedo rentals, home cooking, home buying, wedding planning, banking, shaving, credit lines, dry-cleaning, the rhythm method.