I have been using pullout method for 25 years, very consistently with basically 50 women at this point, and not one pregnancy scare (other than one girl trying to pass off her pregnancy as mine once). Same for many of my friends.
does nothing about stds though.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/withdr...
For every 100 people who use pull out method perfectly, within a year, 4 will get pregnant. Since not everyone does a great job doing it, in reality 22 get pregnant every year.
Here's a great overview page: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control in summary, condoms are 87% effective at preventing pregnancy, and withdrawal is 78% effective.
For a going-steady couple that isn't worried about STDs, keeps an emergency contraceptive ('morning after pill') ready for oopsie mistakes, and live in a country that grants women bodily autonomy (or have discussed and accepted that a mistake might lead to a child), pullout is a perfectly valid contraceptive mechanism. There are better, but considering that basically every method except a condom/internal condom can cause extreme discomfort or bad side effects to the woman in the relationship, I think it's totally fine to choose pull-out.
Anyway, it does work, people just aren't told to do it firmly. Doctors dance around it.