Yeah, I know. I sound like a hip parent trying to encourage young people to get on the train to Coolsville and bag it up before they bang, or something equally cringeworthy. I’ve written before about condoms (badly, I hasten to add – this was early in my blogging days and I’d not write the same piece today), but in general I’m not a fan of the way they feel or the effect they have on dudes I fuck, so as a general rule I’d rather go without.
That doesn’t mean that I’d gleefully bareback with a brand-new fuck, but it does mean that when I’m in a committed relationship with someone, and we’re both free from STIs, and I’ve other methods of preventing pregnancy, I’m unlikely to crack out the Durex and ask for a latex fuck.
However.
And it’s a big, bold ‘however’, because I don’t contradict old blog posts lightly – I want to tell you why, despite their cons, there are a fuck of a lot of pros to condoms which have nothing to do with their practical value. I want to talk about why condoms can be sexy. Ready? Let’s go.
Condoms represent casual fucking in a way that spunk-stains on the bedsheets never will. This is because of my aforementioned insistence on using them whenever I shag a new person. It sounds counter intuitive, but the sheer necessity of condoms spawns a kind of arousal about them: if you only use them when you need them, the sight of them will kick off nostalgic memories of all those times you went fumbling in the bedside drawer, as horny as you ever believed you could get, to pull one out in the heat of the moment.
Secondly, condoms emphasise one of the things that I find gut-wrenchingly brilliant: a guy touching his cock. The skill, dexterity, and ease with which someone can roll one on? Amazing. If they look me in the eye while they’re doing it, hands and fingers working almost automatically, with the kind of practiced ease of a sexual expert? Unngh. Yeah.
I’ve been known to fuck with condoms occasionally even if they’re not strictly necessary. The reason above? That’s why.
Condom nostalgia
The other day I was clearing out my cupboards and I found an old box of condoms. They’re probably long past their fuck-by date, but I wanted to get one and use it for old times’ sake. Why? I associate these particular ones with a very specific period in my life: the time when I was getting to know a certain guy, and he was fucking me with the kind of desperate horniness that you do if you’re worried it’s the last time you might. He used a different brand to the ones I used with most people, and the fistful of johnnies that I found the other day gave me flashbacks to the moments when he’d pull out, sweating and knackered, and tie a knot in the end after a full and frantic fuck.
Final point, in a kind of ‘I’ve said this before but it bears repeating’ way – there are very few things that say ‘it’s happening’ more deliciously than the tearing of a condom wrapper. I’m almost certain this association comes from my youth, when condoms were the only conceivable option for me, and the brightly-coloured packets looked like sweeties, to be gleefully guzzled at any and every opportunity.
If you’re with someone new, and you’re both getting down to it, even if everything says ‘oh God yeah we’re totally going to shag now’, there’s still that one final thing to do before penetration actually happens. Up until that split second, we could just be fooling around. We could be making out, or frotting, or any of the other lovely things that horny couples do. As soon as either of us produces a condom, and tears carefully into the foil wrapping, that’s the moment I know that it’s definitely going to happen. It’s the capital letter at the start of a sentence, that ends with the full stop when we collapse in sated lust.
Condoms: there are pros and cons. But it’s not often that we talk about the pros.
10 Comments
Okay. You just made me want to go have condom sex. And that’s something I never, ever, ever thought I’d type. But I’m totally feeling it! Good on you!
It’s true, there is something great about them but usually I just focus on the fact I don’t like how they feel. But now, I feel like there’s no choice but to use them for partners when I’m just starting out with them.
I was at a sex club last night and condom usage was just assumed…it was an additional reminder of the naughiness of the whole situation.
I’m married now, so usage isn’t required. But you reminded me of when we did have to, and it WAS sexy and all new and meaningful. THIS SECTION: “Up until that split second, we could just be fooling around. We could be making out, or frotting, or any of the other lovely things that horny couples do. As soon as either of us produces a condom, and tears carefully into the foil wrapping, that’s the moment I know that it’s definitely going to happen. It’s the capital letter at the start of a sentence, that ends with the full stop when we collapse in sated lust.” Hawt!
My favorite part of condom use: the count. I had a partner recently who would have sex all day. One day we lost track and we counted the condoms littering the floor (a fucking hot sight, at that). Yay for the tally marks on the bed post, as it were.
Condoms have never bothered me. Sometimes you don’t want a mess, so they work. Lots of pros I reckon.
I used to find the boxes sexy too – I feel like back when I was too young to be actually fucking, the boxes actually had pictures of couples on them (although it is perfectly possible that I’m misremembering.) Durex especially I feel, have gone much more laddish these days – I feel like one type has a stopwatch on the box? It’s … disappointing.
Condoms have changed so much from what we had to use in the nineteen-sixties. Basically there was Durex Gossamer or, slightly more sensitive and more expensive, Durex Fetherlite. We always used them religiously as there really was no alternative for teenagers in those days.
I was finally talked into going on the pill by a female flat mate while I was at university and must admit sex was far superior without one, but, in those days, although there were STIs, they were far less prevalent among younger people and tended to be the disease of older men who used prostitutes.
The most interesting experience with a condom I ever had was when I went for a visit to China with a girlfriend from work. I got paired off with her cousin in the north of China and he had organic condoms. Fascinating. I believe they were also available in the UK, but I’d never heard of them until I met him and was extremely suspicious of them, especially when he told me what they were made of. LOL.
This is my organic condom story.
The biggest problems today is that there are now more STIs and STDs in circulation and they appear in the younger groups, too. Many in the under 20s groups. As Girl On The Net says, sex without a condom is a better experience, but the risk is not worth it. Sleeping around is also great fun and for that you need condoms. However, when you do finally find the one it is lovely to become exclusive. At that point go get yourself tested and then you can enjoy a new experience with an exclusive partner – making love without a condom. Up until then, though – safety first.
Oh, and by the way, STIs can be transferred through oral sex so use a flavoured condom on him and, if you aren’t exclusive, get him to use an oral dam on you. This is a sheet of latex he uses between his mouth and your vulva. If you haven’t got one you can cut a condom and open that out into a single sheet. Again cunnilingus is not as good like that, but you don’t want him to pass anything nasty to you via his mouth or vice versa.
Moral, use condoms and dams until you become exclusive, get tested, then, wahay, it’s a great new sensation you can be looking forward to.
I love condoms and feel like they have allowed me to push my sexual boundaries while minimizing risks. I have even used them for oral sex when going down on someone new and that I don’t know. Many guys hate oral sex with a condom on, but it’s the condom that makes me more willing to engage in oral sex with multiple partners.
OH MY GOD YES!!!! another dimension of the hotness with a new person is that is kind of an arsehole filter. If a guy isnt happy to respect my wishes or is of the opinion that his pleasure comes before my safety? dealbreaker, immediately, and probably saved time and efort in the long run. But that bit of shy ‘shall we er…’ have you got a?’ ‘ oh sure yeah, rummage rummage… its exciting. We’re going to Do It. And if he has one handy, and puts it on competantly while giving me the look that says ‘I am going to fuck seven shades of joy out of you now, and you can relax and enjoy it, you minx’ …. that moment is one I hold very, very dear.Nnnngh
oo oo and then theres the bit a few months down the line where we go get tested and even thats kind of awesome once the awkward conversation has been had, Cos then we have both done a nice trust-inspiring thing for each other and can look forward to even more delicious naughtiness, Oh yes indeed! and still bring the johnnies out for old times sake, or not to make a mess, or any reason. A partner of mine likes to slip on on just before coming because it makes it more intense for him with the friction. I like to use them if we’re fucking outside, so as not to get spunk all over my coat. Thinking ahead and slipping one into my wallet, just in case…delicious :-)
I once saw some porn where a man put on a condom as a matter of course before the people had penis-in-vagina sex, and I actually burst into tears. It was what made the porn feel like normal sex rather than the absurd things people do in porn. It made me realise how lonely I was at the time. Sad, but a good experience overall.
(I’m not lonely now, thankfully)