Real Men Know How to Use Condoms:
A Safer Sex Guide

by Kirsten Anderberg (http://www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Partially Written in 2005, Revised in November 2013
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Everyone having sex nowadays should be familiar with safer sex practices. But really, there are few places that offer “safer sex classes,” and most of the places that do, you will not stumble upon in the mainstream. How are people supposed to learn how to maximize their safety through proper condom usage? Certainly that class my son had in high school which had teenagers putting condoms on bananas is not enough. The instructions inside the condoms are minimalist and lacking in information. Men often fumble with condom usage during sex, so much so that it can kill the mood. I think we need to talk about safer sex options with more openness and more often. This article is about safer sex. Do not read on if you do not want to hear about safer sex practices.

When I first started dating conscientious men who brought a safer sex kit (a small pouch with lube, condoms, etc.) with them and knew how to use it, I was a bit freaked out. I was not sure if them coming so prepared could be interpreted as presumptuous. Or that them being so prepared and nearly professional about safer sex made them too slick. Then I later dated a guy who did not have a clue: the contrast was stark. The clueless guy never had the condom thing together and always had to run to the store last minute. Then he would buy the first ones he found. They were too big, too small, some had N-9 on them, etc. I found his ignorance about how to protect his own body and mine to be repelling. I had to tutor him in condoms, and he is the one with a penis! I realized that there is a great need for this type of education, so I implore people to encourage safer sex practices with their lovers. Realize together that safer sex is really respectful and coming prepared, so to speak, is sexy. It is sexy because it is the healthiest option and it is responsible: if you cannot be responsible, you should not be having sex. Do not let society’s uptight sexual mores make something very honorable into something awkward. When you prepare a safer sex kit and take it with you places you may encounter a sexual situation, you are respecting your partner, yourself, and any other sexual partners either of you may have down the road.

I think it may also benefit people if I talk for a minute on the ettiquete that can make using condoms graceful, rather than awkward. As I said, a former lover brought a safer sex kit with him, and I was not sure what to think of that at first. When he first arrived that night, he put the safer sex kit under my bed, which is how I knew he brought it. I was not sure if I should be offended at the pretention therein, presuming we would be having sex. But as I said, we were both wildly attracted to one another, so we both knew we were having sex. So, although at first I thought it a bit forward to put the safer sex kit under the bed upon his arrival, I have to say that move was genius. Later, instead of us having to stop the moment and begin to look for or talk about condoms, he had everything he needed right at his fingertips and did not miss a beat. He would be holding me, but still lean over and grab a condom and lube and he basically kept the lovemaking going on *as* he put the condom on! So, learning how to negotiate that very fragile moment between wanting to have sex and needing to get the condom on is a lot of what separates great lovers from clumsy lovers. It is worth practicing this skill, guys. I had another lover whose mother was a sex education instructor and he also had a wonderfully open and positive attitude towards safer sex practices. Not a once did I ever have a situation with either of these men regarding them not having proper sized or quality protection on hand. While engaging in sex, both men were conscious of the condom being on them, and would regularly check the condom with their hands, which I wholly appreciated. Both of these men were so comfortable with condom use that I literally did not notice them putting them on very often, which is lovely if you are in the throes of lovemaking. Being good at condom use is a highly attractive skill in a man: it is akin to being a good dancer.

Thoreau said, “I lose my patience for the man who can make the mystery of sex the subject of coarse jest, yet, when you speak earnestly and seriously on the subject, is silent.” I often see people who are always joking about sex, become dead silent when we talk about safer sex, sex education, STD’s, and birth control. So where does one learn about safer sex? There are many places to get access to safer sex supplies and instructional information, but which are a bit off the beaten path. Seattle and San Francisco have been leaders in getting safer sex information out to the public in a consciously non-shameful manner. The Rubber Tree was a non-profit organization which started as a very small store in Seattle decades ago. It had a nice all-gender-inclusive atmosphere, with an emphasis on gay male supplies, as well as general sex supplies. It was the first place I ever saw safer sex supplies displayed in an educational mode, rather than looking like a porn shop. My band, along with others, played a benefit for their shop back in something like 1984. They were a community resource. The Rubber Tree had an excellent article on their old website which discussed how to choose a condom, the difference between novelty and FDA-approved condoms, and the problems with natural skin condoms. It talked about the variations in latex condoms, such as shape, texture, colors, and lubrications. It also told people HOW and when to use a condom and how to properly store condoms. The Rubber Tree also had a wide selection of condoms, lubes, dental dams, and keychain safer sex kit pouches you could order online. Now The Rubber Tree has been sold to "Condom Country".

I wrote an article in 2006 about how size actually matters when it comes to condoms. It is available at https://users.resist.ca/~kirstena/pagesizematters.html. In that article I make some bold statements such as, "...and any man who is not taking responsibility for his own penis and sperm is not capable of respecting a lover, plain and simple. I do not care what other factors are involved. Respecting your lover (as a man), in this day and age, *must* include proper education and experience with responsible condom use." I still stand by those statements nearly a decade later. I also challenged people to ask men BEFORE having sex with them, the following questions: 1) How long have you been wearing condoms? 2) What brand and size do you prefer and how long have you used that brand? 3) Have you ever lost a condom inside someone or had a condom break? What did you do in that situation? How did you support your partner in that? 4) How do you make sure the condom stays on during penetration and how do you ensure no fluids get out the base of the condom as you wear it? I still think those are reasonable and righteous questions to ask before sex ever occurs. You may find from the results of those questions that you are not even interested in sex with that person! Or, you may find that you want to have sex with them immediately if they answer correctly! LOL! I want women, especially, but also youth, and all people of all genders, to feel safe asking about and asking for, safer sex.

CustomFit Condoms, which seems to now be Coripa, has done everyone a great service by providing custom fit condoms. They offer a free pdf to measure girth and length of penis for condom size at http://www.coripa.com/measure-for-your-custom-fit-condom. Condomania also offers a wide selection of sizes, brands and types of condoms. It behooves any male who wants to be sexual to invest some time and money into some of these products to find out what works for them.

Probably the best webpage about safer sex on the web is the one at The Society for Human Sexuality (www.sexuality.org). Their "Safer Sex Page" (http://www.sexuality.org/concise.html) includes detailed information about condom usage and much more. Having known the author of this page intimately, I can say that this person is dedicated on a near spiritual level to safer sex and knows his stuff. You cannot get anyone more knowledgeable about this topic and thus I highly recommend this page as a stepping off point to educate yourself about safer sex practices and supplies. The Society for Human Sexuality Safer Sex page includes information about condom use for intercourse and oral sex in addition to information about proper hand cleanliness, STD treatment and testing and also condom and safer sex supply resources. The Society for Human Sexuality has also supplied an exceptional explanation of condom choices at http://www.sexuality.org/sextoys.html#safersex. I agree with the Society for Human Sexuality that the Kimono Microthin Condom is "a terrific latex condom for most men...they're thin and transmit sensation well, they're well-constructed, and having no taste that we can discern, they're as suitable to oral sex as they are to intercourse." I highly recommend these Kimono condoms.

A funny sidenote here: back in the 1990's when I was partnered with one of the founders of the Society for Human Sexuality, I came home one day to find him sitting on our living room floor with all these condoms on the floor, unwrapped and in some kind of organized order. I asked what on earth was going on. He said he was sick of people not using condoms for oral sex, and that part of the problem is people would try to use condoms for oral sex and would end up with one with N-9 on it or something and would gag and never do it again. He said he was going to once and for all do a "taste test" review of condoms, reviewing them for oral sex purposes and that was exactly what he was doing right then. I found that so wildly sexy that we had to have sex immediately! LOL! People often think that if they mention safer sex that the person will think they are too forward or that it will be awkward, but as I have said, we need to totally change how we look at this. When men take responsibility for safer sex by themselves, that, in and of itself, should be seen as sexy. Promiscuousness without protection is not some kind of sexy bad boy behavior, it is suicidal behavior, and it endangers not only you, but all of your future partners too. So, the point is, yes, it was weird to see my lover taste testing condoms for an oral sex condom review, but when I think of how many people's lives he has bettered from that one afternoon's work, I am in awe. Living in Seattle, I was exposed to more progressive sexuality partners and I have found it impossible to go back to unconscious sex partners who do not take responsibility for safer sex practices. In other words, once you have had good safer sex, you can never go back!

In addition to the Society for Human Sexuality, another progressive sexuality group I ran into, personally, was The Body Electric School. This school was first created by a gay man who wanted to find ways for gay men to engage in sexual intimacy without exchanging body fluids, due to the AIDS epidemic. The methods he came up with were so powerful that woman asked for a Body Electric program for women. I attended several Body Electric sessions (some were women-only and some were both men and women) and I found them to be mind-blowing. I highly recommend The Body Electric School to anyone and everyone, but especially to straight/heterosexual men who want to learn how to better please women in sex and also I recommend their classes for women who want to get much more out of sex than they have previously. Body Electric raises sexuality to a spiritual level and is well worth your efforts. They will challenge everything you ever thought you knew about sex and your own sexuality, and will also give you some incredible skills to leave with! The Body Electric School teaches Sacred Sexuality and modern Tantric Yoga, and they are masters at what they do. One of the amazing things about the Body Electric School is their ability to create safe sexual spaces in an educational context and even witnessing that first hand teaches people a lot.

I have found that pagans often are very pro-sexuality with a consciousness, i.e., they are open to safer sex practices. Pagans often celebrate fertility ritual events during the turning of seasons and it can be incredibly educational to experience sexualized rituals, such as dancing the maypole, to understand sexuality on a more wholistic scale. I used to go to a yearly Beltane ritual in the woods in Eugene, OR with a group of probably a hundred others, and it was wild. The women would dig the hole for the large maypole to go into, preparing it with oils and flowers, then the men would come down from the woods with a huge log, sometimes a man would ride the log as it was carried down the field to the hole the women prepared. Then trying to get that huge log into that hole in the ground, over and over, heaving it until it finally stood, and then dancing the maypole, closer and closer, then a huge feast of fresh cut fruits in the field...it truly brought one back to the Roman days of festivals. But my point is: sex should not just be something locked away in a bedroom, with the same boring moves, in the dark, rarely spoken of in the light. Both Body Electric and pagan festivities such as Beltane rituals, bring sex out into the light! I have found the best lovers I have ever had are those who are sexual far beyond just intercourse in a dark room. The best lovers I have had are ones who have learned how to have safer sex out of a reverence for the human body and a respect for their partners. The best lovers also are much more creative, finding interesting ways to engage their partners using spirituality, art and other components to elevate the art of lovemaking beyond gutteral animal motions. Thus, I guess what I am saying is, the most conscious lovers also are the best lovers: they are sex magicians.

San Francisco's Good Vibrations has put out a very well-written book about sex and safer sex entitled "The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex." I highly recommend this book. It is used in classrooms nationwide, and has amazing information on anatomy, physiology, and erotica, while remaining all-gender-inclusive. With clear illustrations and informative narrative, this book is a must have for anyone serious about superior sex knowledge. Good Vibrations also offers a wide supply of condom and lube samplers, so you can find out what works best for you, rather than just grabbing what is left at the 7-11 late at night. A little conscious preparation when it comes to your health and sexuality seems a reasonable investment of time and energy. Certainly having an STD, HIV, or a child, will take up much more time than the time you would have invested researching proper fitting condoms. You can buy safer sex supplies at Good Vibrations' store in San Francisco or online at their website. Another place to find safer sexuality supplies is Toys in Babeland (www.babeland.com), a store that started in Seattle, Wa., and grew to a national level with stores in New York and elsewhere. Toys is an unusual store, as it does not have that trademark lecherous gross sex store vibe, but rather a fun and informational vibe with a pro-woman feel to it. They simply want you to have better sex, and they want to talk openly with you about it. Run by two lesbians, it also has an all-gender-inclusive atmosphere, which adds to its respectful environment. Toys in Babeland gives workshops on sex at its retail stores, including safer sex workshops. They also sell different lubes, condoms, etc.

To find free or low-cost condoms and birth control, you can go to www.plannedparenthood.com, and there you can locate their nearest office to your zip code, area code, city or state. They also have a safer sex information page at http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/stds-hiv-safer-sex/safer-sex-4263.htm. Most county and university health departments give away free condoms also. Princeton has a website about the Emergency Contraception Pill at http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/late.html. Planned Parenthood centers provide the Emergency Contraception pill for a few dollars to low-income women who ask for it in areas that allow it. Thebody.com has a wealth of information about STDs, HIV and AIDS. There is also the National STD Hotline at 1-800-227-8922. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an STD page at http://www.cdc.gov/std/ which offers a wealth of information on that topic as well. Educate yourself.

Many people act as though being prepared for safer sex is weird. Yet I have to say I find it much sexier when a person is prepared for safer sex, as compared to relying on fate, or me, for that all the time. The above resources are full of great suggestions for homemade safer sex kits which will protect your health, show that you respect yourself, and show consideration for your lover. Make a safer sex kit today. Take it with you, don’t be afraid. I can tell you that after having the choice between a lover who brings safer sex supplies with him, showing consciousness, to some guy who takes no responsibility for his own sexuality, I will opt for the first one.

“Let no man entice thee to say or do whatever is not profitable for thyself.” – Pythagoras.