Condom consent
I’ve watched so many movies where high schoolers experience sexual education classes with a banana and a condom. It was such a trope. But, after experiencing the course in 2003, I realized that either that was just a movie set piece to make the scenes more humorous, or sexual education teaching has vastly changed over time and / or based on the location.
My official sexual education courses taught abstinence, the birth of the child (not to be confused with pregnancy or how one becomes pregnant), and lightly touched on STDs (enough to terrify you of them). This was paired with a large group of horny, hormonal teenagers who honestly couldn’t help themselves from foregoing fasting because our bodies were in control and no one was actually trying to help us with that reality.
The first time I had sex, my partner did use a condom, but only because he put it on. I vaguely knew what a condom was (again from movies, etc.), but had never actually seen one in or out of action. After that, I didn’t employ them often because the guys I was with didn’t want to.
Because I didn’t really understand their purpose or how they worked, I was never confident when speaking about them. I also got on birth control (the pill) when I was 16 years old, so I felt like I was safe from pregnancy, at least. Again, didn’t understand how that worked or why, but figured I was doing my part. Birth control pills, of course, do nothing to protect you from sexually transmitted infections or diseases. But that’s not vital information for a teenager, right?
Thankfully, I survived my teen years without any unwanted pregnancies or surprise infections, despite being incredibly unsafe. And that history plus my meekness in the bedroom made condoms optional for my partners well into my twenties.
As I got more into my sexual experiences and having more one night stands than consistent partners, condoms became more important, but I still wasn’t assertive about it.
One night, before I got sober, I met a friend’s bandmate at their show. He was cute, with long hair, and a grungy punk aesthetic that I (unfortunately) was into. We flirted after the show and ended up deciding to hook up. I was pleased with this outcome. I was definitely gonna fuck someone that night and he was my first choice.
On the drive to his place (another long trek across LA), he asked if I had any condoms, and when I said no, he said that he would stop on the way. We pulled into a gas station, he went inside, purchased items, and then came back out and we finally made it to his place.
We started making out and he led me to his bed (or at least, what he considered a bed. Can we all agree that a mattress on the floor is NOT a bed?!), removing my clothing piece by piece. He took off my pants and then went down on me for about 10 seconds.
In my one-night-stand era, rarely did men perform oral sex on me, but at least half of them expected me to suck their dicks. Such a strange double standard especially since men don’t want to come from a blowjob, but rather use it as a precursor to intercourse, where they will ejaculate; while women are more likely to orgasm from clitoral stimulation than penetration and can continue to have sex even after finishing. But that would assume that women’s pleasure was actually an important component of heterosexual relations.
Following the slight lubricating of my labia, he took off his pants and started stroking his penis. “Where can I come?” He asked.
“Uh, what?” I was confused. “In the condom?” I state, obviously.
“I don’t have any,” he says, still jacking himself off.
“But, we stopped specifically for that …” I replay the conversation from the car in my head. Yes, he definitely said he would stop to get condoms, and then we stopped, and he bought something (I assume condoms).
“No, I stopped to get cigarettes.” I was flabbergasted. “What?” I ask. He shrugs.
I try to hide my confusion and annoyance. How is this the situation? What do I do now? I definitely want to have sex tonight and I want to have sex with him, we drove all the way to Venice fucking Beach, and we’re both naked. I sigh and tell him I don’t care but I don’t want him to come on me (not really thing I enjoy).
He says okay and away we go. He starts on top, in the missionary position, and I’m actually enjoying myself. I’m starting to release my anger and live in the moment. Hey, maybe I’ll even orgasm.
“Let’s do doggie style.” God, I hate that term. And I hate when it’s used in the moment. Doggie style? Ugh, so unattractive and fucking silly. Do I like the position? Yes. Can we call it something else? PLEASE!
We move into our new places and he starts thrusting again. He’s hitting things just right and I’m getting pretty close …
“Where do I come?”
WHAT?! We fucking talked about this?! “Seriously?” I ask.
“Can I come on your back?”
“No! I told you I don’t want that.” He sighs in irritation, thrusts a couple more times, then grabs a towel from the ground and pulls out into it. Shocker: I did not orgasm.
He went to the bathroom to clean up and I waited for my turn to use it. As we crossed paths on his way back to the bed, I asked, “Why did you ask about coming on me when we already discussed it before we had sex?”
“Oh, I just thought maybe you’d change your mind.”
And there it is. At the time, I was just annoyed and thought he was kinda stupid, but now I see that it was a tactic. Women are not usually assertive in sex and he knew that and took advantage.
First, he played a power move by purposefully not getting condoms when we both knew he needed to and that he was going to. He made it my decision to have sex without one, but he’s the one that put me into this situation where I really had to be confident and self-assured to deny him what he wanted. We were already here, about to start, and what, we’re just gonna get dressed and drive back 30 minutes without fucking?
Second, he tried to put me in another situation where I had to say yes to something that I didn’t want but he did. This time, though, it didn’t work out for him and he was annoyed by it. He banked on me not telling him no, now that we’re in the moment and maybe he doesn’t have another option. It was all manipulation.
Once I came out of the bathroom, I saw he was fully dressed. “We should go. It’s a long drive back and I want to get to sleep.” So now I was being kicked out.
I saw him a couple times after that night, but never hooked up with him again. He now shown in a different light: he wasn’t a grungy punk, he was just dirty; his long hair wasn’t stylish, it was greasy; he wasn’t the tall, thin frame that I wanted, he was an aging guitarist who forces his body into too-tight skinny jeans.
Sobriety didn’t suddenly make me smart and confident in my sexual relationships. I still had plenty of bad times without any alcohol to blame. And it wasn’t until I was almost 30 years old that I actually demanded safe sex from partners.
When I was about 26, I met a guy on Facebook who was a friend of a friend. It was random how we linked up, but it happened, and then we started messaging. Eventually, we met up for a “date.” This date consisted of browsing Barnes and Noble and returning something of his at WalMart. Husband material for sure.
We ended up back at his house, lying on his bed and talking. It brought me back to younger relationships, when sex wasn’t the main focus and you just got to know each other. I was enjoying the moment.
On one of his wall shelves, he had a large box of Trojan condoms. Odd choice of decor, but at least I knew we would have safe sex, if it led to that. Well, it did.
He started with his hands down my pants, then fully removing them. Next he removed his pants, exposing his erect penis, and pushed it right inside of my vagina. I was surprised.
Of course, there was no oral foreplay, but there was barely anything. And there definitely wasn’t a conversation about protection or mention of the massive box hovering over his desk. We were just going. Eventually, he finished by pulling out and coming into his hands. The whole time I was thinking about the box of condoms. Why are they there if you’re not going to use them?
This is the second time where there was a clear presence of condoms / the topic of condoms, and yet we still had unprotected sex. I said nothing because I didn’t have the gall to and I didn’t want to upset him. I was really enjoying our time together and hoped it could blossom into something more than just a one night stand.
I saw him a couple more times after that, each time ending with unprotected sex and me not saying a word. I hated how passive I was on the topic, but I never felt bold enough to talk about it or to advocate for myself (which is FUCKING CRAZY, but it’s real). That was until I went to the doctor about a week later with major discomfort.
“Looks like you have chlamydia,” the doctor said. “I’ll get you the antibiotics you need to take.” And she left the room.
My first STI. I’d dodged the bullet for most of my life, so it was bound to happen; but I was furious. WHY DID HE HAVE THAT HUGE BOX OF CONDOMS?!
Thankfully, the infection was out of my system quickly and it only took a couple of pills. I wrote drafts of text messages to send to him, continually editing them to be concise, blunt, and fucking acidic. And then I hit send.
He responded a couple days later, apologizing, saying he didn’t know he had it, and forgot he had condoms, blah blah blah. I called him a twat and blocked his number.
After that, I was never shy about talking about protection. But I hate that I had to get that from contracting and STI. This should have been taught to me and my peers in school, when we were young. And not in a scary way or a taboo way so that we never feel comfortable bringing it up, but in a straight-forward manner so we can make the right choices for ourselves and others.
Condoms can be purchased at the gas station, grocery store, pharmacies, pretty much anywhere; while women’s birth control (for the most part) requires doctor intervention. And if you’re brought up in a society that tells you to not have sex, you’re likely not gonna ask your parents to take you to the doctor to ensure you won’t get pregnant. So then you rely on what is available, and that is condoms.
And condoms are a man’s domain. And apparently they make it feel less good. And they’re annoying. And they’re expensive. And they’re embarrassing to buy. I’m being ironic, quoting men from my past whenever the topic has emerged. So then you either have no sex, or you have unprotected sex and you deal with the consequences that may occur.
It’s such fucking bullshit!
