Protection Against What?

By Adam Kuhn
Posted Friday, June 15, 2007

Aren’t condoms fabulous? They protect us from things like… death.

Since my early relationships, during the Age of Innocence in my mid-teens, I’ve had a strange relationship with condoms. The first few boys I dated were virgins. We tried the condom thing for a while, but since we both knew each others’ almost non-existent sexual history, we failed to see the meaning behind the trouble.

First and foremost, condoms are an amazing invention. They separate the sui generis pleasures of sex from the dangers of swapping fluids. In today’s world, you never really know who you’re sleeping with, or who they’ve slept with, or who they’ve slept with. A condom can not only protect your precious health, but also protect you from your partner’s history literally biting you in the ass.

When a relationship is just getting off the ground, it’s important that both parties exercise some level of caution in the bedroom. It’s smart, it’s safe, and quite frankly, it’s just polite. However, when the bond is strong enough, and the relationship is now founded on things like trust, is protection still a necessary precaution?

In truth, in its bluntest form, condoms suck. They’re uncomfortable, they increase friction, some people don’t even know how to put them on right, and sometimes, in a long-term relationship, they hinder closeness.

At the age of 15, STDs, even though drilled into our minds in health class, weren’t ever that big a threat among those of us new to sex. And since we never had to worry about things like pregnancy, we didn’t have a care in the world. It was the real era of casual sex.

Nowadays, we have to worry about it. Those of us who haven’t found ourselves in serious relationships still have to concern ourselves with safety in the bedroom. In our luxurious singlehood, we’ve been playing the field, and so has everyone else in the field. Sometimes we forget, and that’s when we can get into serious trouble.

A while ago, a friend of mine was dating a most beautiful and charming man. He told me that sometimes, they didn’t always protect themselves. They knew it was dangerous, but they couldn’t resist. After all, “he said he just got tested, and he never finishes inside me.” Naturally this made everything seem ok.

One time, he did finish, and didn’t tell anyone. My friend had to find out on his own. Overwhelmed with the reality of the situation, my friend felt violated, betrayed, and cheap. “I felt like I was raped.”

When you try to build any kind of structured entity, without a strong foundation, the structure will fall. The same is true for skyscrapers, and it’s true with relationships. My friend had just experienced the collapse of the Empire Date Building.

Two friends of mine have had a friends-with-benefits relationship since high school. Although they may never grow the balls to call themselves exclusive with each other, the two may as well be married. Without even the title of a relationship, they’ve haphazardly created a bond on which they both can safely rely.

They may be at a level where they don’t need to use a condom. And let’s admit, physically and metaphorically, what’s better than that? Don’t we all strive for that connection with someone to the point where we finally know it’s safe to be comfortable and natural in the heat of passion?

We walk a very fine line when it comes to sex, love, and relationships. When someone does something sexual to us, it either launches us to cloud nine, or completely repulses us. When our boyfriends say “I love you,” we either respond with the same feelings, or consider ending things then and there. When we have unprotected sex, we either feel safe and comfortable to a degree nothing else can reach, or disgusted and weak to the point where we don’t know if we can ever condone ourselves to move on for the unforgivable wrong we’ve done to our bodies.

Condoms can save our lives. They can also save our souls. When you’re playing the field, in a relationship, or just fooling around with whoever remembers your name, the first thing on your mind should always be yourself. After all, your body has landed you the hottie that you’re with now. The least you can do is pay it back by protecting it. And when the time comes, which may not be for a while, you can pay yourself back by sharing a real bond with someone who you think truly deserves it.

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