Condoms are essential because they can prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but there is some condom etiquette that can take the awkwardness out of your encounters. The bottom line is that if you plan to have sex, you should have a condom with you. That way you're prepared and you aren't stuck making a bad choice or having to give up your night of fun. Here's what guys and girls say about why you should always carry a condom.
SHOULD YOU, OR SHOULD HE? WHO'S RESPONSIBLE?
You know the scene. You’re out and about, moving from place to place with a bunch of your best girlfriends. Sure, guys have come on to you on the way and have even tried to buy you a drink – you’ve accepted one or two -- but you haven’t been inclined to hook up with any of them. Until… enter this gorgeous hunk, sweet toothy smile and awesome abs, just the height you like, and he’s looking at you! It doesn’t take long for things to develop from there, and soon he wants to know if you can go back to your place. Like, yeah! So you hop it over to your abode which you’ve forgotten you have not tidied in a while, but at this point, you’re so horny you couldn’t care less about dirty dishes and underwear lying around everywhere. You hope he can’t smell the cat pee in the bathroom from when you accidentally locked her in, and that he doesn’t notice that half the light bulbs in your apartment need replacing. He doesn’t. Phew.
You head straight to the bedroom and begin to passionately tear off each other’s clothes, and then… wait, where’s the condom? What’s the code here? He doesn’t have one, and neither do you. Who’s at fault? Who messed up? I asked a few of my best girlfriends and a couple of my guy friends what they think.
My girlfriends were pretty much divided on the topic of condom etiquette. One group maintained that, as sexually liberated as we are, some part of us still expects the guy to be chivalrous and be the one to produce the French letter at the crucial moment. It’s a bit like who pays for dinner on the first date. This group felt that if he was the one who asked you out, he should be the one to reach for his wallet when the bill comes. Of course, you can offer, but chivalry on his part dictates that the guy pays for the first date. Ditto the condom.
Another group of my girlfriends totally poo-poo’d the idea that the guy must take responsibility for the condom. They said that as we’re equal participants in hooking up and sleeping together, so we should take equal responsibility. It’s hardly embarrassing these days, they said, to walk into a shop and buy condoms. No one bats an eye anymore. So get a grip, and get a condom, was their motto.
My guy friends were not at all divided. They all had the same opinion. It went like this: If the aim of modern society is equality between the sexes, where girls are as free to choose sexual partners as the guys are, there should be an equal responsibility to go out and buy condoms. It shouldn’t be up to the guy to have to do it, and it certainly shouldn’t be his fault, if at the moment of action, neither of you can come up with one. In short, the guys said that we girls must get over ourselves and start stocking up.
So my question to you, dear reader, is simply: What do you think? Should you have a stash ready for the occasion, or do you still expect him to carry them? I’d love to hear from you.