condom turn-offs

[Bluetrain]

Hey all,

A huge peeve of mine when reading erotica is one or more of the participants stopping in th eheat of the build-up to slip on a condom.

now, I advocate safe-sex; when i was single, i engaged in safe sex with my partners for the most part, and I don't encourage risk-taking.

However, the essence of erotica, even purportedly true recollections, is fantasy and physical/emotional fulfillment. And no matter how cleverly you describe the act, putting on a condom breaks whatever mood the story has built up. I find orgasm descriptions (and sexual narratives) much more satisfying when i know that a condom isn't involved. To read a story where I know one is makes me stop reading.

any thoughts on this? i mean, should we have an obligation to present safety over fantasy? or is that a tunnel-visioned point of view?

 

[WickedAlchemy]

Two things that make stories erotic for me are character and realism. Both of which are often in sort supply in Erotica and, I would think, aided by a condom in a story.

Now I'm all for the cathartic release of sexual fantasy through these wonderful stories of ours, but I the best Erotica is the stuff that you can get under your fingernails, the stories that a reader might place themselves in. And since using a condom, or having a condom used on you is (or at least should be) a very real part of sex in today's world, it may be used as a tool to pull the reader into the fantasy.

As for pacing, one of the biggest problems I've found here at Literotica is that many writers just barge right into sex, every one orgasms big juicy gobbs and the the story ends. There isn't much about character's and the feelings wrapped around sex, and that's what I find erotic. A condom could be used as a foil for somebody's emotions that would help build a character that a reader could get hot for, or at least understand and interpose themselves with a character.

As for condom use disrupting the mood of the piece (which interestingly enough is an excuse for forgetting to wrap the rascal), there are millions of things that disrupt the pace or process of a reader. The trick is for us writers to find creative ways to fix that and squeeze what we want into a story.

Well now that this is much too long for anybody to read it, I'll just say that I don't see any problem with condom use in, during or outside of Erotica.

Wicked Alchemy

 

[Whispersecret]

I don't have a problem with including condoms in stories. If the sense of realism in a particular story requires a condom, then the writer should include one. I think a good writer can insert the use of a condom unobtrusively.

If, on the other hand, the story is an over-the-top fantasy, then the condom should be excluded.

As usual, it depends on the story, and, as Wicked Alchemy mentioned, on the skill of the writer.

 

[TaffyJ]

Yik on fantasy condoms!

I read a story once with a disclaimer about safe sex at the top along with all the other pre-story warnings. That seems the best way to me because you do the safe-sex blurb BEFORE the reader actually gets into the story.
I wonder if there is anyone who has had condom sex who actually prefers it to sex without? I suppose there might be a few out there who do enjoy the feeling. When I am reading a story, I am imagining myself as the female partner, and if I read that the male is wearing a condom, I lose interest in the story because I don't imagine the sex as being as pleasurable as it should be.
If the intent is to establish to the reader that this act is just a casual fuck and that the participants suspect each other might be contagious, then I suppose it could be appropriate. Condoms in erotic fiction are best mentioned only to convey certain meaning about the act.
If we are trying to set good examples for clean living through our fiction, then we probably shouldn't be submitting most of these stories, anyway. This is all just my humble opinion, of course!

 

[Charly]

Re: Yik on fantasy condoms!

I suppose there might be a few out there who do enjoy the feeling. When I am reading a story, I am imagining myself as the female partner, and if I read that the male is wearing a condom, I lose interest in the story because I don't imagine the sex as being as pleasurable as it should be.

I sort of enjoy sex with a condom. I find putting it on somewhat erotically stimulating. Also, I had a lover who initially objected to my using one and then conducted a comparison test and decided she couldn't really tell the difference so it was OK with her. She didn't quite like the thought of missing the feeling of the sperm spreading it's warmth. Sounds a little like the blindfolded Coke versus Pepsi tests, I guess.

Maybe they really got the bad name before the modern condom became so thin, and it just holds on, like so many prejudices?

 

[Cockatoo]

Responsible use

I've always had condoms in my stories. In the one situation I can think of where it's missing, it's a kind of a nonconsent situation and the lack of the condom is mentioned specifically as a bad thing.

Part of the reason for this is because that's how it should be, really, and another part is because I don't want to be a part of any prevailing influence that encourages people not to use them.

I don't think it breaks up the action one bit. It's part of the action. It's part of the prolonging of the dramatic tension. Hell, I have them stop in the middle of getting undressed to take off their shoes. There are a hundred little real-life things that strike home as real, and I try to use them to bring my stories to life.


Anyway, out here in the real world, condoms have an positive side and a negative side. They're awkward to put on. They can be hard to get off. They look weird, they smell funny, they can break if everything isn't properly lubricated, and they don't feel good. It's true, sex with a condom is simply nowhere near as amazing for the man, and I've heard some complaints from women, too. One of my lovers said it was like fucking a ken doll. Another one kept trying to get me NOT to use one.

On the other hand, because they don't feel good, you can GO CAT GO all night long. When I'm sporting latex, I actually have to concentrate to have an orgasm, even with a very stimulated and sexy partner, and that seems to really amaze the ladies. So, as awful as the damn things are, I consider them a way to make a good first impression.

 

[Cockatoo]

sausage casings are a way of life

I've always had condoms in my stories. In the one situation I can think of where it's missing, it's a kind of a nonconsent situation and the lack of the condom is mentioned specifically as a bad thing.

Part of the reason for this is because that's how it should be, really, and another part is because I don't want to be a part of any prevailing influence that encourages people not to use them.

I don't think it breaks up the action one bit. It's part of the action. It's part of the prolonging of the dramatic tension. Hell, I have them stop in the middle of getting undressed to take off their shoes. There are a hundred little real-life things that strike home as real, and I try to use them to bring my stories to life.


Anyway, out here in the real world, condoms have an positive side and a negative side. They're awkward to put on. They can be hard to get off. They look weird, they smell funny, they can break if everything isn't properly lubricated, and they don't feel good. It's true, sex with a condom is simply nowhere near as amazing for the man, and I've heard some complaints from women, too. One of my lovers said it was like fucking a ken doll. Another one kept trying to get me NOT to use one.

On the other hand, because they don't feel good, you can GO CAT GO all night long. When I'm sporting latex, I actually have to concentrate to have an orgasm, even with a very stimulated and sexy partner, and that seems to really amaze the ladies. So, as awful as the damn things are, I consider them a way to make a good first impression.

 

[Ray Dario]

Hmm, Cockatoo, think about this.

While we busy ourselves spouting about "Safe Sex" we forget to look at the facts.

Condoms do "reduce" the risk of disease transmittal and they do "reduce" the risk of pregnancy, but far too often we insinuate that wearing a condom makes sex safe and it simply isn't true.

Even the best condoms, made from the highest quality material, are porous and those pores (little holes in the material) are thousands of times larger than the AIDS virus.

I have read research that shows that wearing a condom reduces the risk of AIDS transmittal by only about 40%

Now I’ll take 40% over nothing, but even a 1 in 100 (1%) chance of contracting a disease like AIDS or Herpes is far from “safe”. Think about it. That means statistically you will catch a disease once if you have sex with an infected partner 100 times. Hell that’s just one good ski weekend with Betty Ann! and it doesn't wait for the 100th time. It could be the first time or the 100 th or anywhere in between. Think about that. It should be scary.

Disease wise the only truly safe sex is total committed monogamy from both partners (Yeah like that's going to happen). And even that carries the risk of pregnancy.

So if you are going to have sex, then condoms and other precautions are good. They reduce the risk of disease and unwanted pregnancy, but it is disgraceful how we as a society lie to our selves with semantics and call wearing a condom “safe”.

Okay, down off the soapbox with me.

As my Native American grandfather used to say “Fuck the white man!” … Or was that my Irish grandmother? Hard to remember, they sounded so much alike when they were drunk.

 

[Cockatoo]

A-hayup.

Hey, I SAID they could break. And, I never used the words, "Safe Sex." I believe that the term currently in use is "SafER sex." I was just trying to make the point that they are, and should be, a fact of life if you're sexually active. But there's no substitute for caution. Blood screenings with new partners, complete candor about your history and (ahem) extracirricular activities, condom use, and minimizing exposure to bodily fluids should be on everybody's checklist, if you want to get on a soapbox about AIDS, or whatever the next thing is that we haven't found out about yet (shudddddder).

But, I was just talking about my stories, really. If you want the lowdown on my personal history, I'm no saint, but I've been living like a Galapogos Tortise for the last eight or nine months- plain ol' lonely circumstances. Sigh.

Sadly, I also have some perspective with your position on monogamy. I'm sure that there are millions of happy couples out there who don't cheat on each other, and HOORAY for them. But, the sad fact of the matter is that you never really know if you're in that group or not. Just trusting someone does not necessarily make them trustWORTHY. Experience has taught me that even your own spouse can, and will, lie to you and live a double life, no matter how much you trust 'em or are willing to place your life in their hands. Ultimately, the only monagamy you can really be sure about is your own.

 

[Ray Dario]

Cockatoo,

Sorry about the soapbox thing! It really wasn't directed at you so much as the people I see in the media spouting "Safe Sex" and coming down on those preaching abstinence to kids.

And no I have not yet heard the term "Safer Sex" except from you.

As far as stories go, mine are fantasy and as such I don't include condoms, because in my fantasies I don't wear condoms.

I somewhat agree with you about monogamy, see my parenthetical comment, but am too cynical to believe there are millions of couples, maybe tens, but not millions.

All of Life is a risk. We should in R/L reduce that risk as much as possible, but that includes ACCURATE information about the risks. The liberal left and the fanatical right are ganging up to flood the world with so much inaccurate information that it is more than confusing, it's appalling. No wonder our kids are so screwed up.

One bunch says "Fuck all you want, but wear a condom and it'll be okay"

The other bunch says "Fuck once and your life is over and you are going straight to hell."

Neither side is worrying much about if what they say is true. Neither side is worrying much about solving the problem. Neither side is worrying much about our kids. Both sides are making me sick!

(looking down) Damn how did I get on this soapbox again?

Ray

 

[cymbidia]

you're both right, of course

The only way to be completely safe from unwanted pregnancy or disease transmission is via total abstinence. That, however, is a distinctly unpalatable choice for most of us, is it not? Some of us may be in the middle of an unpleasant dry period at the moment, for whatever reason, but it's not a thing we would choose given other options.

That said, the rate of teen pregnancy, abortion, childbearing, dropping out of school, and not going on to college after school is climbing again in the US. I think it's a result, in part, of our long public policy of what i term "benign neglect" with respect to these members of our society.

They don't vote, most of them, even after they become eligible, and have no appreciation for the power of their collective voices to affect their lives from a public policy perspective.

They don't know shit about their birth control options because the US gov't has bowed to pressures from the extreme right and disallowed even halfway adequate info on the subject to be given to them in school, the traditional spot for many kids to learn about their bodies.

They don't even know about how their bodies work, the basic sexual plumbing, for gods sakes, so how can they be informed consumers with respect to birth control options?

I taught sex ed to 14 year olds for years, as i've mentioned a time or two before. There was always an astonishing large list of things i couldn't talk about, things i couldn't say to them, even if i was asked. I found ways around a lot of it, as most people who teach sex ed to teens do, because if we teach it, it's because we feel they NEED the info. It's not cuz we think it's a blast to stand up in front of 150 highly embarrassed and sometimes aroused (you wouldn't believe what arouses a 14 boy!!) 14 year old kids a day and talk to them about erectile tissue and vas deferens and just what the hell a fallopian tube has to do with period cramps anyway.

The other day, after class in a writing seminar i was taking this past semester, one that had a clutch of 19-21 girls as students (~still rolling my eyes at the amount of "eyelashes aflutter" poetry i had to hear in these last few months~)(however, i **did** manage to impress on them that there's a diff between erotica and porn when i submitted my "You Are Gone" poem for public discussion and feedback to the class. ~laughing at the mem~ Some of the "kids" had a little trouble with the whole concept of masturbatory refs in something we were discussing in class. I felt so sorry for them. Ahem. Anyway, i consider bringing that poem to my seminar for a public look, and the resulting discussion it spawned, to be my "good deed" for the year, you know, the kind that Santa counts?), this one girl sorta sidled up to me and asked if we could talk. I'm pretty used to that kinda thing and so we headed off into an empty classroom. She told me she had been wanting to ask me ... [insert about 25 minutes of wandering, confidence-inspiring chat here, just so she could get comfy enough to get to the point] ... how to masturbate.

So i told her and gave her pointers on buying a good vibrator (we had to discuss what that was, as opposed to a vibrating dildo, a thing she just didn't know at all). She was **highly** embarrassed but determined. Seems she would give the info to a couple others, too, who just couldn't ask in person. WAAAAAY too embarrassing for them. None of them got any info at all about this stuff in school or from parents. Some were virgins, some were not, but none of them had ever touched her clit deliberately in an attempt to masturbate to orgasm. It was wrong, they'd been told, and they believed it.

Now, what's wrong with this picture?

19 and 21 year old girls who don't know how to masturbate? The same age boys (and that's the right word here, guys, sorry) who cannot have a pseudo-adult conversation in literary terms about a woman masturbating because they don't know anything at all about women's sexual reactions themselves?

I think we're failing kids in a really crucial manner by letting them become legal adults who don't have clue at all about their bodies, about their own sexual functioning or that of the other gender. They know nothing about human sexuality and nothing of substance about pregnancy/disease prevention.

Teens are throw-aways in our society.
It's deeply troublesome.

So, yeh, put condoms on in your stories. Discuss birth control options. Make sure your facts are correct. You can still write hot stuff and do that, too.

I **KNOW**, from talking to a small group of them these last few months, that there's a bunch of people learning how to be sexual from the things we write, the things they find on the net. That's sex ed for teens today, believe it or not. Sad. A crime, really.

~stepping off one of the spare soapboxes~

 

[Ray Dario]

Okay, cym,

You KNOW I hate to argue with you, but ...

Sex Ed does not belong in the public school. There is to much individual opinion on what is right and wrong and neither the all knowing teachers union, nor the all unknowing government, are the right people to decide what to teach my kids about sex.

That is the parents responsibility.

That said you are right. The parents of today, the hippies and yuppies and drop outs of yesterday, are blowing it but good! Still I would oppose, strongly, any attempt to have the mindless, inane, uneducated, moronic, jack booted, hypocritical, power mongering bureaucrats decide what was right sexually for my children or for me! I will teach them. I will accept my responsibilty. But don't force someone elses idiotic ideas down my throat!

(Taking a deep breath)

How in the hell did this discussion on Condoms in stories get here?

My fault for sure.

Okay, I've said enough. Won't say no more on this subject.

Ray

 

[cymbidia]

Okay, Ray... you know i love you and you're a good friend to me and, well, there's that little project we might in the works, and i definitely respect you, but you're just plain wrong on this.

YOU teach your kids what they need to know. Most parents do not. You are atypical, Ray. Accept it. Most parents toss a booklet at them sometime along about 14 and that's about it. Most 17 year old kids don't have a clue what the function of the vas deferens is or know anything at all about the danger of using vaseline in tandem with condoms as a method of birth control.

It is the responsibility of a democratic society to educate it's children. The trouble lies, as it does on so many issues, in WHERE the line should be drawn between public education and... what isn't and shouldn't be the school's responsibility.

I say that our larger society has a responsibility to educate kids about thier bodies and birth control options (as well as the emotional and psychological ramifications of teen-age sex, btw) ONLY BECAUSE most parents don't/won't/can't.

Our society pays for the birth of unwanted children in so many ways; don't we have a responsibility to try to stem the tide of such births? Isn't that the moral thing to do for all involved?

Ray, my friend, though you're totally right and i couldn't agree with you more that parents should talk to thier children about this, most don't and/or too many say "Don't do it" and think that's enough. Therefore, unalterably, i have to always, always, always retain the view that giving kids high quality, correct info about themselves and their choices is ultimately good for us all.

 

[Weird Harold]

YOU teach your kids what they need to know. Most parents do not. You are atypical, Ray. Accept it. Most parents toss a booklet at them sometime along about 14 and that's about it.

Ray, I would add one point to cymbidia's comments.

How many parents are there that just don't know what to teach their children? I'm not talking about making a choice about what knowledge to pass on, I'm talking about parents who don't even know how they came to be parents!

Parents should be,and for the most part are, the source of moral judgements about sex. Schools should teach the biology of sex that many parents can't teach. because what they don't know they can't teach.

 

[Guest]

condom use in stories

I recall characters in a couple of my stories using condoms. My stories are elaborations of actual events that I've engaged in, and for the past couple of decades, condoms have been included in those events.

In fact, one of the characters in my story said "I hate safer sex, but I've learned to live with it." That pretty much explains my attitude toward condoms.

I even use them for oral sex on men. This is a recent use, and not everyone does, but the facts have just come in that, yes, you can catch HIV from oral sex, even without obvious wounds in your mouth. So, I might even mention that there is a use for non-lubbed condoms, they taste better. (found out the hard way that nonoxnol-9 irritates my tongue and it lasts a couple of days).

So, I write what I know. And I know that barebacking, and even fellatio are dangerous without some barrier protection. I try to make it matter of fact in lovemaking, even describing how I slid the foreskin back and rolled the condom on, followed by my mouth.

 

[Shale]

Condom use in stories

The "unregisterd guest" who made the previous comments was Shale.

 

[Cockatoo]

One for the kids

Cym said:

(you wouldn't believe what arouses a 14 boy!!)

Ooooooh, yes I would. I was one. It was eighteen years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. You just don't get over something like that. The 'ol boy would go up and down like an elevator at lunch hour. We even had an acronym: the NRB was a "no-reason boner." Every 14-yr old boy develops a strategy for dealing with and/or concealing his NRBs, which have a tendency to pop up when you've been called to the front to do a problem at the board.

But that's not why I'm responding. There are some very important voices missing from this discussion- the ones who have the most at stake. When the grownups went on about what the kids should be taught by the (gasp!) government and the rights of the parents and blah blah blah, I REMEMBER standing there kind of sheepishly and wondering which hole, exactly, girls pee from. Jees, don't YOU guys remember your shameful little questions?

Before I get any wisecrack answers, let me reassure you that somebody finally told me about the pee hole.

The point is that it SUCKS to be a teenager, remember? You're not a kid anymore and you don't appreciate being treated like one, or being talked about like you're not even there when it's being decided what's important for you and your future. On the other hand, you're not an adult, either, and you don't know what you need to be told, so you can't make any truly informed decisions of your own. And, to complicate things, your body is going hormonally apeshit on you and you spend most of your days wanting to scream and cry and fuck and sing and shout and run and fight. You NEED to be taken seriously. But you CAN'T be. All you can do is wait FOREVER for it to be over with. This is the way we produce adults in our society. We've all been through it, and we all know that there's something deeply, deeply wrong with the process.

Despite all this, some kids have the chutzpah and wisdom to seek out guidance, like cym's courageous girl. Hats off to them.

I sympathize with Ray. It's your job as a parent to tell your kids that our bodies are where we keep our very selves, and we're covered with secret switches and controls that do things to us (mentally, physically, emotionally, hell, even spiritually) that we may not be prepared for, even as adults, even under the best of circumstances. It's your job to pass along the values and self-esteem that makes your kids know themselves to be precious creatures whose flesh is not to be gambled with. And it's your job to teach this by both articulating the words and by your own lifelong demonstration. That's the kind of authority and responsibility that must never be usurped by a government.

But Cym and WH are just plain right about the plumbing. Beyond the simple fact that some people are psycho and just aren't cut out to be parents at all, even the GOOD parents in our culture cannot and do not teach sex ed because they don't know it, or they don't have the guts, or just because the kids can't LEARN it from them in the first place because they're too seriously creeped out by hearing about penises and vaginas from Mommy and Daddy in the first place.

Yeah, I remember being fourteen, and my ignorance, and my fear, and my damn NRBs. I remember wishing that everybody would quit making such a ridiculous fuss about sex ed in school and just give me the straight dope from a professional that wouldn't embarass the fuck out of me. I even remember the pinkish-minty taste of the chewing gum on the breath of the first girl I made out with.

~I might as well make shoes out of these damn soapboxes.~

 

[ChaoticLil]

Okay, cym,

You KNOW I hate to argue with you, but ...

Sex Ed does not belong in the public school. There is to much individual opinion on what is right and wrong and neither the all knowing teachers union, nor the all unknowing government, are the right people to decide what to teach my kids about sex.

That is the parents responsibility.

That said you are right. The parents of today, the hippies and yuppies and drop outs of yesterday, are blowing it but good! Still I would oppose, strongly, any attempt to have the mindless, inane, uneducated, moronic, jack booted, hypocritical, power mongering bureaucrats decide what was right sexually for my children or for me! I will teach them. I will accept my responsibilty. But don't force someone elses idiotic ideas down my throat!


Ray

Unfortunantly not all children can talk to their parents. My daughter and I were lying in bed one morning talking, and she told me that she was so glad we have this chat times because most of her classmates/friends don't. To me that is really sad and those parents are missing a wonderful time in their child's life.

My daughter has a a book about sex and how her body works. She has read that many times and has asked me questions. She knows that I'm "different" and that she will understand what that means when she gets older. I've even found one of my vibrators running on her bed (guess I need to break down and get her one of her own ~lol~).

I just wish that people would understand that a little knowledge (or wrong knowledge) is worse than no knowledge at all.

 

[The_old_man]

As to sex ed...casual nudity was common in our home when I was growing up. Questions were answered calmly and factualy. Greys Anatomy was on the book shelf with all the rest.

Mastrubation: I began at about seven, had my first ATTEMPT at intercourse at nine(unsucessful) and was bi-sexual till high-school.

All this befor WWII. It was not untill mid-war that the Government began its campain to "Stop Venerial Disease." that home sex ed began to fade. The CHURCH also began to get into their control bit then also.

 

[Mickie]

Condoms in erotica. Hum. First, sex ed BELONGS in the schools, Ray. Sorry, but there are many parents out there who can't say the word 'condom' to their child without running off and upchucking into the nearest toilet bowl. Personally, I have a twelve year old daughter, and I'm HAPPY the schools intitiate the subject. It led to a conversation with her that I should have had without their intervention, but probably would never have happened if the school hadn't had the gall to say something.

Second, I don't mind it in erotica if it fits the mood of the piece. If we, as writers, don't put a condom on (where appropriate) are we irresponsible? We are teaching the young (hopefully, not too young) about how to have great sex, so why not include a little responsibility as well? If we can read about it and still get turned on, then won't more people do it and still get turned on? If it became the norm most people would see that rolling, pushing and tugging as part of foreplay rather than an inconvenience.

However, some stories are outside the norm, and, as such, do not require condoms. Time factors, such as 18th century, or before, used French Letters, and perhaps that could be more well known in that time factor.

It's all a matter of how erotic you can make it. Hell, use your imagination. We're all writers, after all. It's a challenge.

But, then, this is fantasy. But, where does true responsibility start, but in the mind?

Mick

 

[cymbidia]

None of us here, at least not in our Lit Writer incarnation, has a responsibility to be socially conscious in any manner. We have no responsibility to do anything here at Lit but write the best erotica we can. Our stories (at least mine) often dip toes into the gray area between whatever erotica is versus whatever porn is. That's what we do here; we write sexy stories.

We have an obligation to please ourselves in the writing of these stories. If we want them posted here, we have an obligation to adhere to whatever guidelines govern the submission of appropriate stories for this website. That's it. Those are our obligations, our responsibilities.

That said, i feel a sense of responsibility to offer *correct* information in my stories. I have trouble writing sexual situations that would put my characters in some kind of danger (were they doing whatever "it" is in the middle of my living room) without offering them, and anyone reading the story, a way to be safe in process.

Maybe i'm way out in left field on this. I know that part of the responsibility i feel on this subject comes from two facts that are probably far more unique to me than to most: (1) i taught sex ed for years to 14 year olds and remain immensely sad and profoundly alarmed by the level of ignorance we, as a society, allow them to retain about the workings of their bodies, and (2) i've become aware in the recent past that many (most?) young people are getting an increasing amount of information about sexuality from the net, from stories and pictures and chat rooms.

I have an almost-13 year old daughter. I've been always been open with her about all things sexual, telling her what she wanted to know when she was ready to hear it, and with as much detail as she needed. Today, my daughter's friends come to me with questions, and i do what i can to answer them with the facts they need. It troubles me when i ask, as i always do, if they wouldn't rather go talk to their own parents about this kind of thing, and they reply with versions of, "Oh NO! No, i can't ask my parents this. I'd be too embarrassed -or- they don't know anything -or- they'd get mad at me for asking -or- I'd be grounded for asking about this!"

So i answer the questions. (Questions that have ranged, just this 7th grade year, from, "What's a clitoris? We heard the word in a song and don't know." to "What do boys do when they... you know... well... when they masturbate?" to "Won't a tampon hurt me, you know, down there, inside?" to "Why do boys get those crackling voices?” ... on and on.) Then i call their parents and tell their parents about the conversation i had with their girls.

But i know many (most?) of these kids are getting a lot of thier sex ed from the lyrics of thier music, from MTV, from convo's with strangers in chat rooms, and as they look at net X-pics (today's more accessible and far more explicit version of the magazines [Playboy, most notably] that we snuck fascinated and titillated peeks into when i was 13). And it's not only young kids like my daughter who go surfing the net and picking up bad info. It's extremely alarming to me that "adults", like the 19 and 21 year old girls in my writing seminar, who know almost nothing about how their bodies work are out here in the slipstream, too, indiscriminately soaking up sexual info.

It bothers me that there's so much really bad sexual info on the net. It bothers me even more that kids don't have the life skills to be able to separate the good quality info from the crap. It really fucking scares me to think that anyone, even one faceless person in some far away country, someone i'll never know and will never hear about, will read something i've written, emulate it, and get hurt.

So, i elect to write safe sex (or "safer sex" - thanks Cockatoo) into my stuff, where and when appropriate. I've not yet written anything in which a condom was appropriate (i'm thinking that Chapter 5 doesn't really count). When i finally branch out and leave my comfy niche area, however, i *will* write a hot version of condom use into my story, if the story calls for any kinda somewhat casual sex. And in all my stories, i write factually of BDSM practices, always aware of the real life safety and heath concerns behind the story heat.

Or so i intend.

I think we're not irresponsible if there's no condom in evidence in our stories. We are writers of fiction, after all. If people come here and read our stuff and don't understand the difference between a story and reality, well, we certainly can't do anything about that. There's always gonna be crazies, those with a more real fantasy life then the one in which there's bills to pay and milk to buy for the kids.

Mick said, "We are teaching the young (hopefully, not too young) about how to have great sex, so why not include a little responsibility as well? If we can read about it and still get turned on, then won't more people do it and still get turned on? If it became the norm most people would see that rolling, pushing and tugging as part of foreplay rather than an inconvenience.”

I second, most earnestly, these sentiments.

However, there are those who write sex the way they want it to be, reckless and wild and dangerous, and the connection with reality be damned. Theirs, too, is a valid perspective. In the end, don't we all just write what pours out of our brains and hope someone gets something good from it?

My stuff will continue to include safer sex techniques because that's my personal choice in the matter, and because my sense of moral obligation requires it of me. You do what you want.

~jumping off the soapbox again, alarmed~
GEEZE i am long-winded today; i'm sorry.

 

[Bob Waters]

Depends on the story

Sometimes it belongs, sometimes it doesn't. In my story Confession, the protagonist is being forced into sex against her will - no condom - wouldn't really fit into the context of the story. In Hairdresser the couple are culminating a long-term flirtation. Chances are if you're hopping into bed with someone - especially if you want a re-match - in this day and age you wear a rubber. Just like with the actual use of a condom itself, if you work it into the foreplay it doesn't intrude.

I prefer my erotica realistic or at least plausable in its own context. Using a condom if it's skillfully worked into the story adds to the realism.