So you had a great phone conversation on our chat line and met up for a date with a smoking hot babe. The date went great, emotional fireworks were set off and you’re ready to close the deal. You invite her back to your apartment and she says “yes,” you walk into the living room and immediately start to make out. Shirts come off, bra unhooks and underwear is shed; it’s time for sex!
You ask her if she wants to have sex and she agrees, so you make your way into the bedroom. But there is one thing on her mind, does he have a condom?
You both just made it back to his bedroom. Bra hooks are undone, boxer-briefs are pulled off, and you answered his “wanna have sex?” with a very enthusiastic “HELL YEAH.” He keeps kissing you, and it’s hot, but there’s something that’s on the back of your mind: where’s the condom? After all, it’s his penis – shouldn’t he be the one to whip out a rubber? But when it becomes clear he’s ready to go as-is, you finally mention it.
His response may range from “Oh, right!” — as if the whole using-protection-thing was just a minor oversight — to “Oh, really?” — as if pregnancy and STI prevention is a huge request. But one thing’s clear: he’s rubber-stalling – deliberately waiting for the woman to bring up the condom first, perhaps in the hopes that she won’t at all.
And it’s happening more than you think: Rachel, 26, recalls men delaying condom use as a frequent occurrence: “I would need to initiate perhaps 60 to 70 percent of the time,” she says. “Literally the last three dudes I slept with were surprised when I indicated a condom was needed,” says Christina, 30. Clearly, this is something way too many women relate to, and this dangerous behavior needs to stop.
When men leave it to women to bring up condoms, the onus for both partners’ protection falls solely on them. But this phenomenon isn’t shocking: in a 2017 survey conducted by Cosmopolitan, women reported being twice as likely to initiate conversations about testing than men, while men were three times as likely to never have been tested.
Of the 65 participants who reported that there was no explicit communication about condom use with their partners, 48 had a false understanding of consequences of not using a condom, like thinking the woman being on birth control was enough, or that the pullout method was fine – neither of which protect someone from STIs. So if men who really do know better are purposefully stalling the condom talk (or are just trusting their female partners to know everything, which data proves they don’t), they’re only increasing their own risk of unsafe sex.
In this way, men are trying to coerce women into somehow foregoing their own worries and discomfort for the sake of pleasing them.
It’s ironic that an oft-used excuse by men for not wearing a condom is “it’ll ruin the mood,” because a woman having to bring it up certainly ruins the mood for her. Even if he agrees to wear one, she still has to wonder why he seemed ready to risk for a new partner, whose sexual history he may know nothing about.
Most of all, she has to question whether or not she wants anything to do with a guy who clearly puts his own sexual pleasure above her own. Be smarter than that and use our chat lines to meet awesome people who are above doing any of this!