Nobody ever said that using a condom comes naturally. How can you enjoy yourself if you’re fighting the Trojan War? Here, courtesy of Dr. William Kassler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are the seven habits of highly effective and safe lovers.
Use latex. If you run across one of those old lambskin artifacts, don’t use it for safe sex. It’s porous enough for the virus to get through. Use latex or polyurethane condoms, which is what you’ll almost always find in stores these days. Keep the lambskin version as a museum piece.
Stay current. That date on the package isn’t the vintage. It’s the last possible day you can safely use what’s inside. Latex corrodes. So if your long-forgotten college stash of rubbers suddenly turns up, with a Cold War-era expiration date, put them in the same museum case as your lambskins.
Beat the heat. Heat will break down latex. That eliminates two favorite storage places for your condom supply-your wallet (body heat will do it) and anywhere in your car on warm days. Under the radiator or tucked in a lampshade are probably bad ideas as well.
Open with care. It’s understood that sometimes the actual extraction of the condom from its packet is necessarily performed in an atmosphere of, shall we say, urgency. But try to stay calm. If you start ripping at the wrapper with your fingernails or teeth or Swiss Army knife, you can inflict a surface wound on the condom itself that will defeat the purpose of using it. Take a deep breath, count to five, and gently tear. See how easy it can be?
Don’t dawdle. Guys who thrust away and then don the condom just before ejaculating are, to put it generously, unclear on the concept. For one thing, your pre-ejaculate fluid can infect your partner if you’re HIV-positive. And vaginal secretions can carry HIV to you. Put the condom on before there’s any genital contact.
Roll with the flow. Condoms roll one way. So if you start to roll it the wrong way, you just turn it around and roll it the other way, right? Not if you want to protect your partner. You’ve already moistened what’s now the outside of the condom, and the whole idea is to not exchange fluid. Throw it away and unroll another one.
Lube it right. Use water-based lubricants like K-Y Jelly or Astroglide. But don’t use oil-based lubricants like Vaseline. They can break down the latex.
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