Posts by BenWilson
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It wasn't a justification for porn, it was an explanation of the low rate of non-bareback porn. It's just not a very widespread popular fantasy. At least not for porn consumers, who are quite possibly over-represented by soloists who have never done any of the things they see, nor will.
I'd claim it as a victory for my belief that most people don't fantasize about using a condom, suggesting reluctance could be widespread, but it doesn't actually follow. Fantasy is different from reality. People do things they don't fantasize about most of the time.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
I can't imagine it working out too well - porn is just too easy to make, the whole world over. Hollywood can't dominate it, so safe sex propaganda just isn't that easy to control. It would rapidly become a simple matter of survival - if no one is downloading the condom porn, it takes money to prop it up.
It's still around - porn from Brazil often has it, probably because of the high level of AIDS there. I expect it's a niche market, like Plumper porn.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Emma Hart,
I’ve seen it suggested that young people, girls especially, feel more pressured to say yes to sex acts which are common in porn but less likely to be pleasurable IRL, because their partner can find hundreds of porn examples in a second and say “Look, everyone does it!”
Yes, money shots would be a prime example. The need to actually see the jizz comes from an act that is primarily for observation, rather than participation.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to George Darroch,
Since the conversation has strayed that way, there's also the huge issue of the porn industry staying very much away from depicting condom use.
There was a brief phase of it. It didn't sell. People watch porn to have a fantasy, not watch something their teacher told them they should do.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
I think it didn't help that you were a little oblique about the impotence bit and I (and a bunch of others) then assumed you were just not trying very hard to put them on, which set things off in an adversarial manner.
You could have asked! I didn't really want this to go on as long as it has, nor to go into such detail, but the nuts and bolts are that it was always a problem, but it became worse and worse. Initially I think my success rate with condoms was around 50%. It slowly declined, probably as whatever part of my Animal Penis Brain responsible began to tell my other brain to fuck off, it was the one holding the keys. When it hit 14 straight failures in a row, I just gave up on them, and I can't face ever dealing with them again. The smell of them actually makes me feel sick now.
I can't rule out that it's something to do with my physicality. Deflation was not the only problem, certainly the actual putting on is something I also found difficult from day one. They don't roll down easily, and they don't stay on, bunching forward constantly. They don't go in easily, and once in, they want to stay in. Many is the time I've withdrawn and the condom has stayed behind. So I tried holding them on, but this causes them to break.
In the balance I think it was a mixture of physical and psychological causes, in a feedback loop. I had hoped to break out of the loop by having at least one genuinely enjoyable experience, to start the feedback going in the opposite direction, but it quite literally never happened.
The part of the picture I most want to paint here is that impotence is quite a strange beast. Indeed, it's an odd word to use for a penis that can't function in one highly proscribed way, but can by relaxing one, and only one, of the strictures on it, a stricture imposed only by powerful sexual education, in fact. It's a word that has a medical connotation for something that might actually just be an innate preference, rather like being gay seems to be. Many gay guys have reported having hetero sex for quite a while, but not really enjoying it and not knowing why, becoming depressed and bitter until bingo, the light comes on one day when some honey of a dude cracks onto them, and yay, life is good once more.
At the time all this was going on, I actually wondered if I was gay. However, it didn't take much research to work out I'm not. My porn is all straight. I've never had a gay fantasy. And any time the condom broke on my deflating penis, it was like "Wow! Maybe I've got it finally, it's working! This feels great", followed a little bit later by "Oh fuck. You are on the Pill right? We'd better stop". Several times I got the answer "Jesus Christ, don't stop, I'm almost there! Go harder, it's good, it's really good now". Is it any real surprise that I took my one of my 9997 lives? Is it really that hard to believe this doesn't happen to other people?
Further anecdata has come from the many prostitutes I've spoken to over the years who told me that penis deflation during the use of the condom is really common. Some of that is possibly performance anxiety from the shameful prostitution situation, but often the guy is perfectly able to get it up again once the condom is removed. They're a particularly disliked kind of john, because there's not really much that's nice about having to give a guy a blowjob for half an hour off-and-on, and put up with the other half hour of being ground away at by a dry deflating penis, wondering if the thing is going to break or slip off inside them. And it ups the condom bill. Thankfully, they don't come back.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
Can I propose that we retire the word “anecdata” now?
Well, mine is still anecdata, that was a fair claim. I only gave it for the entirely non-statistical purposes of painting the picture, which might help people to understand that condom induced impotence actually happened and it wasn't enjoyable, and it alienated me from them entirely. I fully expected to be psycho-analyzed for my "illness", and "irresponsibility", "lack of diligence", "lack of research", and so on and so forth, because sex-education is a political process, and things that are off-message are often met with outright hostility. I actually expected there to be wide speculation that I must have an abnormal penis, and a whole bunch of jokes about it. I've been pleasantly surprised by how little of any of that there was here. Lucy's been great, really, a mine of information.
But your finding is interesting. Another one I noticed but didn't raise, mostly because it seemed suss, unreplicated, and borderline homophobic, perhaps even slightly religious, was the study by a Scottish researcher that found mental health adversely affected by birth control, especially condoms. I don't know about his argument from evolution, but I can say that they certainly caused me feelings I've come to know as depression. At the time I thought I should just harden up. Oh, the irony. But there was something quite oddly true about just how much I enjoyed sex during the two periods when my wife and I were actively trying to conceive. All too brief - both were rapidly successful.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Sacha,
By all means, share an experience. But why the urge to insist it's definitive or common? It's OK to be an outlier..
I was referring to the discoveries in the linked article:
"The researchers found that 37% of men had at least one erection loss either while applying condoms or during sex in the previous three months. Men who reported erection loss had more unprotected sex over the study period - an average of 10.6 times, versus 7.0 times for those with no erection loss.
And 40% of men with erection loss reported removing condoms before sex was over - twice as many as those with no erection problems. Men who had three or more sexual partners over the study period, participants who had trouble applying condoms and men who experienced problems with condom comfort were all almost twice as likely to lose their erections. "
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"We know that a lot of men aren't aware that it is usual to lose your erection. So it's not just education about proper condom use, it's about men's sexuality. No man is completely invincible, even younger men. It's how they respond to erection loss that is important."
I personally find erection loss deeply unsatisfying, but again, I'm not going to make a universal claim. How do you find it? Enjoyable? By all means share.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Sacha,
It's probably not that uncommon among new parents. Hormonal contraception can be a problem when you're breastfeeding
Yes, it's one hell of a dangerous thing to rely on.
My wife and I used condoms as our sole form of contraception for years, up until I had a vasectomy. She had solid reasons for not wanting to take the pill etc..
Wow. How many years?
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Emma Hart,
> I've got no real opinion about mass education for the gay, though, that seems fraught.
Ben, can you explain this? I can't parse this remark in any way that doesn't make me picture mass gay brain-washing "Clockwork Orange" styles. Gay kids get their "mass" sex education at school, sitting next to straight kids.
Sure. I don't want to comment on it. I hope that existing sex-ed is sufficient, but I really don't know - homosexuality was illegal when I received my own sex-education, and not much discussed for several years thereafter. I'd like to hear from gay people how it worked out for them - were there any glaring shortcomings? One that I can particularly see is that in any discussions, there would be pressure on anyone who had not come out, to not say a damned word, and make no inquiries. Kids at school can be really hard on gays.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'd also be interested in hearing from male readers who don't suffer a loss of pleasure or function with condom use.
Indeed. I'd like to hear from the guy who actually prefers them and would wear them even in a monogamous and trusting relationship. Or the woman, for that matter. There's still a risk of STIs, after all, and you could die from them, or become infertile. Surely if there's no difference it would be as sensible as covering your mouth when you cough, even at home, and it reduces the slight risk of unwanted pregnancy from a contraceptive pill failure.
It is. But it does point to some of the things we've been discussing here -- proper fit, and skill in application included.
Yup, I'm sure that I could be healed, if I considered my problem an illness rather than a personal quirk, with a very low damage risk, a whole lot less than, say, using a car.
Some research has already been linked to.
Yes, it said:
"Personal factors such as aversion to the condom, consumption of alcohol or use of drugs prior to sexual intercourse, and anxiety and depression all were negatively associated with condom use."
Couldn't say it plainer, really. It's not the most important factor - religious objection is. But the conclusion:
"Beside social stigmas and personal reluctance, prevailing moral norms and religious interdicts also adversely affect use of these devices in many communities. Because of their disastrous consequences in the domain of public health each of these barriers must be effectively addressed."
Kind of what I'm sayin'. Just painting my own picture of it.
An 'honest sharing' of experience does not insist that it is universal.
Point to where I insisted it was universal. Please.
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