Posts by BenWilson
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Field Theory: Rugby World Cup stories, in reply to Steve Barnes,
and who knows where that could have led, before you know it we could have Bagpipes or some other abomination.
Such outrages are streng verboten in the grounds.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to B Jones,
there were a rash of unplanned pregnancies when women stopped taking it without replacing it with other contraceptives, which for those women at least would have perhaps doubled their risk of blood clots.
Also, maternal death is not unknown in the modern world. For anywhere third world, it's 22 times more likely. Pretty severe consequences. 20 per 100,000 for the developed world, 440 per 100,000 in the Third World.
How many men are prepared to use the IPD?
Would be an interesting study. Certainly a lot of men have vasectomies, and there can be complications. At least one guy I know reported severe pain that lasted for several weeks. His description was that it felt like he was being kicked in the balls the entire time. But for many it's unproblematic.
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This is not a competition entry, just the best place to relate my first experiences at a RWC match. Yesterday I went to see Fiji vs Samoa, taking my Dad as his birthday present, and my wife wanted to come to her first game too. At least 20 other people I know were there too. It turned out Russell and Fiona were going too, and he invited us for a spot of lunch first, with some friends. Excellent start to the afternoon, thanks very much Russ & Fi. Nice to meet Toby and Matt too.
I understand recordari was in attendance, somewhere in the near capacity crowd.
After Russell's we drove to our planned parking spot in Grey Lynn, had another drink with other friends who were going, and walked to the stadium. This took about 20 minutes, from door to entrance gate. The entry was effortless, 1 minute and we were through. The climb to our seat had us a bit short of breath though, we were right at the top of the southern stand, so it wasn't too far short of the elevation gain climbing one of the local mountains.
I was well impressed by the stadium, in the end, the facilities scaled nicely. It felt a lot bigger than I know it was. Perhaps that was the crowd, who were in good spirits. Crowd watching is one of the main points of going to live games, and there was no shortage. I kind of expected it to be like a walk through a Onehunga mall, but it seemed that the game had wide appeal, and the crowd was simply a typical NZ mob. I was surprised initially by the large number of Indians who were clearly fans, until I realized DER, of course, half of Fijians have that ancestry. It was a bit like a flashback to the night before at a birthday party of a friend, who is of Chinese descent. A room full of Chinese looking people, all glued to the TV for the Haka, and cracking jokes and making tips that spoke of high levels of rugby literacy, and touting Kiwi drawls, every one of them. Guys named Trevor, Gary, and other Kiwi classics. No Bruces, though, Chinese don't seem to do Bruce any more, sensibly opting to avoid teasing.
The crowd went wild when the war dances began. It was hard to say who won - Fiji definitely gets points for timing the start perfectly, just as the Samoan one was about to hit high gear. But there was a fierce confidence about the Samoan show that presaged the game itself.
It was a bit of a pity (but not unexpected) that the game ended up so one-sided. But underdog support seems to be endemic in NZ, so after Samoa seized a massive lead, I heard several people around me switching their cheers, one guy openly said so, and it seemed that the excitement was highest whenever Fiji got the ball in the second half. At their try, the stand I was in erupted - even the girls with the blue wigs for the Samoan flag were cheering it. It was an interesting game nonetheless, with plenty of running. I expect the wet conditions were responsible for the high number of handling errors that ended quite a few exciting phases of intense mauling and strong running play.
One thing that mystified me is the excitement the crowd gets at the Mexican trumpets before every kick-off, and the noticeable number of people dressed as banditos. I can only guess that they are real fans of the Mexican wave, two of which did complete circuits, and there were about a dozen abortive starts I could see all around the stadium.
Afterward, we got out of the stadium about as fast as we'd got in and forged through the thronging streets homeward. There was not the least unpleasantness anywhere to be seen - I have a feeling most people were in my situation, simply enjoying the rare opportunity to watch a World Cup game involving teams they have supported for years, in their home town, and no result could dampen that enjoyment.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Alice Ronald,
Guys like you are the reason I got an STI & have used the morning after pill 3 times.
Well, all except the business of having an STI, which I never have. Probably all that condom use saved me from that. That's something, I guess. But relying on them for birth control doesn't really seem safe to me even if you had perfectly compliant partners.
Either you or your partner[s] need to get some practice - preferably before getting laid.
I'd just as soon not, I think I've spent enough time at that coalface. I've had professional help, and they were baffled. They were also women though, so their input is about as much use to me as a swimming coach who has never been in the water. I'm happy to accept that promiscuous sex in the modern world is simply not for me. It was a slightly bitter pill to swallow when I was perfectly capable when there was no condom, the whole business was easy as pie. I've been married for a long time now so there's no need.
Yeah, it's a hard line, but I'm not sure Ben realised just how strong an influence it can be to have a guy insist that he can't wear a condom/doesn't want to when you're horny, eager to please & slightly self-conscious.
No, I'm perfectly aware. I think it's an important fact about condoms. Young people need to know it.
But it's still not a guide for general usage, and I think what you're missing is that the onus is on you, in the context of sex education and teaching young people about safe sex, to prove this is a general problem with condoms rather than a personal issue you have with them.
Yup, that's true. I'm not about to suggest people don't use them. But I did think it could be of use to people trying to understand the drivers of "high risk" behavior to hear my account. With the best intentions and help, condom use defied me to the point I will happily go to the grave never wearing another one, even if that were for some reason to mean that I must never have sex again. To me it's not worth it. Fortunately, that's not likely to happen.
You're asserting that an issue with universal usage might be because condoms are physically difficult for a non-trivial proportion of men to use
Considering that universal would have to include me, then yes, my failure is non-trivial. But I'm not making a science out of it. Even if I'm the only person in my situation on the planet, it's still my story. If, for some unexpected reason, I was looking for sexual partners again, I think it's frankly much more honest to just say straight up that it's just never going to involve a condom, so if they're not up for that risk, then don't apply. They're still pretty damned safe, every bit as safe as my wife is now, and millions if not billions of other people around the world are.
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Ben: was this really your experience of sex as a teen?
I had no experience of sex as a teen, so fierce was the competition ;-). But sex education isn't limited to teens. And absolutely I personally judged whether I would want to repeat with someone based on what the first encounter was like. If it was painful and humiliating (I usually opted to take the blame, but there's no way that the other person can't feel that it's not partially that you just don't think they're hot enough with their clothes off), then it really didn't matter how compatible we were in every other way.
but in all cases they've either changed their minds or we've settled for a non-penetrative option.
You wouldn't have to persuade me to change my mind - you'd have to persuade my penis to change its mind. I never refused to use one, that was a purely physical response, which vexed me greatly. If I then had no-condom sex, it was always at the suggestion of the girl. If it was great sex, sue me. I didn't plan for things to go that way, but that's the way they went. I'm sorry that I like sex with vaginas rather than rubber tubes, but I can assure you that's it's been more of a burden for me over the years than any of the girls. The only girl who ever had a medical reason to regret sex with me was that way because she got pregnant when the condom broke.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Well, I've had considerable trouble with them over hundreds of encounters. I'm sorry if that breaks the narrative. My only real purpose in this is to assert my actual existence, and I expect that explains the existence of women who are also condom-reluctant. I'm happy to leave it at that.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
The anecdotes reported in this thread are about women avoiding using them, though, unless you’re suggesting those women were put off by male complaints.
I'd expect they were put off by their experiences. These would probably have involved lengthy fucking around with condoms during which they felt stink because they wanted to have sex and it didn't happen, or it did but in a way that wasn't very enjoyable. There are also some women who actually prefer the feeling without, although they would seem to be much less than the number of men who feel that way.
I know I’ve seen you venture this view before, but you’re seriously the only guy I’ve ever seen express that much antipathy towards them.
Yes, I've mentioned it once before. My antipathy is only towards using them personally. Others certainly should try them, they might be part of the lucky majority who can use them. They're a vital part of the safe casual sex picture. However, if you rely on them alone, you're taking a hell of a risk. The first risk is failure of them directly. The second is that you will say "oh fuck it, let's just go without" after arsing around with a bunch of them for half an hour. This can and does happen, and needs to be acknowledged in the facts about that kind of device.
It’s probably worth including education about the fact that sex which requires condoms is not the be-all and end-all of sexual experience
That's likely to be discovered all on it's own. But being so, it should certainly be included in the education, if you want it to have any credibility. Learning to have sex as people have been doing it for millions of years doesn't require teaching at all, it's the way most people would do it without instruction. To use a condom requires practice. For some, it's not easy practice.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I put it to the crowd source that there is a reason that quite a lot of people don't want to wear condoms. If they were as little of an interference to the sex act as a seatbelt is to driving, they'd be great. That's never been my experience, though. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Sex education is great, but it should also try to be as true as possible. The purpose of them is safety, and the cost is to reduce the experience in some cases. When you consider the highly competitive sexual market, I'm not surprised kids would ditch them a lot. It's important to acknowledge that the drivers of this aren't solely ignorance of risk.
I think I might have been more convinced about them if I'd ever had a male sex-educator. Seeing women putting them on carrots and their forearms didn't really convince me. If they'd put it over their head and then tried to continue the lecture, it might have come closer to some of my own experiences with condoms.
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Busytown: Sons for the Return Home, in reply to ChrisW,
And you were only gone for 45 mins? I'd have been drifting around there for hours!
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Emma Hart,
Books about sex tend to not actually be about sex. They're about puberty or reproduction. Not the same thing.
Mind you in a search for sex ed apps on the Android marketplace (there seem to be 3), I noticed an old favorite about sex, that is about sex. Karma Sutra. One of the reviewers comments was amusing: 5 Stars "The best of all sutras".
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