‘Do you have a condom?’ I ask.
‘Ummmmm…’
I can tell his hesitation isn’t based on uncertainty of the condom’s existence, but on unwillingness to use one – he weighs up whether the sex is worth it if his penis is sentenced to a latex incarceration – but finally, sighing, rifles through his drawers, softening by the second. He unearths a crumpled plastic packet (one of the ones GPs give you) and begins to tear it open. Frustrated and fiddling around with the slimy rubber, he tells me he hasn’t had to put one of these on in years. I lay naked, trying my best to look appealing, but the sexual tension (minimal to begin with) has undeniably evaporated by the time he’s successfully donned the prophylactic.
A few minutes later the condom is filled, tied up and flung into a bin by his desk: a limp, lifeless souvenir of mediocrity, destined to spark little to no feeling when he’s taking out the rubbish that week. We feign intimacy for a bit in mechanical mimicry of movie romance, and I totter through the dark inhospitable streets back to the comfort of my room, unsatiated except in the reminder that sex really isn’t a particularly necessary or pleasurable part of my existence.
‘Why do I feel like I’m being uptight for not wanting to risk pregnancy and/or STIs?’
But as I lament the unromantic nature of my encounter, I wonder: why is it that men are so opposed to the use of condoms? Is it porn that has poisoned their brains into believing that sex cannot be enjoyable with this method of contraception? (The answer to this is probably yes – it’s always porn.) Is it the element of danger that excites them? And why do I feel like I’m being uptight for not wanting to risk pregnancy and/or STIs?
This episode (in some form) is so common to my romantic encounters that it’s begun to feel inevitable, but it can’t be just me. Is this a growing phenomenon? Why do men fear the condom? Does sex really feel that bad for men with this flimsy latex barrier? I investigated to find out how much this is happening at the University of Bristol and why.
I conducted a survey of female friends at Bristol (though of course this is not an issue restricted to women's lives) and learnt that I was not alone in this experience. Out of 33 people, 20 (60 per cent) answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘Have you ever felt pressured by a man to have sex without a condom?’, six responded ‘no’, five were unsure, and two chose N/A. When asked ‘Have you ever not used a condom during sex when you would have preferred to?’, 72 per cent responded yes. 81 per cent said that they have been scared that they were pregnant or had an STI after not using a condom during sex.
‘a guy took condom off during w/o me knowing, laughed it off but felt violated / anxious about [pregnancy]’
When asked to expand, I received responses including ‘a guy took condom off during w/o me knowing, laughed it off but felt violated / anxious about [pregnancy]’; ‘kept asking me to take the condom off, kept saying no was annoying & ruined the sex’ and some which detailed drunkenness (which often blurs both sexual boundaries and memories and leads to unprotected sex). The reasons listed for which these girls had unprotected sex were the mentioned drunkenness, that ‘the guy said it felt better without’ (a recurring response), and in one case a suspicious ‘loss’ of freshly bought condoms on the way back from the shop, amongst others.
The issue brings up questions of consent that should have long been resolved, but as it is seem to get brushed under the rug – perhaps because (as we have seen) women generally give in to their sexual partners in order to avoid ‘ruining the moment’. It is not a revolutionary statement that at the very least offering to wear a condom should be standard protocol among men, especially when they’re having sex for the first time and boundaries haven’t yet been verbalised.
‘What has [...] turned the condom – once the ultimate symbol of sexual liberation – into an unsexual object; a symbol of male subjection to displeasure?’
References to condoms have filled the media for decades (think of The Inbetweeners; of Barney’s condom collection in How I Met Your Mother; or Ross discovering the condom failure rate in Friends) but recently these references (at least in my media watching) seem to have declined. Is the condom fading from our cultural consciousness as a positive symbol of sexuality? It seems we’ve said goodbye to the chipper ‘I’ve got a johnny in my wallet in case I get lucky tonight’ and welcomed in the whining orchestra of ‘it just doesn’t feel as good,’ ‘I haven’t put one of these on in years’ or simply ‘I don’t have one.’ (Is that true? Is that really true?) What has changed in our culture that has turned the condom – once the ultimate symbol of sexual liberation – into an unsexual object; a symbol of male subjection to displeasure? It’s a concerning regression that’s a perfect example of the more insidious and unspoken misogyny that filters into the lives of female students at our university (and more generally of women across the world).
Statistics confirm my suspicions: Durex’s 2024 Global Sex Survey found the UK to rank 33rd out of the 36 countries surveyed for condom purchases, with only 15 per cent of British people buying condoms last year, and 41 per cent not using any contraceptive methods at all.
The WHO’s statistics show a decline in adolescent condom use in Europe: ‘the proportion of sexually active adolescents who used a condom at last intercourse fell from 70% to 61% among boys and 63% to 57% among girls between 2014 and 2022’ and, while we aren’t adolescents, the figures nod to a concerning change in priorities or in sexual education.
There has also been a significant increase in abortion rates in Bristol over the past few decades: between 2000 and 2017, the rates stayed fairly level at 200,000 legal abortions per year, after which a jump occurs, with 278,740 abortions in 2023.
Grace Bourne
Daisy Yates
To those women who have been convinced it feels better without a condom, I say: let’s not waste our lives in pious devotion to the sexual whims of men – being manipulated into compromising your principles and risking your health is as disrespectful as it is unromantic.
My message for straight male students at the University of Bristol is this: the next time the words ‘it doesn’t feel as good’ or ‘do we have to?’ hover on your lips, please remember that it’s actually not a problem for us if you last ten minutes instead of the usual two.
Featured image: Epigram
Will you use a condom next time you have sex?
