How to have sex without getting pregnant and catching things
Some years ago I connected with a woman who used no form of contraception at all on the grounds, paradoxical in its way, that she didn’t want foreign objects in her body. As the plan, endorsed by us both, was to stick a bit of mine into hers it seemed like a problem was looming here. On our first trip to the bedroom together neither of us had any condoms, so we tried to avoid letting the relevant organs come into contact. This was frustrating. Neither of us could sleep as a result, so later in the night we tried a bit of bareback and pulling out. As we were both keyed up by this time it was a very brief encounter indeed. The next time I came back with some condoms but this wasn’t terribly satisfactory as they were either too tight or too thick, maybe both. She said it felt a bit like being poked with a rubber truncheon. So I thought I’d better do some research into the alternatives.
When I first became sexually active all the women I met were on “the pill”, which meant blasting their reproductive system with hormones which completely suppressed the normal cycle. This seems like a terrible thing to do to a woman. It’s in the essence of a woman to be cyclical: god knows we’ve all had reason to wish it away at times, but it’s a form of castration to suppress it. As to the long term consequences, who knows. Later on I met women who were on “the coil” and sometimes these came with a hormonal implant which also moderated the monthly cycle. But this latest girl would have none of it. It wasn’t as if she was sexually inexperienced, either. I don’t really know how she managed matters before I came along, although she had produced two children as well as having two abortions. She told me that one of her boyfriends had a characteristic called “delayed ejaculation”, so that he never came inside her. This seemed like a pointer.
Government advice on the subject of sexual activity is that it is hugely risky – subtext, better avoid it but as we can’t actually say that please let us do our best to prevent you from enjoying it. One is given to believe that
a. women can get pregnant at any time of the month
b. the male organ is like a loaded gun that can discharge its dread load at any moment of sexual contact
c. furthermore, if that hasn’t got you worried then you can fret about the risk of disease instead.
None of these things is really true, or is true only in the sense that I might win the National Lottery (and then only if I’ve bought a ticket). Women are fertile only during quite a short interval each month. The problem is knowing when that interval arises. There are signs, which one can learn to spot with experience and observation. Gut feel is quite a good guide: women become hornier, more promiscuous and “unfaithful” when they’re fertile and generally they smell even better than usual. It’s usually around a fortnight after and before the period, in someone who’s regular.
Again, the male organ is demonised as a dangerous weapon that needs to be kept sheathed at all times, but in fact it fires live ammunition only at the moment of ejaculation. Government guidance talks about semen being released earlier in the process in “Cowper’s Fluid”, a form of natural lubrication. What it doesn’t say, for some reason, is that tests on Cowper’s Fluid have shown that there is no live sperm in it: and there never was.
As to disease, the risk of getting anything from the regular straight non-drug using population is not high. Most of them don’t get a lot of sex in the first place. They haven’t got anything to pass on. Moreover, it’s not just a question of being exposed to an infection: it’s whether one’s body takes it in and the immune system in some sense chooses to invite the infection. It’s like some people get colds and some people don’t. Most of the discourse about STIs is actually about sexual guilt. Read the Guardian “love and sex” section. If anyone raises the possibility of anything other than stifling monogamy, there will be comments below the line (probably from Americans, Christians or the like) to the effect that “cheating” is the fast train to the clap or worse. It isn’t. That’s just fear and guilt talking. I remember my teenage daughter being quite convinced that she was pregnant because she had kissed someone she wished she hadn’t. It was the same thing: fear and guilt. There was no way she could be pregnant, but we went to the clinic anyway, just to make sure.
So anyway, after doing my research I decided to apply it to my relationship with this new woman, which turned into a five year, on-off affair during which we had sex at least once every time we saw each other. Let’s say that was five hundred days and nights. If I thought she might be fertile I pulled out before I came; around her period we would indulge ourselves with a full discharge of body fluids. If you believe Government public health propaganda, then even if the chance of pregnancy is low on a given occasion, after five hundred such events it would approach a statistical certainty. But she never got pregnant in all that time. I suppose it’s possible that one, the other or both of us was infertile. Certainly there is evidence to the contrary in the form of four healthy offspring, but I grant that fertility does tail off in one’s forties and fifties.
When I met Carmen we dispensed with the condoms on the third or fourth occasion we hooked up. I assumed she knew what she was doing. Once I pulled out and she said I didn’t need to do that; more often she preferred me to finish off up her anus, a god-given natural form of contraception if ever there was one. A lot of nonsense is talked about anal sex but frankly once you’ve got used to it as a man one hardly notices the difference. Marianne, on the other hand, did not like anal sex (Carmen is the only woman I have ever met who was a real enthusiast) but on the first occasion we fucked she simply said “I’m not fertile right now”, so we went with that. An adult woman is not a child: if she is in touch with her body, she just knows.
Love Me Tinder 