Author: Ian

Here is an excerpt from Naomi Wolf’s book Promiscuities (1997), that describes her first experience with contraceptives – her trip to the clinic and then her first time doing the “deed”. It could be argued that she tends to portray the condom as a male responsibility; and also as a very unsexy aspect of sex. Nonetheless her critique of sex education, sexual agency, and youth/adult relations around contraceptive talk is an interesting contribution to condom monologues:

“He and I could have been a poster couple for the liberal idea of responsible teen sexuality – and paradoxically, this was reflected in the lack of drama and meaning I felt crossing the threshold. Conscientious students who were mapping out our college applications and scheduling our after-school jobs to save up for tuition, we were the sort of kids who Planned Ahead. But even the preparations for losing one’s virginity felt barren of larger social significance.
When Martin and I went together to a clinic to arrange for contraception some weeks before the actual deed, no experience could have been flatter. He waited, reading old copies of Scientific American, while I was fitted for a diaphragm (“The method with one of the highest effectiveness levels, if we are careful, and the fewest risks to you,” Martin had explained after looking it up). The offices were full of high school couples. If the management intended the mood to be welcoming to adolescents, they had done an excellent job. Cartoon strips about contraceptives were displayed in several rooms. The staff members were straight-talking, and they did not patronize. The young, bearded doctor who had fitted me treated it as if he were explaining to me a terrific new piece of equipment for some hearty activity such as rock climbing.
In terms of the mechanics of servicing teenage desire safely in a secular, materialistic society, the experience was impeccable. The technology worked and was either cheep or free. But when we walked out, I still felt there was something important missing. It was weird to have these adults just hand you the keys to the kingdom, ask, “Any questions?,” wave, and return to their paperwork. They did not even have us wait until we could show we had learned something concrete – until we could answer some of their questions. It was easier than getting your learner’s permit to drive a car.
Now, giving us a moral context was not their job. They had enough to handle. Their work seems in retrospect like one of the few backstops we encountered to society’s abdication of us within our sexuality. But from visiting the clinic in the absence of any other adults giving us a moral framework in which to learn about sexuality, the message we got was: “You can be an adult without trying. The only meaning this has is the meaning you give it.” There was a sense, I recall, that the adults who were the gatekeepers to society had once again failed to initiate us in any way.
For not at the clinic, at school, in our synagogue, or anywhere in popular culture did this message come through clearly to us: sexual activity comes with responsibilities that are deeper than personal. If our parents did say this, it was scarcely reinforced outside the home. No one said, at the clinic, “You must use this diaphragm or this condom, not only because that is how you will avoid the personal disaster of unwanted pregnancy, but because if you have sex without protection you are doing something antisocial and morally objectionable. If you, boy or girl, initiate a pregnancy out of carelessness, that is dumb, regrettable behavior.” Nothing morally significant about the transfer of power from adults to teenagers was represented in that technology. It was like going to the vet: as if we were being processed not on a social but on an animal level.
Well, the Act itself will take care of that, I thought. How did I decide that day? Civics class drove me over the edge. The thought of plowing through the electoral college – which, in all its stubborn irrationality, seemed to represent all the rigidity and hopelessness of the adult world closing in on me…..At the classroom threshold, before the teacher noticed me, I suddenly turned my heel. Down the hall, I intercepted Martin before he walked into his biology lab. I easily persuaded him, ordinarily a conscientious student, to cut class. “Today’s the day: this is it.” It felt special to be the one whose decision was so attentively awaited. We seized our backpacks from our lockers, he took my hand, and we ran up the lawn to the street car tracks just as the class bell was shrilling….
He was shy and undressed in the bathroom. I, somewhat less so but still nervous, undressed under the sheets. When he returned, I was stunned: he was so beautiful. He shivered but let me look.
This was not the sweet old Martin whose grandmother bought him his shirts. I had been taking art history and had spent many hours memorizing fifth-century statues of male nudes. The walls behind Martin were grimy, but he looked like one of those statues, only alive.
My train of association connecting Martin to Praxiteles and the sublime came to an abrupt end with the production and deployment of the condom. We had the diaphragm, but there was no way I was about to deal with that yet. I was grateful not to have to think about the little rubber disk, but grateful, too, not to be directly involved with the alternative. Putting the condom on looked terribly complex. It seemed to me, watching, that if you were dextrous enough to gift-wrap an independent-minded amphibian, you could just about manage a condom.
When we made love, it hurt, but only a little. It was nice but strange. I realized my relative good luck with every disastrous loss-of-virginity story I hear. For a seventeen-year-old boy, Martin was a rarity – a sensitive, respectful teacher. After we dressed and left, we were very hesitant, even solicitous, with each other. It would take a long time and a great deal of trust to create real exotic love between us” (Wolf, 1997: 119-24).