Adventures in Safe Sex

When my first marriage ended in 1973, I found that the sexual revolution had started without me. It took me a couple of months to figure out the rules.

My second marriage ended about a year ago, and though I find that the sexual counterrevolution has started without me, I'm still not sure what the rules are. On one of my first dates as a born-again single person, I went to dinner with a woman whom I shall call Pat, who is 40, has an M.B.A. from Harvard and works as a loan officer at a midtown bank.

We had known each other previously and there seemed to be chemistry between us. At dinner we both consumed a great deal more vodka than I am usually able to handle without slumping forward into my blackened redfish. She invited me back to her place for drinks that neither of us needed.

Kissing hungrily on her living-room couch, I paused for the breathless-but-seemingly-nonchalant, obligatory safe-sex conversation:

"So tell me," I asked, "have you been, um, practicing safe sex?"

"Mmm-hmm," she replied.

"Oh, good," I said.

More frenzied and breathless kissing.

"And you're safe, right?"

"Yes, of course I'm safe," she said.

More activity.

"And how do you know you're safe?" I asked.

"Well," she said with a touch of irritation, "I haven't had sex for about two years. And before that I had only three lovers in about a five-year period."

"OK, good," I said.

We proceeded to complete the act on the couch. Foolishly and irresponsibly, I opted not to put on the condom I'd brought. Why? Partly because I didn't want to seem presumptuous enough to have brought one in the first place. Partly because I feared a condom might compromise my degree of rigidity, particularly with all the alcohol I had consumed. Partly because I have the same notion most men have that a condom limits sensation. And partly, I must admit, because condoms have always embarrassed me.

Relaxing afterward, I resumed the conversation.

"The, uh, three guys you had sex with so many years ago, though, are safe, too, right?"

"Right. In fact, two of them are married and I was their only ... dalliance."

"And the third?"?"

"And the third we know is safe."

"How do we know he's safe?"

"He just had a blood test because he was worried, and it was negative."

"He was worried? Excuse me, but why was he worried?"

"Well, he'd been experiencing some AIDS-related symptoms and he's had a sort of bad history with women."

"A bad history with women? What do you mean a bad history with women?"

"Well, he'd, you know, hump anything that moved. But he went for the test just a short time ago and, as I say, it was negative."

It seemed pointless to bring up the fact that many people initially test negative and that a positive result can take years to surface. I recalled hearing that when you sleep with someone nowadays, you sleep with everyone they've ever slept with. I'd just found out our group had slept with a guy who'd hump anything that moved, and I wanted to transfer out of the group.

"Tell me, when you had sex with this guy, did he use a condom?"

"I didn't think it was necessary at the time."

"Would you be willing to take a blood test now?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"I just told you. I'm safe."

When I got home, I telephoned my internist for an appointment to have a blood test. Since it was three in the morning, I got his answering service.

The next day I went to see kindly Dr. Baker and took the blood test for HIV. I asked him what he felt my chances were of contracting AIDS.

"Well," he said carefully, "assuming you avoid sex with homosexuals and intravenous-drug users, I'd say your chances of contracting AIDS are equivalent to those of being killed by bricks falling off your roof as you exit your home."

I had a fleeting worry about bricks falling off my roof. Within a few days my test came back. It was negative.

•

I began to ask everyone I met how they felt about safe sex. All of the friends, acquaintances, colleagues and potential lovers I queried were sophisticated New Yorkers—college graduates, accomplished men and women in the fields of publishing, banking, law and academia. Nearly all expressed fear of AIDS. Nearly all confessed to practicing safe sex hardly at all.

Here is a sampling of two dozen taped conversations. If you find them disturbing, don't blame me. That's what's out there.

Rick, 45, separated:

"Rick, are you worried about AIDS?"

"Yes."

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"To me safe sex means using condoms, and I don't."

"Why don't you use condoms?"

"I hate putting them on, I have trouble putting them on. It just doesn't feel anywhere near as good. There can't be any other reason—it's not that I have a death wish. I don't bring up the subject of using a condom; the women beat me to it."

"And what do you tell them?"

"I say 'I don't feel I'm a risk, how about you?' "

"Have you become more concerned about AIDS since Magic Johnson's announcement?"

"Slightly more concerned."

"If you're concerned, why don't you use condoms?"

"I'm doing my ostrich imitation."

Barbara, 52, single:

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

"No. I feel I'm not in a high-risk group."

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"A lover who's been in my life for a few years got scared and decided we'd better have safe sex, so one night he brought condoms along. We used them; it was a crashing bore and after that it never came up again. Regarding the other people I've had sex with, it doesn't even come up. If I were to have sex with someone I was nervous about, I'd insist on condoms. I used to carry a diaphragm. I now carry two condoms, but I don't use them. If the man doesn't have one, I'm too mortified to suggest them.

"There was one person I wasn't sure about and I was bold enough to ask if he'd use one. He said, 'Are you kidding me?' I backed right off and said, 'Fine.' I use condoms about five percent of the time, usually because the man insists."

"Have you had a blood test?"

"No. I'm much more fearful of herpes."

"Why?"

"Because with herpes you have it for life."

I guess Barbara's right—with AIDS you have it only for about two or three years.

Marty, 38, single:

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

"No, because I'm only having sex with one woman. I'm concerned, but I'm not worried. I'm worried, but I'm not paranoid."

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"Yeah."

"What form does your safe sex take?"

"Monogamy. But if the opportunity came up and I wasn't monogamous, I probably wouldn't use a rubber. The last time I wasn't monogamous was in a threesome with my girlfriend and another girl, and I didn't use a rubber."

"Why didn't you?"

"I guess because my girlfriend knew her and she trusted her, so, you know, I thought it was safe."

"Have you been tested for HIV?"

"No, I'm certain I'm clean. [Self-mocking dramatic tone] Denial! The first time my girlfriend and I went out three or four years ago, we did it without a rubber. It concerned me that she wasn't concerned about safe sex. I made her take a blood test."

"It concerned you that she wasn't concerned?"

"Yeah."

"How come you made her take a blood test?"

"I figured if she had it, I'd get tested. Actually, it was because I found out she'd been with a guy about five years before who was bisexual."

"Do you use condoms?"

"Never. I do have some in case a woman insists, but they're so cheap and old, they'd probably break."

Catherine, 37, single:

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

"Yes."

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"Yes, but the preferred term now is 'safer sex.' "

"Well, what form does your safer sex take?"

"I'd want to know someone's sexual history, I'd want there to be a waiting period of six months during which we'd use condoms, and after we were tested, I wouldn't want to use condoms because I don't like them."

"You told me that when you had sex with your last boyfriend, you never used a condom."

"That was because I knew he hadn't had sex in the six months before I began seeing him and that he'd had a blood test and tested negative."

"You also told me that you didn't use condoms with the boyfriend before him. Why not?"

"Because I knew he wasn't very sexually experienced."

Dwight, 48, divorced:

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

"No. I don't take intravenous drugs, I'm not homosexual and I don't practice anal intercourse. Therefore, I'm virtually immune."

"What makes you think so?"

"There's some doubt whether or not a true case of transmission from a female to a male has yet occurred."

"So you don't practice safe sex?"

"Of course I practice safe sex, because there are many common venereal diseases that are transmitted in heterosexual intercourse. But AIDS is not one of them."

"So what do you do?"

"I either use condoms or both of us go to a gynecologist to make sure we don't have a venereal disease."

"Have you had a blood test for HIV?"

"No, why do I need a blood test? It would be unfair for me to have a blood test when there are people in high-risk groups who need a hospital's facilities more."

"Did Magic Johnson's announcement affect you?"

"Certainly. I felt compassion for the man. I also felt we're very far from learning the truth of his infection, and because of the sensitivity of the issue, we'll probably never learn.

"Most people will lie about how they contracted the disease. It can't be contracted by saliva, sweat or contact. It is not airborne. It has an incredibly short life span out of the body. Blood that is HIV-positive must get into the bloodstream of someone who doesn't have it in order for it to pass. If you conducted your life on the basis of avoiding events that had the same statistical probability as contracting AIDS heterosexually, you would never leave your room."

Most people I talked with are worried about AIDS, but they don't use condoms. Dwight uses them, but he isn't worried.

Natalie, 47, divorced:

"How many lovers have you had since you've been divorced?"

"Two."

"And did you practice safe sex with them?"

"With one of them I did. He was married and I was the only other woman he was sleeping with. He wanted to use condoms, so we did."

"What about the other guy?"

"He probably had a lot of other women, but he told me he'd had a blood test and he was safe, so I figured we didn't need to use anything."

"Why did you believe him?"

"Well, he really seemed to care about me, so I figured he wouldn't do anything to hurt me."

Mel, 31, single:

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

"Yeah, I guess I am. I've had the AIDS test a couple times. The first time was a year ago. I just met this girl and we made love in a hot tub. Then I realized how easy it was to have sex with her, so I got worried. In the hot tub it was like AIDS soup."

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"Yes. I'd say about ninety-eight percent of the time. I use unlubricated condoms because the other kind gives me a rash."

"Do you worry about cunnilingus?"

"I used to be, but I asked a couple friends and they said, 'No, no, it's cool,' so I'm not anymore."

"Do you think it's easier or harder to find sex partners now?"

"I don't think it's changed that much."

Mort, 39, single:

"Do you practice safe sex?"

"Yes. Safe for me but not for my partners."

"How does that work?"

"I use condoms except when my partners perform oral sex on me."

"Are you worried about AIDS?"

[A wry laugh.] "Every time I begin the act, I'm aware that we're having a little ménage à trois—me, my compliant partner and ... death."

•

I decide to seek counseling about safe sex. In the Manhattan directory, under New York City Government Offices, Health, Dept. of, are many telephone numbers. I call several under such headings as Sexually Transmitted Disease Control and VD Hotline and ask if there's (continued on page 144)Adventures(continued from page 77) an office where I can obtain information on safe sex.

The people who answer the phone react as though nobody has ever asked them this before. I'm referred to number after number within the New York City Health Department: AIDS hotlines and HIV hotlines and so on. No one can help me. I call yet another number. A woman asks what I want.

"Can you give me some information on safe sex?"

"No," she says. "Do you want to be tested?"

"That's not why I am calling," I say, "but I'm willing to take another blood test, sure."

"Well, I'm sorry, but it's by appointment only," she says. "And there's a wait of at least two months."

"Look," I say, "in the meantime isn't there anyone who can just give me some information on safe sex?"

She gives me another number. A woman answers.

"I'd like some information on safe sex," I say.

"Who are you with?" she asks.

"I'm not with anybody," I say. "I'm just looking for information on safe sex."

"Hang on a minute," she says.

A long pause. A man picks up.

"I'm looking for information on safe sex," I say.

"Well," he says, "this is a food store. I can tell you whatever you want to know about food, but if you want information on safe sex, you will have to call somebody else."

Hugely embarrassed, I hang up. There are questions to be asked: Why did the woman ask who I was with and neglect to mention I'd called a food store? Would she have given me advice on safe sex if I'd said I was with someone impressive? Why did she refer me to the man? Did she think he might give me advice on safe sex? Why did the Department of Health refer me to a food store? Was it a simple error or a desperate attempt to get rid of someone who was rapidly discovering that the department has no advice to give about safe sex?

After 14 calls to Department of Health numbers, I finally locate a man who admits to knowing something about safe sex. I ask him if there's an office where I can come in and talk to somebody. He seems curiously reluctant to have me come in. He asks if I know how HIV is transmitted. Fearing it might be a trick question, I play dumb.

"Tell me," I say.

"Blood from a person who is HIV-positive has to enter your bloodstream," he replies in a patronizing tone. "Is there anything else you want to know?"

"Well, let's see," I say. "I've heard that you can be exposed to HIV, test negative and then years later, even ten years later, even if you've had no further sexual contacts, you can test positive."

"It takes the body six weeks to three months to produce antibodies," he says. "We recommend that you take a second test six months after the first. If you test negative twice in six months, then that's what you are."

"Is cunnilingus safe?" I ask.

"How is HIV transmitted?" he asks rhetorically.

"Blood from a person who is HIV-positive has to enter your bloodstream," I say. "You already told me that."

"Then how could it not be safe?" he asks smugly.

"And what if the woman has a trace of menstrual blood and I have a bleeding gum?"

"Oh, sure, then you're at risk," he says. "I'd recommend using a dental dam, which is a six-inch square of rubber used for root canals. You place it over the woman and have oral sex through it."

Yum. I decide I need to find out more about dams and safe sex, and it's obvious I've exhausted the resources of the city's Department of Health. I've heard about a store called Condomania that specializes in safe-sex devices.

There's no listing in the Manhattan directory for Condomania, but there is one for Condom Sense. I dial. What I get is a recording of a suspiciously excited woman who's about to have an orgasm. A Grated orgasm, I might add, because the woman, though breathing hard, aroused and astonishingly chatty, never says anything sexual. The only shock comes at the end of the tape when she reveals that the call has cost me five dollars.

I call Information to find out the number for Condomania, a small, perky store at Bleecker and West Tenth. It opened in June of last year and is one of the few businesses to thrive during the recession. Store manager Kyrsha Wildasin shows me around.

Kyrsha tells me that her customers are 60 percent women and 40 percent men, that most are in the 18–30 age range and that the ratio of gay to straight customers is about even.

"Most people want to know what's the safest condom," says Kyrsha. "I tell them any of the Japanese brands—Kimono, Sagami or Okamoto—are the best. They're ultrathin but tested more rigorously, so they're really safe."

A man asks Kyrsha about a Japanese condom with Mickey Mouse's face and ears at the end. She tells him she's never seen it and touts a brand called Rubber Ducky instead. I ask about other gimmicky condoms.

"This is the Peter Meter," she says, "the rubber with the ruler. As you roll it down, two inches is Teeny Weeny, four inches is Average Joe, six inches is Stud, eight inches is Hero and ten inches is Farm Animal. These are Dick and Jane condoms—'See Dick with an erection. See Dick with no protection. See Dick with an infection.'

"Here are Stealth Condoms in a package that looks like a stealth bomber—'They'll never see you coming.' Here are Saddam Condoms and Desert Shields. Then we have all the other ones, like the glow-in-the-dark ones and the colored ones—red, green, blue, yellow and black. Our novelty items are just a way to make it easier for people who are shy."

I consider myself to be a shy person and I'm not sure I'd find it easier to buy or use a colored, glow-in-the-dark condom that has Mickey Mouse ears on the end of it.

"We have these," she says, "Safe Sox—socks with a little pouch with a condom in it. We have Valentine bouquets with a dozen condom roses. We have edible condoms. These are flavored condoms—banana, passion fruit and cherry. They're called Licks."

I ask her about the new European female condom.

"Yeah, it's not available in the United States yet," she says. "It's kind of bizarre-looking. It's just an insert that actually goes inside. I have a friend who wore it and found it very comfortable. She said she forgot she had it in."

"How could you forget you had it in?"

"Yeah," she says. "And if people think condoms are unromantic.... In Europe they've also developed a condom that comes down the shaft and goes over the entire scrotum. It covers everything. We're trying to get them."

Female condoms? Male condoms that cover everything? The ultimate extension of these would seem to be the often-joked-about full-body condom.

"Tell me, do you sell the dam?"

"Yeah, we do. You use it to cover whatever you're performing oral sex on. They also make belts that hold them on. They come in pink, purple, blue, clear, forest green and yellow. They have a powder on them. I don't know if you can smell it—it's kind of cocoa-scented."

She holds it up for me to smell. I don't smell cocoa. This device will appeal to folks who lick ice-cream cones through balloons. I can't see myself licking a square of industrial-strength rubber. I'm not sure I'd even be able to tell that there was a woman on the other side. This is the only way to have safe oral sex? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a dam.

"Is this a popular item?" I ask.

"Yeah. At first it was more directed toward lesbians, but now heterosexuals are buying it, too."

"Do you think it's really necessary?"

"Well, we know that HIV and other STDs are in the vaginal fluids, so it would seem important to have a barrier. It takes some getting used to. It's thicker than a condom. We're in the process of putting together some safer-sex kits that include a dam, a condom, a finger condom——"

"A finger condom?"

She holds up a tiny white condom.

"If you have cuts or sores on your fingers and do insertion of any kind, you need to cover them."

I see that two Condomania employees are unrolling and hanging up sample condoms of different brands on a miniature clothesline. It looks like mouse laundry.

"We're doing this to show people how different brands vary in size," says Kyrsha. "Like if they want to buy a mint-flavored condom and don't know which one is going to fit them? The Ramses is much much smaller than the Sheik, which people don't know and which we didn't know until we started doing this. There used to be one general size, but within that there's a good inch to an inch-and-a-half variation.

"We're going to start demonstrations soon. We'll show how to put a condom on. People complain that the failure rate of condoms is twenty-five to thirty percent, but that's if they don't know how to use them correctly. There was a man here the other night. He was putting air in it before he put it on. He thought the receptacle end was supposed to be inflated so the sperm could go into it. But you're supposed to squeeze the air out of it, and that's why his were breaking."

"I've heard of allergies to condoms," I say.

"Yeah. We've had more and more people come into the store complaining of rashes and itching. Depending on which partner is allergic to latex, we suggest using a lambskin condom either inside or outside the latex. We don't recommend using the natural lambskin by itself because it's a weave and the strain of the virus in some sexually transmitted diseases is actually smaller than the weave. A lot of people are also allergic to the spermicides."

"Hold on a second," I say. "You recommend wearing two condoms?"

"Well," she says reasonably, "that would be the only way to know that you are really safe."

•

I have learned more about the condom allergy. It will not make you happy. It's a rash on the genitals that produces redness, itching and burning. It affects both women and men, takes 24 to 48 hours to develop and causes many people to fear they have herpes or AIDS. Dr. Bruce Katz of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center says the allergy is triggered by a protein in latex condoms or by condom lubricants. In rare cases, a severe allergic reaction can occur—hives erupt within 30 minutes of contact, anaphylactic shock sets in and, if not treated quickly, the allergic person dies.

So, to practice truly safe sex, you should use both a lambskin condom and a latex one and be sure you have the right one on the inside. But since both partners might be allergic to latex, you should really wear three condoms—a latex one in the middle and lambskin ones on both the inside and the outside—a sort of latex sandwich. If you won't do that, then be on the lookout for hives that break out within half an hour of contact and have Dr. Katz standing by with a gurney at Columbia Presbyterian.

My research in safe sex has thoroughly exhausted me. I have, temporarily at least, given up intercourse. I find myself turning on channel 35 after midnight, with its continual commercials for phone sex and hookers, which are so graphic I had previously assumed them to be of interest solely to gynecologists. One wants to watch this with a condom over one's head.

The other night I did something I haven't done in many years. I lay on a bed for three hours, fully clothed, while kissing and fondling a similarly clothed woman, with no expectation of consummation in the foreseeable future.

Necking. For three hours. Neither of us is a virgin. I'm in my 50s and have a son in the first grade. My partner is in her 40s and has two sons in college. And I am here to tell you that lying fully clothed on a bed for three hours with her, just necking, was the hottest, sweetest, most erotic three hours I've spent in the vicinity of a bed in I don't know how many decades.

There were no anxieties about AIDS, about latex allergies, about performance, about intimacy. I was free to concentrate on the feel and the smell and the sounds and the taste of my partner. It was totally all right with me that consummation was not in the foreseeable future. It might be all right with me if consummation did not occur until we make a soft landing on Venus.

I told this to my partner. I said, of course I'll keep trying and you keep resisting, because that is part of the fun, but please don't construe my actions as any sort of pressure to submit. I couldn't believe I was actually saying this.

What on earth has happened to me? I think, finally, that what has happened to me is safe sex.

"I see two employees hanging up sample condoms on a miniature clothesline. It looks like mouse laundry."