The Sublime Angst of the Condom Aisle

Most of you are probably too young to know this, but there was a time when, if you wanted to buy condoms, you had to go to the pharmacy counter and ask for them. A stern man or woman wearing the white, side-buttoned jacket of pharmaceutical authority would assess whether you were in fact worthy to have them, and then slide a very unimpressive box of them across the counter at you. The ordeal was so painful that many people ended up having to marry and raise unwanted children. But there was a positive side to it: you were never forced to stand in front of five shelves of multi-coloured boxes, muttering, “Oh my god. What the fuck?”

Condoms have their own, vast semiotic landscape. They come ribbed and nubbed, coloured and flavoured, ultra safe and uber thin, with spermicide and without. Christ, you can even get ‘natural’ ones, made out of some part of a lamb’s body, just in case you like a little animal sacrifice with your sex.

Allow me to take you through the minefield of choice available to you.

If you buy ridged, ringed, nubbed or in any way textured condoms… exactly who is that for? And what does it say to your lover? Those little raised bits are so small, I can hardly feel them with the tip of my tongue – my vagina sure won’t notice the difference.  So… is the sub-text here that his dick lacks the requisite features you find satisfying. Not veiny enough for you? ‘Hello dear, I’ve bought some ribbed condoms because your cockhead lacks flair/flare’. This is not a good start to the sexual conversation.

Then there are the coloured ones. They have green ones, and I guess that could be good if you wanted to fantasize about comic book characters, but being of a more pragmatic bent, the idea of a green cock just makes me think that ring has been on too tight for far too long and they’re probably going to have to amputate. The yellow ones immediately bring hepatic dysfunction to mind. I’m at a loss as to what to say about the blue ones other than I hope you have another one to slip over his balls, because no one is getting laid tonight. Neither tissue hypoxia or hypothermic genitalia do it for me. The red just make me think of distorted clown noses. They’re scary enough when they’re round and on someone’s face. Who wants them between someone’s legs? And black… I’m not sure quite what to say about black. Once they’re on, they never actually look black in the strictly goth sense, they go a sort of inky grey, which reminds me of fucking zombies. If I ride it too hard, will it fall off?

Flavoured condoms have always puzzled me. It screams ‘Your cock tastes so bad, I’d rather ingest artificial grape flavour.” Not exactly the right tone to set with someone you hope will give you orgasms. But more to the point – yes, I know this isn’t SAFE SAFE SEX – I’ve never given someone a sheathed blowjob. I just don’t see the point, or smell it, or suck it. Besides, they never have any flavours I’m interested in.

I think if you’re going to go for the ‘ultra safe’ variety of condoms, you might just save your money and buy a pair of rubber washing up gloves. It’s cheaper and they’re re-usable. Once you slip that monster on him, penetrative sex is going to seem like a nostalgic memory; it’s going to be as much fun as… well… doing the dishes. The super-thin ones are yet another semiotic dilemma. Yes, it says: ‘I’m hoping you’ll feel something’ but it also, more subtly says: ‘I fear you might have been masturbating with sandpaper and have suffered from deadened nerve endings’ or, more self-effacingly, ‘I’m a little like the Eurotunnel. Hope this works for you.’

The name of the brands themselves are something of a problem. Durex has the stink of the medical about it, but the ‘dure’ root also says: you’d better stay hard and last for hours. Trojans always scare me for a number of reasons. I can’t get past the ‘Trojan Horse’ implications. I don’t want someone hung like a horse, and I’m not crazy about sneaky and unpleasant surprises either. Lifestyle makes me think of creepy marketing strategies and fills me with post-modern dread. Bravo seems like you’ve congratulated someone before they’ve even started. In Asia, the dominant brand is OK, which has the opposite effect. Was it only just OK for you?

Okamoto – honestly, what does that mean? The name reminds me of idiot foreigners who sport t-shirts with Kanji characters they don’t understand until some polite Japanese person informs them they’ve been walking around all day with “I Only Fuck Sheep” on their chests.

Finally, there’s a matter of the number of condoms in the box. I pondered this for a long time. Does a pack of 12 look too desperate? Greedy? Does it carry the expectation of gross over-achievement? On the other hand, the pack of five seems a little patronizing, as if you have reason to lower your expectations.

Yes, I know we’re all supposed to think choice is wonderful and celebrate it, but I do yearn for the days when some authoritarian asshole glared at me in disapproval and slid a nondescript box across a counter. I’d willingly endure the humiliation to avoid the angst.

Right about now, you might have come to the conclusion that I over-think things. I do. Which explains why I don’t get laid very often.

*Next week: Why are so many lube bottles shaped like massive dildos?”