- Share This Post
- submit
- 6
-
Sparkle (0)
Contributing editor Liz Rizzo also blogs at Everyday Goddess.
So, um, just how are the adults doing it these days? ‘Cause I’m living in the land of ambivalence when it comes to the sexual order of things.
There was a time when I had this clearly defined. I knew how things went. At the beginning of my sexual life (that would be the 80s and early 90s), I lived in South Florida and HIV education was at the forefront. I didn’t like condoms, and the word on the educational handout was that HIV took up to 90 days to become detectable. So for years, and without any partner ever reacting negatively, when I entered a new relationship we would wait 90 days from the last sexual partner, take the test and viola, condom-free and safe sex in a monogamous relationship. It was how everyone I knew did it.
And no one ever cheated on me. It seemed like the most foreign of possibilities.
A funny thing happened on the way into my 30s. The first guy I dated in Los Angeles made a point to tell me he didn’t have sex outside of a serious, monogamous relationship. Well, yeah. But he was adamant. He brought it up more than once. I couldn’t understand why he thought it was such a big deal.
That would be because it’s apparently not the norm. The majority of people I know think it’s completely weird not to just hop into bed with someone you're attracted to.
When I eventually met someone in L.A. who I wanted to have a sexual relationship with, things got off to a rocky start. The concept of one partner was a change for him, much less waiting to have sex. But he decided to give monogamy a try and our relationship rocked on for a bit. With the extreme amount of lip-service he paid to the importance of open communication, I was absolutely certain that if it wasn’t working for him, he would just tell me and that would be the end of it.
A week and half before I broke up with him, he put my life and my health at risk by having unprotected sex with me after having cheated on me repeatedly with people with whom I would never trust my sexual health.
This bears repeating here because besides the emotional trauma, it threw my sexual worldview into a tailspin. I’d done everything “right,� I thought, and now I was waiting for months for the results of my second HIV test. And more months than I would have thought, because now the educational handout says 6 months. It can take up to 6 months for HIV to be detectable in the blood. So I hadn’t even gotten that right.
So. Here’s my dilemma.
1. No matter what, condoms have become an absolutely necessity, even within a monogamous relationship, say for the first - what? - year, maybe. Suck.
2. If you were going to wait it out and trust your partner and engage in condom-free sex, you’d have to wait SIX MONTHS. Worth the wait perhaps, but…
3. I don’t want to wait that long.
4. I don’t know how any of it is supposed to go anymore.
I know I’m not a fan of condoms (to put it lightly), and I know I have to just get over it.
I know I don’t want to have intercourse with anyone who isn’t only having intercourse with me.
I know my body frequently has other ideas, and I know that I don’t want to wait months and months. Honestly, I’m not even sure it’s physically possible. It's definitely not physically desirable!
I mean, OK, if I’m not having intercourse till I'm actually in a relationship, I guess on some level that answers the question. As the time before you’re actually in a relationship varies, so then the time before intercourse varies. Naturally.
And then when you do have sex, no matter what, you have to use condoms. OK. (My OB/GYN will be so proud.) But what if it breaks? Or slips off? Mere condom use doesn't actually negate the HIV question, does it? Doesn't a broken condom mean more than a potential run for Plan B?
And what about all the other stuff. Oral. Hands. Etc.
When do you do what? And does monogamy matter then? Does it matter
