But I Like Rubbers...

Perhaps you caught on an earlier page that I came out relatively late, in 1988. So I never really knew the days of wild abandon that a lot of my friends look back upon with wistful longing. This I don't count as a great tragedy, since I never was one for parties much anyway. But I have noticed that this is a big dividing line between me and a lot of guys.

Even though I came out late, I was not oblivious to AIDS. As a magazine junkie, I spent hours in the early 80s at the college library catching up with the latest Newsweek, Time, and Billboard. Around 1982, when the news magazines began carrying stories about this strange new disease that seemed to affect gay men, I read with more than normal interest--almost as if I knew this was information I was going to need. And this was before our brilliant scientists realized that Gay Related Immune Disorder could infect straight folks too.

So, the notion of sex with condoms is not anything foreign to me, because by the time I finally started having sex, I already had the safe sex message drummed into me. And while I don't really consider myself Mr. Safe Sex, I'm very used to the idea of using the love glove for a lot of activities. In fact, they're almost a turn-on in themselves. But then you know how us kinky types are....

Now, a lot of my friends are older than I am. And a lot of them came out earlier in life than I did, which in a sense makes them a lot older than me. For instance, my ex is 9 years older, but he came out at 19 instead of 26, so he is 16 years older than I am sexually. And that puts his early history smack-dab in the middle of the wild abandon of the pre-AIDS days. One of the things we talked about a lot was the possibility of having sex without condoms. This considering he's very active with The Names Project and volunteers on AIDS and gay helplines, so he's not ignorant of the safe-sex issue. It's just that sex without condoms is one of the big things he misses from the late 70s and early 80s.

And there are a lot of guys out there with the same feelings. In fact, from time to time you'll run into statistics that indicate that use of safe-sex techniques is actually declining, in spite of the fact that AIDS is not going away.

It makes me shake my head sometimes. Safety issues aside, am I that much out of step? Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe I'm more conservative than others, and the risks are too great for me but not for others. Maybe since I don't remember sex without condoms, I'm not that worried about whether condoms dampen the sensations and excitement.

One argument I've heard against condoms is that they get in the way of having a spiritual (for lack of a better word) connection between two guys. And on an intellectual level I can see that, I would want to be REAL careful before I wanted to get that spiritually connected with anyone (beyond the condom or no condom question), but I can see the allure of that.

I'm not speaking as an officer of the rubber police. It's just something I've run into enough times that it impressed me, this "condom gap" that seems to be out there. Whatever, I don't think I'm going to throw away my condom supply soon. Like I said, they're kinda fun to play with.... :)

—Charlie Songdog
January 15, 1997