Condom today,reckless tomorrow

Many Kenyans, young and old, still engage in unprotected sex; walking down the deadly Suguta Valley without covering fire, write KEVIN OGUOKO and PETER NDORIA

It is not on the syllabus, but some male medical students have been putting newly acquired knowledge into use by stealing HIV testing kits from the school’s laboratories.

By discreetly pricking their potential sexual partners’ skins, they draw a bit of blood to test for the HIV virus. This crafty procedure, done with utmost subtlety, is designed to confirm to the randy young men that it is safe to indulge without a sheath, and with no fear of infection.

“You simply prick her skin. If she feels it, you hide the device and ‘apologise’ for ‘scratching’ her. When two lines show, she is good to go,” says Antony, a student at a medical institute in Nairobi.

Crude and illegal as it maybe, at least these young men dare not walk in the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ without protective armour. But even with HIV and Aids being a glaring reality, many still consider using condoms not ‘pleasurable’ enough and will do anything to avoid them — including paying sex workers more to skinny dip.

 “Using condoms is like having sex with the sheath, not the human behind it. You just can’t compare it with unprotected sex,” says Marilyn, a 22 year-old university student.

Pills

Marilyn admits she has had unprotected sex several times in the past. Initially, it is the thought of getting pregnant that scared her, not getting infected. But when she discovered the easily available emergency contraceptive pills, even that stopped being a concern.

Feigning innocence, Marilyn explains that she never goes out of her way to have unprocted sex, yet she still finds herself doing it.

“Sometimes things just happen too fast. Or the condom is ‘far’ — in a wardrobe, in the guy’s pocket, maybe even in a car parked outside the room. But by that time, passions are beyond the ‘point of no return’ and once they take over, you stop thinking with your head. So it just happens,” she explains, managing to muster what could pass for a rueful look.

The various cases of individuals caught engaging in sex in the most awkward of places are perhaps testimony to the no-holds barred kind of sexual spontaneity that the young, and not so young, wantonly engage in. 

Easy availability is another factor — you only need to take a walk around major towns after 8:30pm, or glance through Facebook, to see the wide selection of easy flesh — and this includes male flesh — on display.

Thrilling

Wild, steamy and spontaneous intercourse is also fantasised in romance novels, Hollywood and pornographic movies yet chances of thinking about protection in such situations are very low, especially if drugs or alcohol are involved. These moments, casually referred to as ‘quickies’, are the staple of many sexual relationships.

“Quickies are thrilling. The mere anxiety of being caught doing it at the wrong place heightens the excitement,” Olive, who describes herself as a risk taker with a penchant for weird cravings for sexual satisfaction, states.

She admits that she has had casual and unprotected sex with several men she’d just met, usually in clubs and during social outings, and also with men from past relationships, mostly when she was high on a popular alcoholic drink christened ‘instant panty remover’.

More incredulous, however, are couples who have unprotected sex the first time they meet, and then use protection thereafter. This usually occurs when a couple finds themselves beyond the point of no return on their first date but ‘remember’ to use protection the next time.

Others use condoms diligently on the first date only to wake up early in the wee hours of the morning and discover they have run out of supplies.

“My boyfriend was not prepared. He wasn’t expecting it to happen. So he only had one ‘emergency’ pack with three condoms, which we finished at midnight. In the height of excitement the next morning, I told him not to worry. But we have been using condoms since,” Millicent, 24, recalls, grinning sheepishly.

Whore

Shockingly, she had condoms in her bag but was afraid of what he would think if she removed them.

“I was afraid of what he would take me for if I offered to get condoms from my handbag. He would think I’m a whore!” Millicent explains.

After engaging in a few unprotected incidents, mostly because the man would usually not be prepared, the IT graduate decided that her life was more valuable than a few strange looks from otherwise irresponsible men. Nowadays, she proudly displays her stash of condoms to her partners without batting an eyelid.

Incidentally, it is chaste women who wait until they meet the right guy that mostly end up having unprotected sex the first time and get pregnant, infected or both. Condoms are never on their minds, either out of inexperience or because ‘he is the right man’ after all. 

Makena is no exception. When she met the ‘right’ guy five years ago, she proudly confessed her chastity.

“He went all the way; scented  candle-lit dinner with romantic music in the background. It was like a scene from a movie — it was perfect!”

Ironically, he was the one who wanted to use protection but she refused so as ‘to make the day more special’. They have long since broken up and she is a single mother — from that ‘special’ encounter.

Not everyone has the patience for such niceties, though. Ronald does his thing in what he calls a ‘straight-up fashion’ by letting his partners know upfront that he does not prefer using condoms.

“I normally broach the topic through phone texts and once she agrees sex is sweeter without condoms, I’m good to go,” says the 25-year-old private media practitioner.

Performance

He wins them over by confessing his distaste for the smell of rubber and how condoms put him off and weaken his performance. He also suggests he can only make it a pleasurable experience for both of them if he doesn’t use a condom.

Ominously, Ronald explains that most of his sex partners are what he calls ‘Friends With Benefits’— people he engages with in no-strings attached open relationships, which means they are free to see other people. Not surprisingly, he claims he is able to tell ‘safe’ partners based on their background or simply by looking at them.

Erikah will have none of that. She raises the question of condoms seconds into the first kiss.

“I usually take a pause before we get too engrossed and ask whether he has condoms. If he says ‘yes’, I demand to see them. If he is lying, then it is obvious he is a jerk. If he doesn’t have any, I stop him firmly before things get too heated up. If he has some, he might just get lucky,” says the 27-year old with a naughty wink.

What she might not know, however, is that there are men who surreptitiously remove condoms during the throes of passion and those who are too drunk or hurried to slip it on right.

More ridiculous are couples who do it right and use condoms. But in the middle of the act on their fourth date, when it is presumed that they know each other ‘better’, they decide the sex isn’t as sweet as it should be.

So they examine each other’s bodies and faces, diagnose themselves ‘clean’ with the naked eye and unanimously agree to throw the ‘offending’ thing away so that they can suck the ‘sweet’ without the encumbrances of plastic wrapping; and pray for the best.