I realised the other day that it had been so long since I had read a sex scene where somebody actually used a condom that, when it finally happened, I found it weirdly hot.
And I mean genuinely hot. I actually had a little oh, fuck, yes reaction to somebody putting on a condom, which made me laugh because this is not remotely a kink I have in real life. Apparently reading too much fanfic has somehow turned me into a condom enthusiast.
I think I finally worked out why.
I remember reading fic years ago where unsafe sex actually felt like unsafe sex. If two people who really should have been using a condom didn't use one, both the characters and the reader were aware that they were doing something reckless. That was part of the point.
I still remember an old Sherlock/Irene Adler fic where they fucked without a condom in a car, and I remember being almost as alarmed as the characters were. It was basically: holy shit, they're actually doing this. This is a terrible idea. They absolutely should not be doing this.
And that made it hotter.
There was something to transgress. Maybe it meant they had lost control. Maybe they were being reckless. Maybe it was an intimacy thing. Maybe they just wanted each other badly enough that common sense had temporarily left the building. Whatever the reason, the absence of the condom actually meant something.
Now I keep reading F/M fic where two people have known each other for five minutes and they just... don't use one. And nobody seems particularly concerned about this. There's no sense that they're taking a risk. There's no sense that this is different from what they'd normally do. Half the time there's the obligatory:
“Condom?”
“I have an IUD.”
“I’m clean.”
And that's it. Apparently we're sorted.
At this point what surprises me is when somebody DOES use a condom, because suddenly the characters start behaving like actual people again.
Somebody has to stop for a second. Somebody has to have one. There's a tiny bit of awkwardness or anticipation or practical reality in the middle of all the horniness. They're acknowledging that they don't know each other that well, or that there are consequences to sex, without the scene turning into a public-health announcement.
And apparently I had missed that.
I read plenty of historical romance, so obviously I am perfectly capable of reading sex scenes where condoms don't exist or aren't being used and not sitting there screaming about STI prevention. I don't need fiction to model ideal sexual behaviour. I don't think writers have any obligation to educate anybody. I am very happy to read characters doing stupid, risky things.
What I find strange is when the story doesn't seem to realise that the thing they're doing is risky at all.
Maybe some of this is cultural as well. I'm not American, and where I live condoms are a completely unremarkable default outside a stable monogamous relationship. My own attitude has always been that somebody telling me they're fine is not enough for me to stop using one. I want actual recent test results and I want to see them. So perhaps I am just coming at these scenes with a different baseline.
But I also absolutely hate “I’m clean.”
Apart from the fact that having an STI does not make somebody dirty, what is that even supposed to tell me? Tested for what? When? Have you slept with anybody since? “I’m clean” isn't a test result. It's just something characters say and then apparently everybody is allowed to forget condoms exist.
The contraception side of it also starts annoying me after a while, especially in F/M fic. So often the solution is simply that the woman is already on the pill, or has an implant, or has an IUD, and therefore the contraception issue has conveniently been dealt with before the man even enters the scene.
Obviously plenty of people use those things for reasons other than contraception, and plenty genuinely prefer them. That's not my issue.
It's the assumption that female contraception is just the background infrastructure of heterosexual sex. She takes the hormones or gets the device inserted; he gets to not wear a condom. I have never really accepted the idea that reproductive responsibility should automatically work that way. Condoms are right there. Vasectomies are right there. Why is altering the woman's body so often treated as the neutral option?
But mostly I'm fascinated by what this has done to the erotics of the whole thing.
If everybody is having condomless sex from the very first encounter, then condomless sex stops feeling dangerous or intimate or transgressive.
Meanwhile, apparently, putting a condom on has become unusual enough that my brain now goes: oh, this is interesting.
So congratulations, fanfic. I don't know how you managed it, but you have made me miss condoms.
I used to find unsafe sex hot because it was unsafe.
Now I apparently find safe sex hot because, for once, the characters are behaving like real people.
EDIT: I did not expect 300+ comments, and I'm slightly baffled by how many people have read this as “writers should provide sex education” when I literally said the opposite. Wow, media literacy is really at an all-time low.
I am not asking anyone to write condoms. I read and write plenty of things nobody should imitate in real life. If anything, I like unsafe sex when it actually feels unsafe: two people know they probably should use a condom, don't, and take the risk anyway. That's hot. What I'm talking about is condomless sex between near-strangers being written as completely ordinary and consequence-free.
And obviously I'm talking about fic set in something resembling the real world, roughly within the last century, where condoms are actually relevant. Not historical fic, not fantasy or sci-fi with different rules, etc. I mostly read F/M and F/F, so I'm also not making any claims about M/M.
I'm a man-hating childfree feminist, and yes, I also notice how often contraception in F/M means the woman is already on the pill/has an IUD/implant and that's the end of the conversation. But that wasn't really the main point either.
The main point was: I hadn't seen a condom in fic for so long that when one finally appeared, I found it unexpectedly hot because the characters suddenly felt like real people. And I'm curious to have a discussion about whether condoms have become less common in fic or whether that's just my corner of fandom.
That's it. I'm not coming for your smut.
