Calico Rudasil is a feature columnist for Sssh.com, the award-winning porn site for women & couples. With over 18 years’ experience under her belt, writing about and for the adult entertainment industry, Calico qualifies as something of a Web Porn Dinosaur; similar to a tyrannosaurus, only with far more attractive arms and a less pronounced overbite.
I remember it like it was yesterday; I was packed into a small room with dozens of other girls from my middle school, trying not to giggle as the poor woman who had been tasked with teaching sexual education to a bunch of 12 and 13 year-olds scrolled through slides and did her best to explain the reproductive process.
In addition to the giggles, however, I found myself fighting off another opponent I hadn’t anticipated encountering in a sex ed class; boredom.
I wasn’t sexually active yet, but I’d had plenty of conversations about sex with my older sisters, who were. (Granted, they weren’t nearly as sexually active as I would be once I reached their age, but that’s a whole other story.)
Frankly, my older sisters were just a lot more interesting to listen to on the subject of sex, in part because unlike the teacher assigned to the thankless task of teaching the (very part-time, one-week long) course, they were more than happy to offer personal anecdotes to give more context to subjects like sexual arousal and orgasmic pleasure.
It’s really only in retrospect that I realize just how much I should appreciate, even cherish, my sex ed experience – especially when I read articles about people trying to use plastic bags as prophylactic devices.
Lesson 1: “Bag It” Is A Colorful Turn Of Phrase, NOT Medical Advice
Condoms get a pretty bad rap in some quarters, especially when it comes to their reputation for coming between sexual partners and their shared pleasure. Most of the complaining seems to come from the male side of the ledger it seems to me, which is understandable, seeing as how it’s their member which gets ensconced in latex, or sheep’s skin, or whatever the medium may be.
Still, no matter how you slice it (umm… sorry for that image, fellas), a proper condom still beats wrapping your penis in an actual plastic bag. You don’t have to take my word on this; just ask the unfortunate youngsters from the article linked to above.
“As the plastic bag was rough and lacked elasticity and lubrication, the young couple ended up scratching their genitals to the point of bleeding,” the article explains. “The lovebirds underwent a thorough check-up and were prescribed with antibiotics and disinfectants for their injuries.”
Sure, from the perspective of penis-holders, Trojans might put a dent in the pleasurable sensations of sex acts, but on the plus side, I’ve never heard of someone being prescribed “disinfectants for their injuries” following the proper use of one.
Lesson 2: Buying Condoms Less Embarrassing Than Being On A TLC Program
According to the article, the young couple didn’t use the plastic bag out of mere ignorance; the real culprit here was bashfulness. Evidently, the couple “used a plastic bag as protection when having their first sexual intercourse, after feeling too shy to buy a real condom.”
This too is something I remember well from my youth, when my first boyfriend actually stole a box of condoms from the drugstore rather than face the scorn of the stodgy, middle-aged clerk behind the counter. Thankfully, he didn’t admit this to me until much later, because there’s little chance he’d have been able to achieve an erection with me laughing at him over the sheer lunacy of risking arrest to avoid the ‘embarrassment’ of having another person know he was about to have sex.
Let this be another lesson to those reading about our (mercifully unidentified) young friends in Korea: However humiliating you might think it is to be seen buying condoms, you have to concede it’s infinitely less mortifying than being featured on an episode of Sex Sent Me to the ER.
Lesson 3: Ziplocs Don’t Work Any Better Than Shopping Bags
Lest you think the young Korean couple’s error was simply a poor choice in the type of plastic bag they employed as a condom, think again.
“According to doctors, the use of plastic bags or similar household products as alternatives to condoms is strongly discouraged since such items are not designed for the function,” the helpful article explains. “Thick plastic bags can scratch or even tear private parts, while thinner ones are just as damaging and are prone to break much more easily than condoms.”
Just to be totally clear, plastic bags are not the only thing which can be wrapped around a penis, but still shouldn’t be used as condoms. Other materials and objects which one is “strongly discouraged” from using for this purpose include wax paper, tin foil, shot glasses, thin slices of lunch meat, duct tape, bundles of feathers, pillowcases, thick slices of lunch meat and tea cozies.
This concludes today’s Sex Ed lesson. Next week, we’ll tackle another common sex myth in a lesson I call “The ‘Rhythm Method’ Only Works if You’re Referring to it as a Means of Meeting Famous Drummers.”
Calico Rudasil is a Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen) columnist and Sssh will be on Peeperz for fun times again in the near future, meanwhile why not check us out:
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