Does carrying condoms make you easy?

So why would will.i.am be so repulsed and threatened by a girl who is smart, responsible and proactive about maintaining her (and for that matter his) sexual health? And would he also object to seeing tampons, bikini waxing strips or the contraceptive pill in a girl’s house? I think not and here is why.

I suspect that the true reason why some (though certainly not all) men are confronted by the idea of a woman who owns condoms (especially if she owns only half a packet of condoms) is because it is a strong indication that she has probably had sex with people other than you. Unlike the contraceptive pill which can be explained away in myriad ways (I take it for my acne/ it helps me regulate my cycle/ blah blah blah) condoms are irrefutable evidence that a woman wants to have sex and probably has had sex with other men.

But why is this threatening? Wouldn’t you prefer a partner who is smart, responsible, health conscious and hey, a little accomplished in the boudoir? Why, exactly, is it that so many men want to imagine that we are virgins when they bed us? Do they subscribe to the idea that a woman’s sexuality is a limited resource? Or are they just insecure and scared of the idea that “we might have had better” than them in the past? After all, a virgin has no yardstick (so to speak) to compare you against.

In her spectacular book, Princesses and Pornstars, feminist Emily Maguire explores this issue further. Emily writes:

“Why is promiscuity (however it is defined) such a bad thing? Why is experience – something that often makes you more accomplished – considered a bad thing when it comes to sex? The answer, sadly, is that many people still consider a woman’s sexuality to be a limited resource… Depending on who is doing the comparing, a woman (or more specifically, a vagina) is either like a battery (can only be used so many times before it runs out) or a car (value decreases with use)”.

“Even ignoring the offensive connotations of woman as a tradable commodity, these kinds of analogies are ridiculous because they rest on the idea that a vagina has a severely limited life span. Anyone who has, or has had an extended relationship with a vagina, knows this is nonsense”.

Amen to that. And it’s also about time we stopped shaming women who enjoy sex and stopped policing female sexuality as a way of managing male performance anxiety.

But there is one other aspect to this debate which I think warrants exploration. If we return to the idea that men are generally responsible for purchasing condoms while women are expected to “take care of the other stuff” (which may or may not also include condoms) then in terms of time, money, effort, doctors visits and physical side effects, women get a pretty shit deal. Sure, it’s important that women hold the reigns when it comes to controlling their own bodies and fertility, but given all the doctors visits, bloating, weight gain, mood swings, cramping, not to mention the tedium that goes with having to remember to take a pill each day I think it’s fair to say that women often carry the bulk of the responsibility.