Me and my boyfriend are finally ready to have "an evening to ourselves." How do we make sure the condom is going to be unrolled on him the right way, since we don't wanna put it on wrong and waste money for what we bought.

If you're worried about the expense of wasting a few condoms, then I really hope you don't have to worry about the expense of a condom rupture, slip, or any other kind of failure. Condoms are the cheapest piece of birth control out there.

When your partner is about to put a condom on, he'll simply put it against the tip of his penis with the lip of the rolled edge facing up, in other words, where the rolled edge is visible as curled inward. But even if he or you mess that up once, you'll realize that very first time which the right way is, needing to ditch only one condom if that happens. It takes practice to get a condom properly applied. That means you will need to have him buy lots and lots of extra condoms to try on to make sure he gets comfortable and adept at rolling one on. It's always smart, for this reason and many others, to have well more than one condom handy.

Your local public health clinic, Planned Parenthood, or other family planning clinics should be able to supply you with FREE condoms. All you have to do is call or drop by and ask. Look in your phone book for your health department's number, or check out Planned Parenthood's website for information on your nearest clinic. Otherwise, pull some money away from your movies, dining out and video games budget and spend it on a few boxes of condoms. Last I checked, you could get a whole lot of condoms for $20 at any drug store. Seriously, if you can't shell out a few bucks for a few extra condoms, you're not ready to have the "night to [y]ourselves." Being able to afford contraception and clinic visits is all a very important, very practical part of being ready for sex.

When you are able to buy an adequate stockpile of condoms, let your boyfriend spend sometime practicing applying them on his own time. When he disposes of them, remind him to wrap them up and toss them in the wastebasket. Flushing them down the toilet can clog the plumbing. If you're feeling adventurous in your own right, you can practice applying them on him during foreplay.

We've got some goodies for you to read. check them out!

• Your Map to the Condom Aisle

• Condom Basics: A User's Manual
• Margaret Sanger's Disneyland: Choosing Contraceptives
• Safe, Sound & Sexy: A Safer Sex How-To
• Ready or Not? The Scarleteen Sex Readiness Checklist