By Heather Corinna

Using a condom is generally easier than it looks, but the first couple times, it can be tricky, especially if you're nervous about knowing how to use one, or have never even opened one before. Do yourself a favor -- try it at home by yourself first (or have your boyfriend try it at home by himself first), without the pressure of being watched, or feeling like one is being graded on condom skills. You or he can actually practice on a banana (silly, we know: but hey, it works!) with the same condom until you get it right. Either or both of you can put the condom on when the time is right, so it's good for both men and heterosexual or bisexual women to know how.

Condom use is just like tying your shoes: tying them all the time may be a bother sometimes, but if you don't do it, you'll trip and fall on your face. But the consequences here can be far worse. A few STIs are incurable, and once you have them can plague you with health issues your whole life. Several of them will shorten that life, and all of this also goes for your partners (and their partners, and their partners...). All of them can impact your health and cost you time, energy and money to deal with.

If you're in a relationship with an opposite-sex partner, and condoms are your only method of reliable birth control, I don't need to tell you why they're important, even when you're not the one who can wind up pregnant.

Like most things fabulous and wonderful and fun, sex also comes with some heavy-duty responsibilities. If you aren't ready for them... you probably aren't ready for sex. If you are ready, here's how to do it right.

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The basics:

1) Use a good quality condom that is new, well before the expiry date, and that hasn't been kept anywhere where it can get too warm or cold (it isn't a good idea to keep them in your wallet or pocket for that reason).

2) Open the condom wrapper carefully with your fingers (not with teeth!), and roll it out a little so that the edge is rolled on the outside of the condom. That rolled-up edge needs to be on the outside, facing up, or the condom won't roll down right. Put a few drops of water-based lube (like Astroglide or Liquid Silk) inside the tip of the condom. Only put a condom on AFTER there is a partial or full erection (after the penis has "gotten hard").

3) Squeeze the tip of the condom with your fingertips to leave some extra space in the tip, and roll the rest down the length of the penis, while still pinching the top.

4) Put some more latex-safe lube of the outside of the condom, and you're good to go. While you are using the condom, you or your partner do not need to hold its base: condoms are designed for hands-free use.

5) After ejaculation (or not, but you're finished having genital sex) -- before you withdraw -- hold the base of the condom (the rolled-up part) with your hand. Keep your hand there while you withdraw, and until the penis is all the way out of the vagina, anus or mouth. If you withdraw without holding the base, the condom could slip off. Pull it off with that one hand on the rim of the condom and your other hand by the tip. Pulling it off by the tip alone not only makes a big mess, you could drip all over yourself what you just worked so hard to keep out. Tie a knot near the base of the condom.

6) Throw the condom away in the rubbish bin - NEVER reuse condoms. And please don't just toss them outside a car or in a park: not only is that just plain gross and uncouth, it's unhealthy for the rest of us. (Plus, that also means that now and then, as happened to me when I used to teach Kindergarten, some poor teacher winds up with some little kid finding one, waving it all over everyone and everything, and then said teacher having to quickly come up with a very good story about what exactly the "slobbery balloon" is, knowing her wee ones have just been exposed to gawd knows what.) Never use two at a time to try and be "extra safe." Both of them will most likely break, and it just doesn't work. One condom, used properly, is as safe as it gets.

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If that isn't safe enough for you, don't have sex yet where you need one -- stick to outercourse -- or, if it's about birth control worries, back up condoms with a second method.

Some extra tips:
• If you are uncircumcised, gently push your foreskin back while you're putting the condom on. When the condom is unrolled about 1/3 the way down the shaft, with one hand pull the foreskin with the unrolled part of the condom upward while with the other hand you unroll the condom to the base of the penis. It sounds a lot harder than it actually is -- just practice a few times first and you'll get the hang of it.

• Lubrication is really important. Let me say it again: lubrication is really important.Condoms have a high rate of success, but that rate drops when they aren't used properly, and one of the easiest ways to break a condom is by letting it get dried out. Buy some lubricant when you buy condoms. Not only will it help them work better, well-lubricated sex is more enjoyable sex for both you and your partner. Even if a woman is plety wet on her own, out own lubrication doesn't tend to work as well with condoms as the stuff made for condom use does. Do NOT use butter, oil, Vaseline or ANY lubricant other than lubricants intended for use with condoms. If you could buy it in an aisle in the store where food also is, it isn't the right kind of lube.

• Condoms don't have to be a pain. Don't try and rationalize your way out of using one, or put up with a partner who does: you'll both need to get used to using them for a good part of your life, and even if one partner lets you get away with it, you can be sure another one won't. Condoms keep you both safe, and when you don't have to worry about getting diseases or getting pregnant, sex is a lot more fun. Once you get used to using condoms, it's a total no-brainer, and when you're using god condoms properly, they really don't make a huge difference with sensation.

• You should also wear a condom during oral sex just as much as during vaginal or anal sex, especially with new partners. Most STIs are transmitted through bodily fluids and mucus membranes... both of which exist in and on your genitals and your mouth. While there are more STIs transmitted via direct genital contact, and the risks are higher with vaginal or anal intercourse than with oral sex, there are plenty which can be transmitted orally.

• If you're a woman who sleeps with women and you use sex toys together which cannot be boiled, you'll want to use condoms every time to cover those toys. While lesbian women have far lower risks of STIs, BV in particular gets passed around a lot between women, and if you're sharing toys, that's an easy way that can happen.

• Not only do thinner condoms feel better, but because they cause less friction, they're also less likely to break. Bonus!

• When it comes to condoms, don't scrimp. If you can't afford them at all, check out your local Planned Parenthood, other sexual health clinic or even community centers or school nurse's offices. They often give them out for free. And if you find when you go to use a condom you have that it's broken, or was already opened, or has some other flaw, don't gamble. Either get a new condom that IS in perfect shape, or if you've only that one, nix sex that requires condom use until you get working condoms.

Want to read about the different styles of condoms to find out what might be just right for you? Check it out!

Related Books

Condom Sense: A Guide to Sexual Survival in the New Millennium author: Monica Sweeney,Rita Kirwan Grisman asin: 1590560779