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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27534 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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Fucking with condoms is like eating candy with the wrapper on, only worth it if you're starving.

Perhaps it's different if you're circumcised and have somewhat limited sensitivity in the first place.

I honestly don't understand this perspective. What about the rest of the meal?

If I were a woman and a guy told me that, I would be insulted.

Edit: And some of the best sex I had did not end in an orgasm, at least not for me.

Good foreplay only makes it worse.

Also, regardless of whether the sex ends in orgasm or not, the sex is so much better without a condom. The goal is as intimate and pleasurable sex as possible, condoms are a major impediment to both, with or without orgasm.

But your initial claim was not merely that sex without a condom is better; rather it was that it was pointless: You said, "You might as well not have sex at that point." That was the claim that I was skeptical of.

That's not what I said and I don't see a contradiction.

I don't understand. I literally quoted you.

You literally didn't.

Well, I literally copied and pasted it from your comment, so perhaps you are employing an eccentric definition of "literally."

It's high-variance, but there are a subset of men (both straight and gay) who can't get very far with a condom on during penetration, sometimes up to the point of losing the ability to maintain a decent (or rarely, any) erection entirely. The exact causes cover wide ground, such as low-level skin sensitivity, mental overhead, performance anxiety, mumblemumbles-it's-not-just-soccons-afraid-of-jerking-it, or for... not entirely understood reasons (one fun hypothesis: American condom sizes are moronic).

This class of problem is less 'well, I guess I just have slightly reduced sensation and might just be edging with my partner today', 'it's time for a long oral session!' or even 'I'd rather bottom', and more 'this is going to be actively frustrating for everyone involved, and not even in a fun chastity cage sorta way'.

Contra some of the other posters, I don't think this is universal, or even disliking condoms is universal -- there are a surprisingly large number of people with condom-related kinks, for entirely unsurprising reasons. Some of these frustrations might even be solvable with practice and familiarity. But a lot of the mainstream model of the complaints is dismissive in unhealthy ways.

(one fun hypothesis: American condom sizes are moronic).

Please elaborate on this if you've a theory.

I don't endorse this, but the theory goes:

American condom sizes are established by the FDA, as a rule, partly for standardization reasons, and partly to simplify testing. Condoms must have a fully-unrolled length of at least 170mm, and has a narrow band of widths. Technically, the standard uses a 'flat width', as one-half the unstretched circumference. While this has somewhat expanded in recent years, from 50-54mm 'flat width' (100-108mm circumference) before 2008 to 50-57mm 'flat width' (100-114mm circumference) in 2008, and in 2022 with limited acceptance of more broad sizes for ONE-brand condoms, in practice if you go to a big-box store, chances are pretty good you're going to get something in the 52-54mm 'flat width' range (104-108mm circumference), and if your store doesn't sell ONE-brand, most of the sizing guidance is worse-than-useless or actively misleading.

And that works for the average guy, even if it's technically a little long.

Go much away from those bounds, and it doesn't work as well, and they're narrow bounds. For obvious reasons, this is a more popular cause celebre among the well-endowed. You can fist a latex condom if you want, but it gives a bit of a pinch, not even in the useful way that a cock ring would, and most dicks are more sensitive than forearms. There's people who can kink on pinched there, but there's a reason chastity cages don't work like that. Too-short condoms are prone to rolling off or breaking, and this can turn sex into the unfun sort of wrestling match.

But the problems are, if anything, worse on the shorter or slimmer sides: having a much-too-long condom leaves a bunch of cruft at the base, and having a too-wide one augments the whole 'fucking a plastic glove' problem. And for people who are nervous or don't have the hardest erections, there's a worse feedback loop, where a condom that's just a little loose when fully erect is a constant (and boner-killing) struggle to keep on and tight enough to get significant sensation from if not at full mast.

The UK/EU standards aren't much wider, but they're still at least better.

As a victim of MGM I have always found complaints about condoms to be wild, I can hardly tell the difference, so maybe you are onto something.

The sensitivity thing is also interesting as, to my mind, increased sensitivity would be strictly a bad thing as a man. If I could magically wish for more of it, I wouldn't. The physical pleasure from sex is pretty far from the top of the list of things I enjoy about sex. It seems to me that sensitivity would trade off directly with endurance. I really viscerally enjoy the sense of masculine prowess I get from absolutely destroying a woman for a prolonged session, but I am only really able to achieve that with mental and physical tricks to actively reduce my sensitivity.

As a victim of MGM I have always found complaints about condoms to be wild, I can hardly tell the difference, so maybe you are onto something.

I had the procedure done for (in hindsight, unnecessary) medical reasons, in early childhood but not so early I can't remember it, and I know for a fact that my glans became less sensitive, since for the first few weeks post-op the mere sensation of it rubbing against fabric was unbearable. I still can feel the superiority of not using a condom, even using the thinnest latex you can get here.

Oh well, at least it gets me more head, I've had a number of women tell me that it was a relief compared to the finely marinated stench of smegma.

Oh well, at least it gets me more head, I've had a number of women tell me that it was a relief compared to the finely marinated stench of smegma.

Whenever stuff like this comes up I'm left wondering, who the fuck doesn't wash his dick?

Quite a few men, sadly.

He lives in India, hygiene norms might be different there and a significant portion of the population doesn't have running water.

Datapoint of one, but I live in the US where my parents were of the "buy the kid books in lieu of having a puberty discussion", and the books definitely talked about needing to wash under your foreskin, so I'm assuming it's the default here for uncircumcised English-speakers.

I've heard similar complaints made by Western women about their men, not that I'm in a position to compare base-rates.

I don't recall ever being explicitly instructed to do that myself, though it would be a bit moot.

At any rate, these guys were certainly capable of accessing running water, I wasn't dating women from the ghetto. Men can be slobs, and unlike a stinky armpit, they can get away with it until..

He lives in India

I'm not sure about that.

Eh? I do, well I'm there right now. I've got yet another set of exams to give, after which I'll enter training to be a shrink. I could have left earlier, I've gotten my GMC license.

Sorry, I'm not tracking it, you have been in Britain for a while and I figured you might have made another temporary hop.

I can't expect you to know exactly where I am haha, it's no big deal!

I despise condoms and avoid them where I can, and I'm circumcised myself.

The only people I've heard offer apolagia for them (from a non-std prevention pov) are circumcised men, which leads me to believe that there is a connection.

I would think the "fuck condoms" attitude is only possible in places where most of the women are on birth control.

Am circumcised, condoms suck -- I think you need to do some more field research man.

I think you misunderstood me, perhaps I was unclear.

I'm not saying that everyone who's circumcised defend condoms, I'm saying that the ones that I've heard defend condoms are cricumcised.

Anyone who's saying condoms aren't that bad is an extreme outlier in some way -- to the point where I'd question their honesty.

There are some men who genuinely do like them, though not in the sense of "can barely tell it's on at all". Condom kink as revolving around either the sensation of pressured latex (compare bodysuit latex fetishism, or pooltoy fetishism) or as a psychological thing isn't the most common kink, but neither is it especially rare.

I have yet to hear a man tell me, in person, that sex with a condom on is just as satisfying as going bareback. It's usually women insisting on it, and me protesting, but it might still be a necessary evil for the usual reasons.

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