› andrea@altsexcolumn.com
Dear Andrea:
I’m a woman, and my partner is too. We’ve agreed that for now, when we have sex outside our relationship, we’ll have safe(r) sex. Another woman I’m dating is a major squirter, as in I need goggles and a raincoat. Next time we want to use a harness. However, I’m concerned that there’s no safe way; when she comes (and she comes bucketloads), won’t her ejaculate get into me?
I’ve thought about wrapping up with Saran Wrap and making a hole for the dildo, but that still doesn’t seem like it would stop it all. Are there any studies on STDs present in female ejaculate? And even if there are none, how possible is it that her ejaculate will throw off my pH balance (I have a very sensitive system)? Also, some got in my eye. What are the possible risks involved in that?
Love,
Wearing a Raincoat
Dear Coat:
I’ve encountered the goggles-and-a-raincoat type, in close quarters, and ever since have laughed great big belly laughs whenever I see a safer-sex pamphlet or demo showing someone lightly draping a lady’s lady parts with a scrap of latex the size of a playing card (same as the recommended serving of protein in most diet plans) and daintily lapping at it as though normal people have sex without making any sudden movements or producing more than a teaspoon of fluid at a time (and very obedient fluid at that). Not only is this sort of exercise unrealistic, but it doesn’t even look fun. But there it is, having outlived its ’90s heyday, refusing to die.
Some colleagues and I were sharing some similar laughs over the sorts of tricks each of us have had to teach at some point, usually as (or to) college students. There’s the one where you cut up the glove to make a dental dam kind of thing with a teeny protuberance, like an appendix, where the thumb used to be (stick your tongue in there and wiggle it around and try not to feel like you’re involved in some kind of freaky scene with a hobbit-hole full of wee folk). Or the one where you wear a garter belt upside down or backward, using the clips to hold a dam flaccidly in place over the site whence one of your girlfriend’s deluges may be erupting soon. It’s all so absurd, and has been taught so earnestly and for so long. I don’t even think we’re ready to use the past tense here, unfortunately, as I still find those sad little crafts projects all over the Internet whenever I’m out looking for updated, useful STD information. (Check out this hilarious link: www.freepatentsonline.com/20030150463.html.)
All of which brings us to the fact that female ejaculation is still such a hotly debated topic that you can find many denials that it exists, even among supposed experts, and if it may not exist, I doubt it’s been tested for STDs. Personally, I think it’s an unlikely candidate for a disease transmitter, barring any local infections, which would cause it to be carrying a lot of white blood cells. If it were a good way to spread HIV, then the much-trumpeted "imminent" woman-to-woman epidemic of the ’90s would have arrived — and, of course, it never did. This is your health, however, and your promise to your partner that you will not expose yourself to anything (or anything avoidable, anyway). So here are my suggestions: (1) That trick where she gets herself off while squatting directly above you? Don’t do that. (2) Whatever you’re doing, have her warn you before she makes like a human bidet, so you can duck. (3) The cling-film* diaper may work better if you use a female condom (they are lubed with silicone, which is inert and unlikely to mess you up) at the same time, although you will sound like a theaterful of candy-wrapper rustlers and smell and taste like nothing at all, which many people do not consider a reasonable trade-off. (4) There are highly engineered, very expensive latex novelties that you might find useful. And last: (5) Close your eyes and avert your head. Again, I think it extremely unlikely that she could pass anything to you, but eyes are a good enough conduit. Does she have anything? Have you asked her?
Seriously, I don’t think any of this is really necessary, but again, you promised no body fluids, and those are some ways to avoid them. Another approach, of course, would be to declare fem-jack fluid not scary and renegotiate. I would.
Love,
Andrea
* If you’ve never seen or heard Nigella Lawson pronounce the phrase cling film, you won’t know why I insist on saying it even though I’m far more American than apple pie. Check it out.
Andrea is home with the kids and going stir-crazy. Write her a letter! Ask her a question! Send her your tedious e-mail forwards! On second thought, don’t do that. Just ask her a question.