Are there any particular reasons why I may not be able to use condoms?

There may be reasons why you don’t want to use condoms. A small number of people may be allergic to latex rubber or a particular lubricant However, this is very rare. If you or your sexual partner gets a rash or has any discomfort around your genitals, that is, your penis or vagina, check with your doctor or clinic.

How do you use a condom? Each condom comes in its own little packet.

To put it on:

1. The first thing you do is tear open the packet, taking care not to tear the condom with your fingernails or the sharp edge of a ring while you are opening the packet, or taking the condom out. You can push the condom out of the way while it is still inside the packet before you start

2. The condom will be rolled up and will look like a circle of loose fine rubber with a thick rim. The rim is actually the body of the condom tightly rolled up. As you hold it while it is still rolled up, check that the rim is rolled towards the centre on the side facing you. This is important, so that when you unroll the condom over the penis, it will roll down easily.

3. Hold the edge of the rolled up condom with one hand. With the thumb and first finger of your other hand, take hold of the loose part at the centre of the circle and squeeze it. This makes sure that there is space at the end of the condom to collect the semen when the man comes. Some condoms have a special little shape like a teat or nipple, at their closed end, especially for this.

4. The penis must be erect before you put the condom on it.

5. While the condom is still rolled up, and you are still holding the tip squeezed between your thumb and first finger, put the condom on the head of the penis like a cap.

6. Using the thumb and first two fingers of your other hand, roll the condom all the way down so that it covers the penis, with the rim of the condom around the base of the penis. Make sure there is still space at the tip to collect the semen.

7. Put some water-based lubricant on the condom.

8. After that you can safely have sex.

To take it off:

1. After sex and before the penis has become soft, you need to hold onto the condom at the base of the penis so that the condom does not come off, and semen does not leak out, and carefully pull away from your partner.

2. Point the penis down, hold the condom just behind the teat to keep the semen in and pull the condom off.

3. Tie a knot in the open end of the condom to keep the semen inside.

4. Wrap the condom in a tissue, or paper towel, or a plastic bag, and put it in the bin. Do not flush it down the toilet because condoms do not dissolve, and the toilet could get blocked.

*7\132\4*

Richardson’s way. One Saturday morning, the late Dr Derek Richardson was sitting in his Sydney rooms when, as expected, a couple arrived for their appointment. They had been coming for sex therapy every second Saturday for several months, but this week they behaved differently. Without saying a word, they cleared his desk and spread a white cloth over it. Richardson didn’t know what to expect. Then they produced a bottle of French champagne and three glasses. They wanted to celebrate the woman becoming orgasmic. This couple, whom Richardson described as being in their ‘early thirties, intelligent, but poorly sexually educated’, had finally learnt how to make love to each other. They had demonstrated one of Richardson’s central beliefs: that people need to be taught the necessary skills to be able to make love well.

‘Parents teach their children about everything but sex because they think that good sex comes naturally, but it does not,’ he said. ‘You need as much learning to be a good lover as you do to learn a trade, and that takes three to five years.’

People always listened to Richardson. Until his death in 1995, he was probably Australia’s most well respected sex therapist. Six months before he died, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners awarded him an honorary fellowship, saying that when he ventured into full-time

practice as a sex therapist in 1977 he ‘overcame much prejudice and rejection by some of his medical colleagues to become a leading expert in the field.’

In the last interview before his death, Richardson said that people tended to confuse sensuality and sexuality. Sensuality, which he defined as ‘pleasuring the body’, was very important in successful lovemaking. It was different to sexuality, which was any activity likely to make you feel fiorny.

He firmly believed that quick sex didn’t give fulfilment. It provided gratification, but that’s all. It was his understanding that sex goes wrong when the focus is wrong. People make the mistake of equating successful sex with orgasm,- if there is no orgasm they feel disappointed and upset and regard the whole encounter as a failure. Shifting the focus and aiming instead for mutual pleasure can make a tremendous difference. There is less pressure to achieve, less anxiety, and more time for sensual enjoyment.

There are going to be quite a number of times for both partners when they don’t have an orgasm, and it doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What does matter is that two people should share intimacy and pleasure. If they don’t, then the quality won’t be there . . . One problem is that we have never learnt how to enjoy ourselves physically. Our Judeo-Christian ethic doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on getting hedonistic pleasure for its own sake.’

Richardson told the story of a woman, married for twenty years, who came to his rooms and complained she was bored. Sex had become totally predictable, and she knew the first seventy-six things her husband would do when he set about making love to her. This couple was stuck; there was no contact, no intimacy and, for the woman, no pleasure. They needed sex education. Richardson said sustaining quality lovemaking over many years takes imagination.

There has to be variety to avoid what can often become deadening predictability. The time discrepancy between female and male arousal is another source of sexual difficulty. From a cold start, in five minutes a man can achieve all physiological changes necessary to make him fully aroused and ready for sex. In the same situation, it takes most women close to an hour to become

similarly aroused.

Equally, within minutes of ejaculating, the man feels completely relaxed and ready for sleep. Female arousal, however, is physiologically more complex,- after climax a woman is left with congestion from her knees to her neck. She needs to be ‘brought down’. Leaving a woman’s body congested is the same as leaving a man with a prolonged erection. For twenty-four hours afterwards he has aching testicles.

This is the time for afterplay, because once her congestion is relieved she will get that lovely feeling of relaxation, turn over to sleep, and feel wonderful for twenty-four to seventy-two hours afterwards.

In quality lovemaking, the actual mechanical aspect of sex plays a very small part. The sensual build-up followed by sexual arousal is far more important.

While men peak sexually at about the age of twenty-five, women do so in their forties. To illustrate the total myth that older people don’t want to have sex, Richardson told of a woman who came to his practice in the 1960s. His partner examined her, noted her prolapsed uterus and said it would be no trouble to fix. As she was eighty-four, he would simply take it out and stitch up her vagina.

‘But Doctor,’ the woman protested, ‘Mr. Smith wouldn’t like that at all.’

*3\136\4*

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