Help! My BF Won’t Use a Condom!
By Honey on Nov 3, 2008 in Sex
Dear Honey,
OK, so I just read your latest post and felt so unbelievably frustrated. Being the relationship & sex guru that you are, I thought you might be able to help me with this.
I went off my birth control about a month and a half ago. I was on the high-estrogen stuff and I felt like it was making me nuts, depressed, etc. So I went off, but my gyno wouldn’t give me a new ‘script until I came in and I couldn’t come in until the Monday after next. So no birth control. Well, my boyfriend is like Mr. Super Sperm – the two times he’s had unprotected, non-birth control sex he sired kids. Yep, two illegitimate kids. Please, let’s not get into that part. Suffice it to say, I will *not* have unprotected, non-birth control sex. Rightly so. But if I even bring up condoms, he wilts. Literally. We’ve never successfully had condom-protected sex. It’s been a month since we’ve done it. I’m going nuts, and I honestly think it’s affecting our relationship, from my end of things. He’s fine with fooling around. I’m not. I need the good stuff, and it will be another 6 weeks before I get on the new birth control and am in the safe zone.
Help??
No Love Without a Glove, Massachusetts
No Love, I feel your pain. Ugh. The BF hates condoms too (he says he can’t stay hard with them…which is hard for me to verify since we’ve never used them). And, as Lance and myself have written recently, physical intimacy is key to a successful relationship (in tandem with other things, of course). If you’re in a situation where you suddenly can’t be physically intimate with someone that you’ve been with for awhile, it’s natural – if unfortunate – that you will become sexually frustrated. Not only that, but that frustration has the potential to carry over into other aspects of the relationship and cause fights, emotional alienation, and other issues.
You don’t define “fooling around,” so I have to wonder if you’ve been giving him BJs all this time and getting nothing in return. Can you have an orgasm from receiving oral? If so, then perhaps you both don’t have to have an orgasm every time. Sometimes he can give without receiving, too, as long as things even out in the end. That being said, oral sex for me is only about a 4 or 5 on a 1-to-10 scale and I’ve never had an orgasm from it, so if that doesn’t cut it for you I understand.
I also have to wonder why your boyfriend hasn’t tried to come up with some type of solution. Sure, he may be fine with “fooling around,” but if you’re not then it’s his job as a man to make sure you are satisfied. And that means more than just giving you a good old-fashioned bonking – if bonking’s not possible, and he’s 50% of the relationship, he should be coming up with some solutions, too.
But it seems you are both tapped at the moment, so I’ll give my two cents.
Solutions and Ideas:
- Ask your doctor for a diaphragm or a cervical cap. These can be used in conjunction with OTC spermicide until your birth control kicks in. I’ve never used these so I don’t know how hard they are to put in.
- You could ask for a ‘script for the day-after pill as a backup. This is obviously far from an ideal solution, but if you’re as frustrated as you say, then a little “slip” may be inevitable, and it’s better to have this on hand already than have to call in to work to go prevent a pregnancy.
- Ask your gyno for an IUD (inter-uterine device). You say that The Pill made you crazy – I have a friend who also felt like hormonal birth control made her feel and act weird (as you describe) and she got an IUD. I went with her when she had it put in…she said that it sucked more than she anticipated when it was inserted and she felt ewwy for a couple of days (like, period-feeling cramps). However, she is a lot happier to be off hormones and of course you don’t have to replace those for 5 or 10 years, which is nice.
- Cut your boyfriend off until he mans up. Or you could cut that fool off from even fooling around until he gets ahold of some Viagra and make him use the condom, if that’s the only way you feel comfortable. Right now he’s getting everything he needs sexually, so there’s really no incentive for him to make an effort fo fulfill your needs (well, no incentives except manliness and common decency, which are both called into question by the fact that you’ve been sexually frustrated for a month!). If you give him an incentive, perhaps he’ll be more accommodating.
Thoughts?
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