Neither of us ever thought we would have this issue.
For me, someone who is much more sexually experienced than my boyfriend, condoms were never something I thought too much about. They were something whoever had the penis in the relationship bought, and quickly slipped on before having sex. My boyfriend, on the other hand, who had never had the need to buy condoms, had no clue as to how to go about buying condoms, or what to look for, what brand was the best, or even really what to expect. Yes, he did know how to use them, but when it came to buying them? That was a completely different story.
Him and I had been together for about three weeks when we decided to finally “get it on”, so to speak. There we were, after several weeks of waiting, both hot and heavy and in the moment, when I asked the question; “do you have a condom?”.
As expected, he didn’t have a condom on him, so we made a quick trip to the convenience store down the road, where we picked up the most promising sounding box from the very sad selection. It was $27 worth of Trojan condoms, a multipack that promised pleasure and fun. We bought it, and went on our merry way.
That night, we found ourselves in the same place we had been earlier that day, but this time, when it came to being prepared, boy were we ever, or so we thought. Only about a minute into the act, he stopped with a pained expression on his face. He claimed that the condom was too tight, and that he was in more pain than pleasure. Both out of the mood, we decided to try again later, hoping for better results.
We tried again, and once again we were met with the same results; him in pain and having no fun whatsoever. This time though, I decided to take to the internet for a size chart, hoping to get some answers as to why he was in so much pain.
As expected, he was much too big for the standard size condom bands, so I decided to look into the magnum brands, which are infamous for being larger than your normal size condoms. I thought that our problem would quickly be solved, but what I found out about the “larger” magnums shocked me. It turns out they weren’t really any bigger than your standard condoms, and instead of actually being meant for people with bigger packages, they instead were meant for any cis man looking to boost his ego.
Needless to say, both my boyfriend and I were shocked and disgusted. We were going into this looking to be as safe as possible, yet we were being prevented from doing so by the culture we have built around coddling the male ego. Why would a company sacrifice pleasure and safety for everyone to instead assure insecure men that they are, in fact, big enough? The simple answer is that magnums, no matter what size, sell, and sell well, but condoms that are actually bigger? Those are actually the hardest to come by.
The fact that the capitalized male ego is getting in the way of my sex life? In the way of my protection and safety? That really is a reflection on just how male-centric our society is.
Unruly Bodies 