“You see, I am not on any contraceptive and we agreed to use condoms,” Jane says, “but he won’t take the initiative to buy them,” she laments. Jane attempted to purchase some on a few occasions, but says she found it difficult and humiliating.
“The sellers were all staring at me as if to say I was a prostitute, from the lady dispensing medicines at the chemist to the cashier in the supermarket,” she says, “I swore never to buy condoms again.”
That, however, was not her only problem. She recalls the day she came back from work one day to find her three-year-old daughter playing with a used condom.
“She thought it was a balloon and blew it!” Jane says. She had not flushed the condom down the toilet the previous night for fear that it would clog the sewerage system. She had wrapped it in toilet paper, hoping to throw it into the dustbin later but forgot.
“My husband just won’t help, even with the simple task of disposal,” she says, “It is not fair. I can live without sèx.”
Flavoured condoms
Jane’s story reminds me of an experience I recently had at a Nairobi pharmacy. A man who appeared confused walked into the chemist.
“Can I help you sir?” the woman at the counter asked.
“Eh, eh, might you be having Panadol? Give me a pair,” replied the man.
He picked up the medicine and walked away hesitantly. He was back after five minutes. This time, the person at the counter was a man. He whispered something into the man’s ear and the man quickly wrapped up a box of condoms and gave him the package. He left in a hurry.
These two events made me ponder the difficulties that men and women who use condoms encounter. Purchasing and disposing of condoms are not the only problems men and women have to endure in their endeavour to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sèxually transmitted infections.
Contrary to belief, knowledge on proper use is not always adequate. One of my patients claims that her man has to hold on to the condom throughout intercourse because if he does not, it slides off.
A joke is told of a health worker who demonstrated the use of condoms by rolling it on one of her fingers. The couple that was counselled came back two months later with the woman pregnant. Asked what happened, the man repeated the instructions given by the health worker: “We get into foreplay, then when we are ready, I roll the condom on my finger, and we do it.”
Some users are allergic to latex or the lubricants used by condom manufacturers. Although this is a rare occurrence, it does happen. Allergy to lubricants calls for use of non-lubricated condoms, which are not easily available.
Those allergic to latex can use condoms made from a material called polyurathrane, which, unfortunately, are also rare. The range of condoms in the market can also be confusing since information on them is not always available. When you go to buy condoms, do you choose the flavoured or the non-flavoured type?
Some people do not like the smell of condoms, so the flavoured ones would be preferable. Oral sèx is also becoming common, courtesy of the Internet and other exposure. Because various diseases can be spread through that type of sèx, using flavoured condoms is a better option.
Shared responsibility
There are both male and female condoms, although the most commonly used are the male ones. Could this be because our cultures encourage men to take a lead in sèxual matters? How true is this when men, like Jane’s husband, do not have the courage to buy condoms in the first place?
Added to these difficulties is the opposition to condoms. Some men and women feel offended when their partner decides to use condoms. They associate use of condoms to lack of trust. Cases of men turning violent when asked by their partners to use condoms have been reported in the media.
All said and done, Jane needs an answer to her question. Whose role is it to buy and dispose of condoms? Jane and her husband had to go for counselling to break the impasse. We agreed that it was a shared responsibility.
At the end of it, I was left wondering whether the many unwanted pregnancies and HIV infections we see each day result from such disputes over the purchase and disposal of condoms.
via: nation.co.ke
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