darkoshi | Entries tagged with condoms

Gummi Cola Bottles (still seeking)

As a child, I was fond of Haribo gummi cola bottles. But I haven't had them since becoming vegan, since most gummi candy has gelatin in it. Yesterday I found Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles for sale at TJMaxx. It pleased me a great deal to see that the ingredient list included potato starch instead of gelatin. The Jelly Belly bottles include 5 flavors, and while "cherry cola" is included (which tastes suspiciously like Dr. Pepper), unfortunately, "cola" is not. The 5 flavors taste quite good, but I shall still be in search of good vegan cola gummi bottles.

..

Marshmallows (intermittently available)

Most marshmallows, like gummi candy, also contains gelatin. After a long time of not being able to find vegan marshmallows other than by mail order, this year my local EarthFare store had some yummy ones from Chicago Soy Dairy available. But EarthFare has now discontinued them. I may have seen them recently in another local store, but I'm not sure.

..

Kiss My Face Shower Gels (vegan)

A query I sent to Kiss My Face:
Most of your products that I've seen indicate on the label that they don't contain any animal-derived ingredients. However, I've noticed that your bath & shower gels (anti-stress, peaceful patchouli, active athletic) do not have this statement. Does this mean that these products do contain an ingredient which is most likely animal-derived? Or do they contain an ingredient whose source you cannot be sure of?

Their reply:
Our Shower Gels do not contain any ingredients that are animal derived. We do have a few products that do contain honey and/or beeswax that would not be appropriate for Vegans.

..

Durex Avanti Bare condoms (apparently vegan)

A query I sent to Durex:
Hello, I would like to know whether or not your Avanti Bare polyisoprene condoms are manufactured with casein, as most latex condoms are.

Their reply:
All Durex® Avanti Bare condoms are made of polyisoprene which does not contain casein, and the lubricant does not contain animal derivatives.

My review:
Durex Avanti Bare condoms look and feel exactly the same to me as latex condoms. The lubricant has a faint lemony/spicy scent (in my opinion), and tastes ok for oral sex.

..

Pasante Unique non-latex condoms

My review:
I tried one of these condoms a few years ago, from here. The material was crinkly and not at all stretchy like rubber. Even worse, it had an extremely unpleasant petroleum-like smell. And even worse (if I recall correctly), it came off during sex. Perhaps they've been improved since then, as they are now marketed as "odor-less", and other reviews indicate no bad smell.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/437549.html

Listening to the radio, and in between the music, there was an announcement for some party/club... "The dress code is Mighty Damn Fresh." ::amused::

.

I decided to get a pack of the other brand of polyisoprene condoms, to try them out. But in this particular store, the condoms were in a locked glass case. A sign said to see an attendant for assistance. I was like, "Really?..." ::eye-roll:: ...annoyed at the unexpected obstacle. I looked around; the pharmacy section of the store was closed and empty. Sigh. But luckily there was someone in a nearby aisle putting things on a shelf. I asked if they worked there, then said "Could you unlock the condoms?" I didn't feel self-conscious about it, but then again there wasn't anyone else around... I'm not sure if I would have felt differently in a crowded store, or if it had been more of a hassle. The guy said "Sure", unlocked the case and considerately walked away while I retrieved my intended purchase.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/433221.html

Ah, it is 6:21pm and dark outside, and I still haven't taken my shower. But I did get the mold cleaned off of the refrigerator gasket, which I wanted to do before taking my shower. I did Neti against my allergies. I still want to order a platform storage bed, to go along with the new queen mattress I bought. I was going to cook the cauliflower, but it's probably too late.

Yesterday, I made a butternut squash soup. I replaced a flickering light socket in one of the ceiling fans. I sewed another magnetic strip into the light-blocking curtains in the bedroom, to keep light coming in from that edge. I vacuumed, and washed dishes, and cut up chili peppers into vinegar to preserve them (for Qiao). I even ate one tiny piece of pepper - without any seeds - and survived to tell the tale. The burning feeling in my mouth only lasted for about 20 minutes. Perhaps next time I will be brave enough to try a seed.

Since I'm still plagued by breaking condoms, I decided to try some other brands. So I bought a couple condom packs from the pharmacy; that was my first time buying them in a physical non-online store. I discovered that there is a relatively new kind of non-latex condom made from polyisoprene. I haven't determined yet whether these are made with or without casein.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/431776.html

This video discusses the high condom breakage rate that my partner and I have experienced, and what could be causing it. We don't use any oil-based lube, we don't store the condoms improperly, and they are not expired.

This other video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9_FqNT-LyA
provides the most plausible answer.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/399405.html

How the inventor of the pill changed the world for women - about Carl Djerassi, one of the inventors of the Pill.

[regarding a male birth control pill] The first question a man would ask is: would it affect my potency? There have been clinical trials – it has no effect on potency. The second question is erection.

I can't figure out what the word "potency" means in that context. A male BC pill would obviously affect fertility, as that is the point of a BC pill. So potency doesn't seem to mean fertility. And it doesn't seem to mean the ability to get an erection, since that is the 2nd question, not the first. What does it mean?

"How many acts of sexual intercourse would you guess occur every 24 hours?" he asks. "I often do this with my students, and they say a billion. I say: 'No, no, no, you're dreaming. There are six billion people. Well, you need two for sexual intercourse, so there are only three billion. And some of them are five years old, so they're out.' So then they say a million. Well, now you're underestimating, because you're sitting here and you're not having sex. It's actually 100m, every 24 hours. And they produce about a million conceptions, about half of which are unexpected. Of the 500,000, half of them are unwanted. As a result, every 24 hours, 150,000 abortions occur; of these, over 50,000 are illegal."

Interview with Carl Djerassi

Some parts of this don't make sense to me. Having a male BC pill doesn't take away a woman's control over her fertility, it rather gives a man more control over his. But the comment about the female BC pill making men less willing to use condoms is intriguing.

Djerassi suggests that in the future we will freeze our sperm and eggs, get sterilised and check out our sperm and eggs from the bank when we want them later. 'Then you might as well forget about contraception'.

Interesting idea. Maybe the actual eggs and sperm won't even need to be stored in the future. Maybe their DNA sequences will be scanned and saved as data, and maybe it will be possible to re-create an egg or sperm using that data. It wouldn't even really be necessary to extract and scan actual eggs and sperm... one could take the person's DNA and have a computer randomly select half the chromosomes to make virtual gametes. It will surely be possible to check the DNA for hereditary diseases, and to make corrections to prevent those diseases.

Once all that is possible, it would theoretically be possible for people to decide that they want to have a child using someone else's DNA (a celebrity, for instance), rather than their own. Or using a combination of multiple people's DNA. I wonder how much legal control people will have over their own DNA... will it be similar to copyright, and after a certain length of time after a person dies, will other people will be able to use that person's DNA? Or will only people directly descended from that person be allowed to use it? Will you be able to sell your DNA sequence for specific uses?

Response - I never blamed the pill for the fall in family size ... I didn't know that the birth control pill wasn't legal in Japan until 1999.

Birth control in Japan - mostly via condoms.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/393490.html

Yonmei had linked to this post where someone wrote about the difficulty they had in getting emergency contraception pills after a condom broke while she and her partner were having sex. This, in spite of the EC pills ("Plan B") having recently been approved by the FDA for over-the-counter sales.

When I first read the post, it quite disturbed me to realize how difficult it is in some places, not only to get an abortion, but simply to get emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy in the first place. I decided that I should call up local pharmacies and find out which ones have EC in stock and are willing to dispense it, without a lot of hassle, to people who need it. Even though I've had my tubes occluded and therefore do not personally foresee a need to ever obtain EC, I want to support those places that do dispense it, by shopping there instead of at places that do not. I'm also going to start supporting Planned Parenthood by including them in the groups I donate money to.

The person who wrote the original post also later wrote about some of the positive and negative comments she had received... here and here. I'm glad that the supportive comments far outweighed the negative ones, but some points stuck out to me:

- A lot of people seem to think it is a simple and inexpensive matter for a woman to get a tubal ligation or for a man to get a vasectomy. Last year, I had my tubes occluded via Essure, a non-surgical (no incisions or cutting involved) alternative to lubal ligation. Even though I have health insurance, which paid for most of the costs, I still ended up having to pay over $2,000 out-of-pocket.

- It really bothers me when people use gender-specific slurs such as "whore", "slut", and "bitch". It bothers me first of all that they are using a gender-specific slur... as if someone deserves a certain insult simply for being a certain gender... and it bothers me even more that, for most of these slurs, there isn't even a corresponding term for someone of the other sex. "Jerk" or "asshole" could be considered male versions of "bitch", but they still don't have exactly the same connotations as "bitch" does. As for "whore" and "slut"...? I can't think of any male version of those slurs at all. It's always only females who are so denigrated for having sex.

- Reading some of the negative comments which say the person shouldn't have been having sex if they didn't want to have a baby... if those comments were directed at me, I would feel like saying "Fuck it all. I'm NOT going to have sex anymore." Because frankly, I don't really give a damn about sex. It seems like it's mainly guys who care so much about sex anyway. In fact, I'm still not sure that the guys who've been interested in me so far haven't really only been interested in me for sex. Now, I'm not condemning them for that... after all my own interest in finding a partner isn't completely unsexual... but I could live fine without actual penis-in-vagina sex.

- One commenter wrote: "You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?

You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. "

Am I so unusual, in that the thought of my mother having aborted me before I was born does not bother me? So what, if she had had an abortion? So what, if I didn't exist? Is this life so wonderful, that it would be such a horrible thing, if I wasn't born to live it? Personally, my answer to that is No, I wouldn't mind not being alive. In fact, I might have prefered being aborted. But regardless of that, I also have a semi-religious belief that, if I was truly meant to exist and to live this life, that it wouldn't have mattered if my potential mother had had an abortion. I would have just been born at another time, or to someone else.

- This issue has even more relevance to me right now, because a couple weeks ago, while I was having sex, the condom came off. If I hadn't had my tubes occluded, I could potentially now be pregnant. Admittedly, I personally wouldn't have risked having sex even with a condom, without a backup form of birth-control, but still - BC methods do fail.
BTW, the type of condom I was using was this non-latex one (its website is here). I was curious about how different it would be from the latex ones I've tried, but I definitely DO NOT recommend this brand. Not only did it come off, but the lubricant on it has a nasty smell and taste which is not at all suitable for even oral sex.

1. canvas sneakers.... they're not very waterproof, are they? and they don't usually have much arch-support, do they?

2. it sounds like you can't put a condom on an unerect penis... why? would it slip off because it would be too loose? or is it difficult to put on just because the penis isn't stiff?

3. safer sex.... when people talk about wanting "no exchange of bodily fluids", does that usually not include saliva? how safe or unsafe is open-mouthed kissing considered to be? what about oral sex? doing oral sex without a barrier is generally considered unsafe, isn't it?

As for that last question... I was reading a book in which the author, who seems to be relatively well-known and respected, was saying that except for monogamous heterosexual couples trying to procreate, everyone else should always use condoms while having sex, because due to the risk of diseases, there was "no reason to exchange bodily fluids". But then later he was talking about his partner doing some pretty good oral sex on him. And I wondered if he used a condom for that too, or not...