Better safe than sorry.....?

So today on Twitter I was following and participating in a discussion initiated by The Red Pump Project regarding opinions on women who carry condoms. The discussion began as follows:

Question: Ladies, how do you feel about carrying condoms on you? Men: Would you frown upon your girl if she had condoms in her purse? (@RedPumpProject)

Here were some of the responses to the discussion:

WORD RT @anesidora I used to carry them & see nothing wrong with it. Presumably guys have condoms on deck, so why can't we? No excuses. (my response, of course)

RT @superhussy @RedPumpProj why not? i have to protect myself and you can't count on someone else to look out for your sexual health.

See? How does her protecting herself make u think she's a jumpoff? RT @peyso Yea, she's about safe sex. But I might think she's a jump

Handy nonetheless RT @TheBiasedTruth used to always carry them with me they always came in handy, but mostly for my friends! #redpumptalk

@RedPumpProj dudes usually know when there is the smallest poss of it going dn, he should be prepared if he's not, u should wonder why (@bsleet)

@bsleet It shouldn't be a 1 sided obligation. I believe in CYA (or rather CYP) & you don't always kno somethin will go down. #redpumptalk (@anesidora)

EXACTLY! RT @anesidora Not sayin its definitely goin down. I'd carry condoms for MONTHS & never have to use em. #redpumptalk

(you can follow more of the discussion on Twitter with the tag #redpumptalk or go to RedPumpProj)

It seemed like the general consensus was that there's nothing wrong with a woman carrying her own condoms, but a few of the dissents bothered me:

1. If she carries condoms, it makes her look like a jump off.

Since when did being prepared automatically make you reckless?? You don't buy car insurance with the intent of causing a 10 car pileup on I-69. You don't get anti-virus software for the purpose of downloading malicious executable files. Likewise, women don't necessarily carry condoms with the purpose and intent of finding some strange (or "new-new" as one of my friends calls it) and taking it home later that night. It's just in case, loved ones. And not just in case you find yourself in a one night stand situation because you were out hunting for some new-new before you even walked out the door. You never know if or when you may run into an old flame with whom you may want to rekindle that spark "for old times sake"..... you never know if you and your man may want to meet up later..... you never know if your friend or homie may need one. It's better that you have it covered (no pun intended) than leave something to drunken chance.

I won't launch into my full on assault on double standards, but this is CLEARLY one, and a very bad one. Sex takes two people equally involved, and ideally a condom should also be involved. You just cannot tell me that a woman being the one to supply said condom is somehow a less than desirable individual when she was going to have sex with the man ANYWAY. The logical fallacy is hurting my brain, so I'm going to have to stop.

2. The guy should have some, and you should question his level of responsibility and not deal with him if he doesn't.

This is an argument that would have my BFF, who is a Planned Parenthood lobbyist, springing to the attack and intellectually ripping you a new one. Going back to the car insurance analogy, you can't just say "well, everyone else should have insurance so I don't need any." It is every woman's right and obligation to make sure that she is in charge of her own sexual health. This is NOT an obligation that we need to place on others for the sake of not "looking like a hoe" (which is a BS argument and view anyway). Yes, men who are sexually active should have condoms in their possession..... but what happens if he unexpectedly runs out? What happens if he thought he had a whole box and his roomie came and "borrowed" them all? What happens if he gave his last one to his boy while they were out because it was obvious he was about to get into some meats (as my beau and his roomie say), and then you come along at 2:57am?? I can think of much more egregious deal breaker offenses and indications of lack of responsibility other than "he wanted to have sex but didn't have a condom." Well, obviously, you wanted to too, or you wouldn't be there, and you didn't have one either. Double Fail.

This should not be some sort of "test"...... if you read my blog posts, you know how much I abhor tests, checklists, and games. Why set yourself (and him) up like that?? "Oh, I'ma go to his place, get all ready to do the do, and if he doesn't have condoms on him he gets deleted from the Blackberry." Why not just have your own and everyone is happy? Now, the dealbreaker would be him not having any, you having one, but he still insists on following Old Dirty Bastard's advice anyway. *cue Shimmy Shimmy Ya*

(ok, so I admittedly "indirectly" used one test..... I used to buy Trojan Magnums, so if you were foolish enough not to have your own, and the ones I brought were a little... um..... "roomy", then you have failed on 2 fronts, not just one, and in theory, hopefully you would have been embarrassed enough to not make the same mistake again.)

Ok, I'm off the soapbox. To read more about my views on this, check this out: "....and if you need 'em I got crazy prophylactics....."

Also check out The Red Pump Project, a campaign to raise awareness about the effect of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.

And thanks to the homie BSleet for providing the intellectual banter.... we lawyers like to argue just for the hell of it sometimes, but it's all in love.

"....and if you need 'em I got crazy prophylactics...."

So I'm in Meijer today doing some early morning grocery shopping and I make my way over to the health and beauty section to pick up a few things before I check out. I'm meandering around, telling myself not to make the endcap makeup display impulse purchase, when I find myself, once again, walking past the condom display. This is not the first time I've wandered past the condom display, not just in this store but others as well..... Target, Walgreens, CVS, the gas station...... glancing but never having the guts to pick up a box. Being a newly single, educated, self-sufficient, healthy red-blooded American woman, it goes without saying that I would, at some point, have occasion to use such things. But for some reason I've always been too embarassed to buy them myself. I'm really not sure what I think the check-out lady is going to think and why I'm so afraid of what she may think, knowing good and well in my rational mind that she probably thinks absolutely nothing except for how long it is until her lunch break. I always chicken out, telling myself "Oh well, if and when the situation arises, I guess he'll have some (if he knows what's good for him)" so I put it off for another day. But then I think about one of my best friends who works for Planned Parenthood as a lobbyist and is working long and hard in DC for not nearly enough money in order to safeguard my uterus and everyone else's, so dammit it seems like that the least thing I could do is take responsibility for my own reproductive health and do something to safeguard it myself.

So back to the health and beauty section..... I make a pass through the aisle, slowing down slightly in front of the multicolored boxes, but then, once again, I keep going. As I'm walking to the check out lanes I remember..... eureka! Meijer has no limit self check out lanes! Yesss! This is my chance to purchase prophylactics without anyone noticing! I make a U-turn back, quickly snatch up a box of Magnums before the stock woman comes back to finish stocking the maxi pads, shove the box under a tub of sour cream in my cart, and high tail it down to the self check lanes. I'm almost home free until my perfect plan has a SNAFU thanks to the aformentioned tub of sour cream. The damn thing rang up the wrong price and I had to have the attendant come over and void it for me, which was all fine and good because I was only half way through my cart of groceries. Whew... she didn't look back into my cart! But then, to my horror, the nice attendant lady proceeds to start bagging my groceries for me! Noooooo!! I slowly and anxiously ring up one thing after another and watch it travel down the conveyor belt toward this extra kind woman, and I am cursing her secretly for being such a good samaritan. I took a deep breath and kept ringing.... nothing was going to stop me now. But then, in a stroke of luck, the people in the next lane over needed some assistance and she left just as the last 3 items were in my cart. Mission accomplished, and I'm now the proud and responsible owner of a dozen "just in case you forgot" condoms.

In all seriousness, though, this was a really unnecesary phobia I needed (and probably still need) to get over. I cannot call myself a progressive, self-reliant, responsible adult woman if I don't take charge of my own reproductive health. This was more about empowerment of self than the absolute need to have them around. Organizations like Planned Parenthood encourage women to not allow other people to be in control of and make decisions about our reproductive health, whether that's the legislature, judges, or our partners. Fact of the matter is "everyone is doing it" and it should not be the case that we are embarassed to buy condoms, but rather embarassed if we don't.