Are You Having Safe Sex?
It’s not just about using condoms, there’s a lot more to it
Many of our conceptions of what safe sex is are skewed towards whether we’re protected from contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. This is no fault of our own as we have been taught through media messaging and sex education that as long as there is a condom involved, the sex is safe. This cannot be further from the truth.
Firstly, I must mention that this article makes reference to ‘sex’ therefore ongoing consent is implied. I will not use the word ‘sex’ for sexual acts where consent is absent or not ongoing.
Let’s start with looking at access to language. The idea of constructing safe sex as a situation in which you are protected from physical harm (contracting an STI) is because we view harm as purely physical. Outside the realms of physical intimacy, many of us have ample language to locate, describe and remedy physical harm.
When you walk into the corner of a table and hurt your toe, you have easy access to locate the victim and perpetrator of the pain you feel, you can easily point out where the pain is (in your toe/foot) and how to make it better (give it a quick rub). That easy access to language isn’t available when trying to understand mental and emotional harm. The language is even more elusive in the conversation about what makes sex unsafe.
I have often heard women say they prefer to have the lights off during the act or will only have sex in dimly lit rooms. More often than not this is as a result of an insecurity with how their bodies look. Insecurity is often rooted in shame. What will they think if they see these flabby parts of my body? Will they desire me any less if they see my stomach hanging out? All these questions come because of the shame of living in a fat body or being perceived as fat.
In the Showtime series, Couple’s Therapy, Tashira and Dru speak to Dr. Orna Guralnik about the challenges they face in their sex life. Tashira mentions that Dru refuses to take off his t-shirt during sex. Dru then reveals that this is because of a deep insecurity with how his body looks. Body insecurities from experienced and internalized fatphobia are not exclusive to women but affect the entire spectrum of gender identities.
An act so vulnerable and intimate as sex should not exaggerate your insecurities but should be a space where you can be without any shame. Where sex with a partner is a space filled with the shame of insecurities, it cannot be safe sex.
For this, I do not desire to place blame on either party. This is one of the very few cases where there is no perpetrator to the harm. However, it is vital for both/all parties to work towards making sexual intimacy a space where insecurities are not heightened in order for the sex to be safe for the person who carries those insecurities.
The term ‘ hookup culture’ may be new but the phenomenon is not. Casual sex has become more accessible due to technological advancements but has been in existence for generations. One of the many critiques of casual sex is the dishonesty involved in the setting of expectations. Very often one party is interested in sex only while the other believes or has been made to believe that the sex is part of the getting to know each other process.
There is actual emotional harm done to the person who has been deceived or who has deceived themselves in this situation. When the situation-ship inevitably dissipates, the one who had been deceived will be left with deep feelings of despair and not being “good enough”. This is not a healthy situation for anyone who should be engaging in safe sex to be in.
Consenting adults can participate in casual hookups granted that both parties are on the same page about the nature, scope and long term plan of the relationship. Where one party is on a different page about the nature of the relationship, they run the risk of being harmed by the true intentions of the other party. That is not safe sex.
I am reminded of Michaela Coel’s brilliantly done series ‘I May Destroy You’. In it, the character Kwame leads on a guy who is interest in having a romantic relationship with him and takes him to another guy’s apartment where Kwame’s plan was to have a threesome. Kwame was dishonest with the man pursuing him and that left him with a bag of negative emotions.
In the same series, Arabella (played by Coel) and her best friend Terry go out clubbing one night and come back to their hotel with two guys. To their knowledge, these two men did not know each other and just happened to take a liking to them individually. They later find out that these two men did in fact know each other and had planned out this elaborate scheme where they would approach Arabella and Terry and see if they could go home with them. When they find out they had been deceived, they are left feeling betrayed and unsafe.
If you actively engage in hookup culture or casual sex, be mindful to be completely honest with the people you engage with. Being dishonest with someone about your intentions when having a sexual relationship with them is not only cowardly but also borders on manipulation.
Many authors have produced excellent think pieces and scholarship on the effects of pornography on the digital generation. I have no interest in adding new knowledge to the discourse. One of the most impactful writings on this for me has been “Right To Sex” by Amia Srinivasan. They make the point that we have entered into an era where most people’s first physical sexual encounters are dictated by the porn they consume.
The vast majority of studio pornography constructs the woman in the scene as the object that is ‘fucked’ and the man stands in the place of the viewer. The effect that has on the psyche of young (mainly heterosexual) men, is that sex is for their own pleasure and the woman is there to be ‘fucked’. There is no safe sex that can happen where one party is there to be ‘fucked’ and the other is there for the pleasure.
I know there is a growing population of heterosexual men whose standard for ‘good sex’ is if the woman reaches an orgasm. I just don’t know if this is a genuine move to focus on the woman’s pleasure (thus making the sex safer for women) or if it’s an ego boost to say you made someone cum.
One of the many benefits of the various feminist waves we have seen, is the sexual revolution and women’s reclamation of their sexuality. Many women, especially in the black South African context, are only now finding the voice and courage to express what they like and do not like done to them and with them during sex. I see this as a very important step in making sex safe. However, this does mean the women who have not come into that power are not having safe sex.
Because sex is a pleasure-based experience and deeply personal to each individual, being able to articulate and communicate exactly what you want is of utmost importance. Anyone who is unable to communicate this or has not created a space for their partner to be able to communicate this is not engaging in safe sex.
There are no generally applicable rules for sex besides consent therefore, it is hard to piece together a comprehensive list of the things that do or can make sex unsafe. I would say as a general rule of thumb, if you are constantly left with negative feelings about yourself or the sex itself after the act, then you are most likely not having safe sex.
My intentions here are not to indict anyone or construct villains and victims. I concede that sex is an extremely complicated subject matter and it takes a while for people to understand themselves, their partner and the kind of sex they want. It would not be fair to blame people for not knowing what they want or not speaking up for themselves when they are still on a journey of discovering their sexual self. However, this is an important conversation to start in getting age-appropriate society to really contend with what safe sex actually is.
