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<\/p>\nI\u2019ve been thinking about condoms a lot lately. I can\u2019t figure out whether or not to use them. I want to prevent pregnancy and heaven knows I don\u2019t want to promote the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but condoms have a tendency to get in the way and create awkwardness and I can\u2019t really figure out a way to wriggle them into situations which arise spontaneously without it looking really weird. And don\u2019t get me started about the pill and how to work that in. But I wonder about my responsibility concerning their use.<\/p>\n
A bit of explanation may be required at this point.<\/p>\n
As writers, we write about sex, in all its variations and levels (you knew that\u2019s what I was talking about, right?). And my dilemma concerns our role in portraying sex. If we knew only sexually well-informed readers read our books, it wouldn\u2019t be so much of an issue\u2014we could write unprotected sex scenes all day long and never give the little love sleeve (or the little love pill) a thought.<\/p>\n
But we can never tell who\u2019s going to end up with our books in their hands. And how many times have you heard someone say they learned about sex from romance novels? It seems entire generations grow up learning more about sexual intimacy from us than from their families. I know for a fact, given that I was just entering adolescence in the eighties, that many of my friends learned about sex from reading romance books. But they learned safe sex: in the eighties, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, it was a political act to incorporate mention of condoms, and they sprouted like dandelions in all levels of romance, and pretty much every other book featuring men and women.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m proud that writers took it upon themselves to bring awareness to the gross lack of information available about AIDS and the dangers of unprotected sex, but this is why I have begun to feel the weight of responsibility for what kind of sexual information readers find between my covers. The<\/i> covers. Of my books.<\/p>\n
*whew*<\/p>\n
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Clearly I need <\/em>this book.<\/em><\/p>\n What is our responsibility concerning awareness now? Because we have a pretty extensive cultural conversation going about AIDS and syphilis and all the other diseases and how to keep from getting them, , as well as how to prevent pregnancy, are we off the hook? Or is that like saying, when the light is no longer shining on Ethiopia, that those people must no longer be starving? After all, there are still many people not engaged in those conversations.<\/p>\n To get some inkling of an answer, first I tried to get a pulse from readers. In online discussions, basically there are two consistent camps: they hate it when an author presents condoms or the pill because it reeks of political correctness. \u201cIt\u2019s so inauthentic,\u201d they say. The other camp is, at least for contemporaries, that not mentioning safe sex at all is irresponsible.<\/p>\n Well, at least we have clear directions. *sigh*<\/p>\n Next I turned to us and reviewed several different recent books of all heat levels to see if I could figure out what our trend is and, granted my test pool is limited, it doesn\u2019t reveal much in terms of an answer, either. An erotic historical mentions condoms (my hat goes off to its writer! That\u2019s some impressive work) but a contemporary doesn\u2019t, and then vice versa. Many sweet romances, who would never have to broach the subject, mention the presence of one before their space break. And then in many romances of all heat levels they don\u2019t exist. No one trend was evident.<\/p>\n OK, so what are they saying in the mainstream media? Although fairly universally panned, one thing 50 Shades of Grey <\/i>is consistently lauded for, and something I ran in to again and again, is its ever-present use of condoms, written into the contract the two main characters sign, and the pill. Consider this article: \u201cResearch suggests that good erotica can be educational and that eroticised depiction of condom use can actually raise the likelihood that someone will practice safe sex in real life.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n This is from Nursing Times<\/i>, of all places; not a magazine generally involved in discussing books or their impact. That\u2019s pretty thought provoking. The fact that any discussion is happening in the media infers we carry some responsibility for educating readers. The implication is that it could be that our mention of a condom is responsible for informing someone about safe sex who wouldn\u2019t otherwise get the information. Is it, therefore, negligent not to do so?<\/p>\n
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