Why did I only make the decision to use a condom every time about six months ago? Surely there can be no excuse, with the amount of information I've been exposed to as a fairly prominent "Bi activist"? But I'm going to make my excuses anyway - because I know that there are other people out there like me.

I remember my first exposure to the idea of safer sex. It was 1986, and although I'd read about a 'gay plague' dismissed most of it as tabloid hysteria. Then a gay man I knew proudly showed me a safety pin in his lapel "This means I'm only into safer sex", he said, and when I looked fairly baffled, he explained what he meant. The idea of using a condom for anal sex was totally new to me, but I was pleased for him. After all, his promiscuity was legendary, and I worried that he might be at risk; all the advice I was aware of at that time concentrated on reducing your number of sexual partners.

I don't think I'm naive or stupid. I have never had sex without some form of contraception. After all, the risk of getting pregnant was a very real one to me: I had seen it happen to too many friends at school and I was determined not to be one of them. I prided myself on my decision to go on the pill while still at school. I knew enough to know that boys were not to be relied on, and so when AIDS arrived I had never had to use a condom. And because I wasn't the kind of girl that said "What kind of a girl do you think I am?" I hadn't had too much practice in saying no either. The early anti-Aids advice sounded like familiar moralistic sounding off; my Catholic upbringing had given me plenty of practice in ignoring that sort of thing. And that is what I did.

For a long time the only sex positive advice I encountered was through the gay community. I remember the first Terrence Higgins Trust leaflets and how shocking they were, even in the gay clubs where they littered every table. By that time I was quite prepared to live up to my role as a fag hag and lecture gay men on the use of condoms, even though I had still never used one myself. After all I was living with a straight man. I was his first woman, and on the pill to boot. To insist on condoms would be to doubt his word.

Over the next few years I must have used every excuse in the book. My next lover also claimed to be a virgin (and from the evidence, I believed him) and condoms "put him off". The next man claimed to be too big (!) and in any case we had already fallen into bed in an uncontrollable passion and condoms were the last thing on my mind, even if there had been a late night garage. It's not often appreciated how difficult it is to mention safer sex as an afterthought; but safer sex is not like a diet (fortunately!), or a New Year's resolution - one lapse doesn't stop it being valuable.

That relationship lasted a couple of years, during which we gradually became more aware. He was bisexual, but hadn't yet slept with another man; when he did, we dutifully promised to use safer sex with other partners. With both of us that ended up meaning that we stuck to oral sex. He was naturally nervous of anal sex, and being nervous about condoms as well meant that it just didn't happen (to my knowledge). I had never felt inclined to go down on a woman during her period, and in any case I had never heard of dental dams. Everything seemed rosy.

I have to say at this point that restricting your sexual practices is a valid form of safer sex. Many men (I suspect more that gay porn would have us believe) aren't particularly into anal sex. Many women avoid penetration, and an informed decision to carry on with oral sex is currently reckoned to be pretty safe. The crucial word is "informed". And we were far from that. We had been let down by the available information and the tone in which it was couched. We were left just afraid enough of Aids to limit our options, but not comfortable enough to talk about what we were doing with potential and actual partners (or even admit it fully to ourselves) . We weren't certain enough that we were "at risk" to seek further information. In short, like a lot of people, we were stuck horribly in the middle.

With my next partner I was more aware, but we still followed the policy of sticking to safer sex outside of that relationship, which we considered to be primary for us. Neither of us can remember what our original excuse was not to use a condom, but I do remember asking for some at the family planning clinic when I went to get my pills and being given a lecture on how safe the pill was - so why did I want condoms? Things have changed a lot for me, but the clinic have remained as uncooperative as ever. The only difference is that now I'm confident enough to insist

I learnt to use condoms gradually. For me the most effective way was to announce to anyone I was remotely likely to get off with that I only used safer sex and to stock up on a wide variety. That way I had my own ideals to live up to by the time it happened - and of course I found it much less of an ordeal than I was expecting. I even enjoyed myself! (Some- thing that had previously been a problem on my first time with anyone

Finally it was when a friend got pregnant that I realised that the option of keeping safer sex outside my primary relationship was a dangerous one, but I would never have been able to respond to this if it hadn't been for getting to like condoms beforehand. It is not distrustful of your partner to admit that condoms do break or that even the most well-educated of us have been known to lapse. More vitally, using safer sex with everyone means that you are in charge of the risks you take. I had no idea how liberating that would be until I tried it.

There are problems within the bi movement around safer sex (just as there are every- where else). We often talk about "safer sex every time" and it is easy to sound moralistic. From experience as an activist that wasn't living up to this ideal I can say that the guilt tripping did nothing to encourage me. Neither does it help when we forget people who have been raped, want to become pregnant, are still getting used to condoms or have been put off safer sex for any other reason. This article is not just a personal confession. It's an attempt to say that if we stop asking "Why do these irresponsible other people not use a condom?" and ask "What stopped me using them?" we may get closer to an answer.

Last updated 16th November 1996

Last updated 4th March 2000