Hi, I’m Barbie — your host here at Safersex.  The most important facet of safe sex entails blocking the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s).  Several methods serve to both protect against STD’s as well as act as a contraceptive.  A salient example within this class is the condom.  Conversely, some contraceptive methods do nothing when it comes to protection against STD’s — an example here is the pill.  Yet other forms of prevention against STD’s have nothing to do with avoiding pregnancy — dental dams are a good example here.  The main point is that not all contraceptives serve to protect you against STD’s.  Furthermore, various contraceptives have different risks associated with them.  This begs the question if you are using a safe contraceptive.

Many couples use condoms as their preferred safe contraceptive, and after billions of uses condoms have proven to be both an effective and safe contraceptive.  The downside to condoms is that many men feel that they serve to diminish the sexual experience.  A plethora of women rely upon birth control pills to prevent pregnancy.  As indicated, the pill provides no protection whatsoever from the spread of STD’s.  Although the pill is considered to be generally safe, many experience various side effects — and in conjunction with other behaviors (including smoking) the pill can present additional risks.

A new class of vaginal ring contraceptives have been introduced, and initial clinical studies have shown them to be a safe contraceptive, but some claim otherwise.  Many women are waiting until more data is available before trying these new options which include the popular NuvaRing.  Some women prefer to use a diaphragm, and they have proven safe although some studies have shown they are only 85% effective.  A positive point about diaphragms is that they do provided a limited degree of protection against transmission of the HIV virus.

The most important thing to remember is that even if you are on the pill, you still need to take other precautions to ensure safe sex.  A safe contraceptive does not translate to safety from STD’s.  If any of you have other questions, feel free to ask.

Keeping safe as always,

Barbie

Hi all,

I just wanted to answer a quick question sent in to me by one of our readers.  I previously posted about my initial foray into the wholesale condom world, and I described my purchase from Condomman.com.  One of our readers desired to know the best place to buy condoms online on a retail scale.  Not everyone needs to buy hundreds of condoms at a time, and many people are not comfortable buying them within a brick and mortar retail setting.  For them, there is Undercovercondoms.com.  Undercovercondoms has a wide selection, and they sell in small retail order quantities.  Their prices are competitive, and I have never heard a complaint about their products or service.  So our recommendation is to use Condomman for large orders and Undercovercondoms for retail condom purchases.

So I’d like to share a small story from our club’s last get together.  For those who haven’t read my postings on safersex in the past, my husband (Tom) and I now manage an “open lifestyle” club here in our mid-sized Midwestern city.  We hosted our first “soiree” recently, and the consensus was that our first effort was one of the best get togethers in the club’s nearly 4 year’s of existence.  Over 60 couples attended, and we had rooms catering to all (legal) tastes.  Seeing this was our first time hosting an event, we wanted to create one room which was especially over the top.  After much discussion between Tom and I, we decided to go with his selection of a Jello Wrestling room — part of the core of every man’s fantasy.

Suffice to say, this idea was easier said than done.  Creating huge batches of Jello (actually the off brand gelatin, using actual Jello would cost a fortune!!) is not an easy task. After much effort, we were quite proud of the fruits of our efforts, and our guests were quite impressed.  Unfortunately, I was unable to initially foresee that I would be nominated (or drafted!) to be among the first participants in this sticky event.  If I would have known that, then I probably would have killed the idea in its tracks.  But I have to admit, I actually did have fun.  I’m a prissy little blonde and hardly a wrestling type, but that didn’t prove to be an issue.  The action which ensued resembled love much more than it did war, and Tom said I have never looked sexier as I did covered in sticky red Jello.

Gotta go for now.. love ya,

Barbie

Hi all, just wanted to make a quick post about wholesale condoms. Condoms aren’t ordinarily a focus of event planning, but when hosting relatively large “lifestyle” events it becomes necessary to seek out the best price in order not to blow the entire budget. Safety is the main priority at our club’s events, and a key obvious requisite element to facilitate safe sex is an abundance of condoms. So where does one look when needing to order wholesale volumes of condoms? Unless you’ve formerly managed a drugstore or convenience store, you’re probably like me and didn’t have a clue. However, with the power of the Internet today, all information is now at one’s fingertips. My first exploration led me to Amazon.com where there were several attractively priced bulk condom packages offered by several wholesalers. However, upon further search I stumbled upon several better solutions.

One site that caught my eye was the aptly named Discountcondomking.com. This site featured several quality brands at just under a 20 cent per condom price point. I was about to place an order on this site, but decided to search further. I finally ended up on Condomman, and I was very impressed at their range of selection. I also felt confident that I would receive quality product seeing my due diligence showed they supply a large list of hospitals, clinics and educational institutions. I purchased 250 Durex Extra Sensitive, 100 Okamoto Beyond Seven, and 300 Trojan Naturalambs. The total was quite reasonable, and they shipped right away arriving in two days. I must give a shout out to Condomman who for us is now the king of wholesale condoms.

Keeping it safe for safersex,

Barbie