And tell the guy to hold on to the base of the condom as he pulls out. A recommended "correct use of condoms" procedure.

Honestly kind of mystified by this one. By what possible logic would the ejaculate have gone somewhere else? Get thee to Plan B.

@1 Yeah, I thought this was SOP.

@2: Also confused. A condom presumably filled with semen was bouncing around in your vagina for 12 hours? That seems like about the same as, oh, not having used a condom at all. Plan B ahoy!

He needs a garter!

This is the first time to my knowledge that "This sounds fake" has jumped to my mind before reading the comments. The idea that a woman could pull a condom off with just her muscles is one thing, but that a woman would wait for a response from an advice columnist before using Plan B doesn't sound real.

$40 is a hell of a lot cheaper than an unplanned pregnancy.

Congrats on finishing the book.

Dan, why don't you tell her to get some real birth control? There are many much better options than condoms which, over the long term, are a lot cheaper than relying on Plan B when the condom fails (as they do).

@7 - I wonder whether she added the bit about waiting for Dan's decision to get Plan B to be sure of a response. The rest of it seems more convincing. It's a really annoying issue - have too much fun, and suddenly the evening gets a lot more stressful. I guess female condoms would solve the problem?

Female condom from now on, 'kay? 'Kay.

@11: See the thread on the weekly column for all the reasons other methods can be problematic. Not for everyone, but for some people. Used correctly and carefully, condoms are a good method comparable to a bunch of others. Used averagely, condoms are an average method comparable to a bunch of others.

That said, for her specifically condoms seem to be a terrible fit.

I'm a little tempted to call 'fake' here. I'm not certain, but this sounds a little fishy.

I've broken a condom or two, or had it come off mid-fuck over the years. But every time it has happened, I knew it immediately. It feels totally different on my dick. I can maybe understand if she might not notice. But I'm having a hard time believing that he couldn't feel that the condom had slipped off.

Is it just me? Have any other guys out there had a condom slip off, and not noticed it?

But on the chance that the letter is real... Yeah. If you know you have a super-twat, capable of peeling condoms off dicks on a regular basis, maybe it's time to think about a different, more reliable form of birth control.

Why not tell guys to be realistic and use condoms that actually fit, Dan?

I don't know, y'all, this sounds a bit contrived. This lady has such rock hard Kegels that she can pull the condom off of a man's dick, but yet she isn't in touch enough with herself to reach in there and figure out where the condom is? Her 21 yo boy toy immediately jumps to the conclusion that she DISAPPEARED THE CONDOM in order to STEAL HIS PRECIOUS SPERM? And now she is like "Do I really have to take plan B" as if maybe her vagina had also managed to carefully hold the condom closed and tie a knot in it to prevent leakage...?

But just in case this actually happened, wow. How long have you known that you have the Arnold Schwarzenegger of vaginas, and yet you keep this information to yourself? Improper condom use (or condom-snatching gnomes who live in your cervix) is an STI and pregnancy risk factor. SERIOUSLY switch to female condoms and/or consider another BC method such as an IUD, or at the very least, tell your partners they have got to keep an eye on that condom. You have got to start outsmarting your crafty, muscular vagina in its blatant attempts to get you pregnant.

@16, I have had this exact situation happen, once with a more unbelievable ending. After I pulled out and the condom wasn't on, and after pulling off sheets and pillows to look around the bed, I spent a few minutes with my fingers inside her searching. And still nothing. She felt around too. Nothing. She called me 72 hours later and said it finally descended.

How does this happen? For me, the condom came off mid sex because I was going soft, which was because I was wearing a condom (circular logic, I know). When you are young and going soft mid-pump, it can be embarrasing, so instead of admitting failure, you close your eyes, dream of Taylor Momsen (post-Grinch) and pray you get firm again. Meanwhile pumping with a soft dick will roll the condom off, which will leave you bareback and get you hard again, which will thrust the now "barely hanging on condom" up the vaginal canal.

At the risk of bursting the LW bubble - no she can't pull a condom off a hard guy. She has had a lot of guys go soft mid thrust on her. Not uncommon but not nearly the bragging point she thinks it is.

@21- I disagree. Condoms come off dicks, hard or soft. Especially once pre-cum lubes the thing up so it's sliding on the dick. I like the suggestion above- someone should invent condom garters.
I call BS on the boy-toy's panic crap. If he's so effin concerned about knocking someone up, it's UP TO HIM to maintain the wrapper on his baby-maker. Sheesh. Same goes for all guys. Super-twat or not- keep the thing wrapped, don't go screaming at your partner 'it's all your fault!!!'- be a man. Just one more case of 'birth control is the woman's problem, not mine' attitude, and it ticks me off.

twat

Why any woman would choose to use this hideous-sounding word is a mystery to me.

I agree with Mr Out that TB is going in the wrong direction. But I am having no success at all reconciling this letter with a good follower of the Campsite Rule.

And we really need to restrict the L word and the G word to Wimbledon, where they belong.

If you are a woman and you are sexually active and you do not want to get pregnant, you should be on the Pill or similar. Condoms are good for disease prevention but they are not reliable enough as birth control to be used without a backup method. If you run into repeated problems with condoms like this LW, that applies double.

She should go get two doses of Plan B - one to take right away, and one to save for the next time this happens.

fuck the cute 21 y.o. guy. he should be $40 poorer, not her.

yes, this happens. has happened to me, more than once (more than twice, actually).

the condom was VERY deep inside, because I kept pushing it in deeper without realizing it…basically up against the cervix. I had to get it with my finger - which was hard to do.

I believe the muscles part - I was with someone who had a rowing scholarship - amazingly strong woman, and that was the first time it happened.

and after long enough, no, I can't always tell if there is a condom or not.

whenever it happened, it cost me $40 and was priceless in terms of relief.

That's $120 well spent.

people.

it is up to the guy to CHECK the fucking condom.

@19 I thought Arnold Schwartzeneggar was funny, but I pictured the condom-snatching to the "work work work" song from the "Gnomes" episode of South Park. Oh my.

Go to Planned Parenthood. Ask them for several packages of Plan B. They give them out like candy. You'll be prepared next time. For that matter, if you're going to hook up with strangers and you have this amazing ability to remove condoms without your knowledge, 1) Go on the pill and 2) Pregnancy probably isn't your biggest worry.

Forget your actual risk of pregnancy. You should bite the bullet and buy Plan B because you told the guy that you would.

@12 god you are stupid. Learn to 6th grade math.

A condom can be on and it can be ON. If you just roll it on and go, the pre-come and lube that most condoms come with can be pretty slippery. After the comdom is on, grab your cock, pull it out away from your body, and roll it ALL the rest of the way up to the base. Done like that, I can pretty much guarantee a condom won't come off. In fact sometimes it's even hard to get off when finished.

Like others, I'm not sure this letter is real, but I did wonder how long it would take for people to start shitting on the youngling. If you are doing things correctly, wearing a condom to the best of your ability, trying not get a disease or impregnate your partner, and you have reason to believe your partner is trying to undermine that effort, I think you're entitled to a little freaking out.

@6: Or maybe a staple gun.

VFTDNWTGP, by any chance are you the one who is putting the condom on the guy? Because whoever it is, keeps doing it wrong.

What screams fake to me isn't the stupidity, but the "I've been reading you since the 90s and THIS is what has me stumped." Seriously? She totally just wanted her ten minutes of fame and to brag about her non-kegeled "twat" strength.

How refreshing. I like twat so much better than pussy (which is one syllable too long, sounds like an adjective, and is way too annoyingly feline). And cunt should be reserved for personal insults (likewise dick).

Even so, I can't think of a word for vag that really sounds appealing.

"I had a semen-filled condom in my vagina for 12 hours - should I worry about pregnancy?"

Seriously??

@32
Not bad at math, he only gets laid once a year.

@26: It's worth thinking for a minute about what exactly the circumstances would be in which sperm would be escaping the condom but viruses wouldn't. More like, condoms are the only thing (besides abstinence) that offer protection from STIs. (And given two random people, the chance of being fertile is probably greater than the chance of carrying something like HPV. Plus most people would place pregnancy as a greater worry than something that responds to antibiotics.)

I suspect that all the real world problems that move condoms from good to meh on the "as birth control" front move them from good to meh on the "to prevent STI" front.

Maybe switch to female condoms?

@44 My most germophobic play partner and I tried a female condom this prior Wednesday. It was fine and we'll likely use them again, but there were still several fishing expeditions and readjustements needed.

I've experienced [male] condom slip a few times during long or rough sessions (does this not happen to other people?) but my partners all noticed and fished them out.

And in defense of the LW, some vaginas are sort of long and difficult to reach into on your own. Seriously, he could have helped find it, no?

But LW: jesus, yes, if you don't have an IUD or other method of BC (why are you relying solely on condoms?!?) get the frigging Plan B already. Not getting it immediately adds weight to his accusation that you're looking to get pregnant.

@18: can be hard to find good fitting condoms, unlike gloves or shoes there are no "standard" measuring systems used, even in the same brand different products vary. Studies show this is a big problem BOTH for especially thick cocks and think cocks. Circumference is far more difficult to fit well than length. Guys with really thin cocks are subject to slippage. Guys with thick cocks, although condoms stretch a lot, apparently do get more STIs due to irritation.

Length doesn't matter. Just unroll more or less. Unless you're Jonah Falcon and have a 13.5 incher, which I've heard presents unique problems.

What 21 year old doesn't know to hold the base of the condom as he pulls out?

@46 and don't forget the precome factor. The more lubricating precome inside the condom, the slipperier it gets.

I really don't get the incredulity, here. My data set is almost certainly a lot smaller than the average Savage Love reader's, and I have personally experienced 1) Schwartzenegger-powered vagina, 2) condoms coming off without noticing in the heat of the moment, and 3) people stupid enough to dither about on getting Plan B when it is clearly called for.

I just haven't experienced them all with the same person at the same time, thankfully.

People who are sexually active and not using hormonal birth control (or often forget the pill) should just have plan B in their medicine cabinet for these situations. Especially people who are having a lot of sex outside of a relationship.

To all the people alarmed she is only using condoms: keep in mind that hormonal birth control is not an option for all women, and neither are IUDs.

@42/43: This sounds like sex advice from the Vatican.

Unless I'm reading those posts incorrectly, you're regurgitating false claims from religious zealots.

http://sufficientscruples.com/blog/2006/…

No fertilized eggs is part of the Campsite Rule.

The dithering about getting Plan B does make me side with the guy on this one. The 30-something LW seems ambivalent about pregnancy, given that she relies on condoms as her only contraceptive method despite having a history of condom failure, and then failed to promptly obtain Plan B when there was a clear indication for it.

I agree with all the other posters who have suggested trying female condoms or alternatively, smaller male condoms given that this seems to be a recurring problem.

@52: I'm fully in favor of condoms. I'm also a science geek, so when people do science and math wrong I don't say "well it would be nicer so condoms or the pill will now be considered magical."

For example, one reason I think it's wise for kids to wait for over 18 to have sex is that the risk of pregnancy (if you're straight) is never going to be zero, and that risk is better dealt with from a more mature position, both emotionally and fiscally. I do not, however, suggest acting like all the kids in the US or world will abide by my plans for them to be sensible. Dealing with the real world is one reason I pointed out the difference between theoretical and in practice effectiveness in the weekly column. And here.

If you want to take a crack at it, feel free to explain "Condoms are a poor choice for preventing the exchange of bodily fluids containing sperm, but an outstanding choice for preventing the exchange of bodily fluids containing viruses." They make accidental pregnancy or infection a lot less likely, especially when used perfectly. But there is nothing the wily sperm are doing to escape (earning the odd 'no condoms for birth control' tag here) that viruses can't do too.

this letter writer should get her tubes tied. for realsies.

@42 I don't know why it is that condoms are more effective at preventing AIDS than at preventing pregnancy, but they are. http://www.cdc.gov/condomeffectiveness/l… says: "Epidemiologic studies that are conducted in real-life settings, where one partner is infected with HIV and the other partner is not, demonstrate that the consistent use of latex condoms provides a high degree of protection."

But moreover, condoms are really the ONLY method of preventing STDs that actually works (aside from abstinence) so it makes sense to use them with all non-monogamous partners. For birth control, on the other hand, there are more effective options and those options should be used.

How lovely ! At last the issue of slipping condoms is covered !

Pre-cum makes condoms pretty slippery and they do slip - so in that way, it's not a fake. And yes, it's quite unnoticeable during the last moments of sex, and hard to fish for afterwards.

When that happens, I feel it's on the onus of the guy to drive the girl to the nearest place delivering plan B, to go and buy plan B for her (since the health problems and costs would be for her in case of pregnancy), and it's on the onus of the gal to swallow plan B right in front of the guy (since the child bearing costs would be shared by him in case of successful pregnancy).

And testing for STIs should be done asap if it's a hookup.

Oh noz that poor 21 year old young'un was spermburgled!.

BTW it has nothing to do with your twat strength. Most likely things are getting a bit dry down there and the condom is slipping off because of friction.

@55: "If you want to take a crack at it, feel free to explain "Condoms are a poor choice for preventing the exchange of bodily fluids containing sperm, but an outstanding choice for preventing the exchange of bodily fluids containing viruses."

Condoms are the most effective barrier we have to both, so I don't understand why anyone would bother trying to claim that viruses could "get through" aside from the unprotected anogenital region.

I have a male partner with his favorite brand of very thin, well fitting condoms, and he honestly can't be certain that the condom is still on. When your condoms don't make a noticeable difference in sensations, you often don't notice.

I have a vagina that, when I orgasm, I can yank the condom off.

This combination of facts led to this particular partner being nervous and unhappy about me orgasming while his penis was in my vagina. We've got things figured out a bit more now (and he's got a vasectomy), so he doesn't worry about it, but has been a worry.

And I haven't bothered to tell guys to check for the continued presence of the condom. I guess should. I do tend to have sex with experienced partners (because of my age and preferences), and they tend to check for condom position (or I do, if you aren't), but I shouldn't depend on that.

I am a fertile women who only uses condoms for pregnancy prevention (well, except for the partner with the vasectomy, and I'm very comfortable with that. I need to use condoms absolutely all of the time anyway (for STI protection because I am non-monogamous), so no other method could save money compared to condoms. I and my sex partners are pretty good when it comes to condoms use (we usually catch slippage before the condom comes off, and I'm simply not that worried about Plan B or abortion. Yes, they are not cheap, and abortion is a reasonably major procedure, so I don't want to go through it, but, for me, abortion is my last line of defense against pregnancy. I'm OK with using an imperfect primary method. Stop shaming people for using condoms alone as a birth control method. Yes, there is a not just measurable but also substantial failure rate with condoms, but that doesn't make them inherently stupid to use.

Having tried female condoms, those can end up crunched up at your cervix way easier than a regular condom. Being that the only protection being used here was a condom, the best advice would be to check periodically by both people to make sure it was still intact.
I have been down the road of condoms being the only form of birth control I could use. Hormone pills just made me crazy, and then why bother, because I for sure wasn't going to get laid. Doctors couldn't get an IUD to fit, and the female condom was bad. Being 38, divorced and done having kids the last option was a hysterectomy, not for everyone.
So check the condom, BOTH partners. And have plan B ready.