You may have said it yourself, or your partner may have been the one complaining…sex isn't the same when you're using a condom.
Or is it?
New research suggests that
people like sex just fine with or without condoms.
Using data gathered in 2009 for the National Survey of
Sexual Health and Behavior -- Debby Herbenick, a sex researcher at Indiana
University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion -- and her team gathered
information from 1,645 men and women ages 18 to 59 whose most recent sexual
interlude included intercourse.
Nearly 28 percent of men and about 22 percent of women said
they’d used condoms. That's higher than 2008 statistics from the CDC, which
showed about 10 percent of women used condoms as opposed to other birth-control
methods or no contraception at all.
But the best news is that the reports of sexual arousal,
ease of erection, overall pleasure and orgasm weren’t much different for the
people who used condoms from those who didn't.
The study also found that there is a need for better
communication about sexual preferences, in part to make safe sex more
desirable. Most of the respondents used lubricant on the outside of the condom,
when a little lubricant inside the tip can increase pleasure for men.
You can read more about the study on the MSNBC.com website.
