Hosanna. It's a condom brand designed to make you feel like you're not wearing a condom at all. There have been condoms advertising this for years - "for the most natural feeling," etc. - but this one - this one - is made out of, the advert claims, a technologically advanced latex. This makes it feel like skin and imposes a 'naked' feeling.
Okay. For a start, what exactly is technologically advanced latex? Latex that's had the benefit of a higher level of education? The kind of latex who will fix your iPad's poor battery life while reading xkcd? Latex that does that cool thing Rorschach's mask does throughout Watchmen? The advertising jargon makes a very ambitious claim here, and it doesn't really do itself any favours by doing so, either. It's still latex. The jargon pretty much screams it.
So how does the other claim hold up?
Well, to be totally fair, it kind of works. It doesn't look entirely transparent, like the Deluxe. But it feels sort of OK when covering the penis. And it doesn't feel totally intrusive during sex. While still totally aware that it was there, that may have been a psychological awareness, rather than a tactile one; I almost felt - almost - like I was having sex as nature intended; ergo, I did feel kind of naked. Hey, the rest of me was naked, that probably helped, right?
You may also be happy to know that I did orgasm. Not into the condom, alas; I pulled it off and re-entered
before I worked myself (and her) up to the peak, but at least this didn't put me off too much. In fact, I had a great time.
Nevertheless...
There is something I noticed. The condom was basically clinging to my cock. It was less like a sweet wrapper, and more like somebody had sprayed it on using an aerosol can. That's what it felt like. Hell, that's probably why it felt so natural. There wasn't much more to my cock than was already there! Mind you, it probably works really well as a condom - I'd like to see any sperm making their way out of that bad boy! But I did feel, well, kind of... how would you put it?...
...Choked?
Anyway, I'm weird, as we have established. Would I recommend this one? Yes. It does what it claims on the box and exacts a feeling which is not too far removed from the genuine thing. It is, I hasten to add, not the genuine thing - nothing will ever replicate that - but if you're going to use a condom, why not try this one? It's probably going to be the best you'll get, in terms of the 'natural feeling' thing.
So far, anyway.
Okay, I'll just throw this one out right now. I don't like wearing condoms. I understand their use and I am very appreciative of their existence. They have helped countless people, myself included, indulge in sexual activities while withholding procreation. I even used to take some on holiday with me, just in case anything happened (it didn't). But nevertheless, I've always favoured alternative methods of birth control - if only for the purely selfish reason that my penis, for whatever cause, isn't as sensitive as it otherwise could be while wearing a condom. Then again, whose is, right? But I do like the feeling of being enveloped by the warm, wet, fleshy... uh, flesh. Wrapped in a rubber sheath, that characteristic isn't quite as evident.
That's about four tangents I've gone on before starting the review, then. Fantastic, nothing new there.
Anyway, I was interested - or about as interested as one could be - when Durex offered me the chance to sample some of their summer range of condoms - Deluxe, which is the thinnest ever condom, Featherlite Ultra, which is pretty much the same except it's made from latex, and Real Feel, which not only wins the ILB Award For The Most Forced Rhyme Ever In A Sex-Related Product, but is designed, allegedly, to feel technically like skin and therefore produce a 'naked feeling'. These, then, are for people like me, who really don't want to put the things on, but have to. Or, to be more accurate, since my girlfriend takes oral contraceptives, don't have to.
Let's start with Deluxe.
This is a condom that appears to be designed for people that secretly really want to have babies. It's the thinnest ever condom and makes a big deal of it. And, fair play to them, they have created an extremely thin condom. The packaging, especially, is a masterstroke of planning - insofar as planning of a package for condoms could be considered a masterstroke. It's a box with a crinkly diamond design, containing five individually packed condoms. I say 'packed', rather than 'wrapped', on account of the fact that they come in little carry-cases, as opposed to the traditional square wrappers. The
se are circular, plastic, easy to open, and very, very exciting. In fact, this is probably the best thing that Durex have ever done, condom-wise; it's probably easier and more travel-safe to slip one of these condoms into your bag (or whatever it is that you unprotected youths carry these days) than it is anything else. Yes, it's bigger than a normal condom in a normal condom packet, but it's lighter, easier to access, and classier. This is extremely exciting. Well done, Durex!
Okay, well, now for the product itself.
To be fair, it's a thin condom. Is it the thinnest? Well, probably. I haven't really paid much attention to the thickness of condom walls beforehand, myself. But then again, I can tell that The Beautiful South's album Blue Is The Colour is a thicker CD than most other CDs are, so maybe I have a finer sense of touch than I originally thought. And it's extremely easy to get out of the packet. Plus, it's easy enough to get on (I have to point out here, in all seriousness, that I have a RATHER LARGE PENIS, so it's not always a cakewalk to slip one of these beasts onto my THROBBING TOWER) even without the lube that condoms occasionally come swimming in. And is it practically invisible? Yes, it's transparent. So you can see through it, especially when it's stretched - which is pretty good, actually, it gives a better view of my BLOOD-ENGORGED CANNON - and that's what's advertised, so they're not lying there.
The problem I had is, however, that there was no escaping the fact that I was, indeed, wearing a condom. A very thin condom. A very thin, transparent condom. But I was wearing a condom. And although the sex was good (the sex is always good), something - the familiar warm, wet, fleshy sensation - was missing. Fair enough, until they can invent a condom which can perform osmosis, you're unlikely to get that in any case, but the cold fact is that I didn't manage to come. Maybe that's just me, but it didn't quite... well... work. Having had un-barriered sex not soon afterwards, I knew pretty damn well that I was working, so it couldn't have been me suddenly going off sex for some bizarre reason. Nevertheless...
So would I recommend this condom? No. I'd recommend the incredible packaging, sure. I'd recommend wearing the condom for those of you who want to be able to a) see your penis through the rubber and b) put something on which is about three atoms thick. But at the end of it all, it's just thin. That's all that's special about it. Renée Zellweger is thin, and there's nothing special about her either. Maybe, if you happen to be blessed with an extremely sensitive penis, this might be worth a go. But it's not for me, alas.
More reviews to follow...
These people are amazing.
I've been to Blackpool before - amazingly, by choice. Not so surprisingly, with this group.
I wish I could tell you who this group are. But this is meant to be anonymous. What I can tell you is that we have been through over ten years of mutations, deviations, revolutions, dissolutions and reconstitutions. And through it all, we have remained a group, with a very solid core - the same four people who keep coming back. These four people have held it together when they can, and have often made it their solemn duty to be there, to paper over the cracks when they can. I am one of those four.
And we have had annual socials every year since 2002. Wales, Nottingham, York, Loughborough, Manchester, even Florida... you name it, we've done it.
This was our fourth social in Blackpool. As I stepped out of Farm Boy's car, a wave of nostalgia hit me and my memory lurched back eight years. Our second social. Blackpool 2002. This was a social fraught with sexual tension - although I was somewhat immune. One of our number, who happened to be in a relationship with another of our number (he does that, flicks through partnerships), was umming and aahing about yet another of our number (which all comes back to me - and I'll tell you about that some other time). Throughout the immediate successor, Manchester 2002, I spent a large majority of my time trying to keep his current relationship going. It worked, sort of.
Our third Blackpool social I can easily remember parts of. Blackpool 2006. We held it in two caravans. The "cool" caravan had me in it. The "loser" caravan had Farm Boy in it, along with Syren and a few other miscreants. I shared a bed with a boy with a huge penis (apocryphal, I've never seen it myself) and one of the girls in our caravan was clearly attempting to bed him. It was a fun, and interesting, trip.
But it's our second Blackpool social that really sticks out in my mind. I'll never tell anyone in the group this, not even the other three of the four that form our solid core. It was memorable for me for one reason, and one reason only.
I was only there for three days, and I masturbated twice every day.
I'm not sure on the reason why. I was on some sort of "sexual release is good for you" kick. It also helps that there wasn't anything else to do... Harry Potter 5 had been released the day it started, but I read that all in one go on the coach trip there (6 hours from London; I finished it in 5). There were some Evita CDs that the guy with the massive penis had brought, and James from me, but we'd listened to all of those. Barring the first-night trip to Pizza Hut - which is a tradition - and the sojourn to the Pleasure Beach that we'd planned (although I'd gone by that time), there really wasn't much to do, except chatting.
Not that I'm averse to chatting. I just took a little "me time" every day. Twice. It wasn't really obvious that I'd missed anything (apart from picking up clues that a gay relationship was occurring in our group; it was), and nobody really thought to ask that I'd gone, or where I'd gone, more to the point. I had people to contact on my mobile at the time, so that was the assumed intention of my trips out of the room.
And so that one sticks out in my mind. Friends, chatting, Harry Potter, Evita, James, pizza and daily orgasms. Well, it doesn't get much better than that.
Except this one was better. Without any orgasms. But shush!
The dulcet tones of Adrian Henri drifted out of my computer. Or maybe it was Brian Patten. Or my favourite, Roger McGough. Since the entire two-hour tape of The Mersey Sound was successfully encoded (although I did have to do some tricky conversion to successfully save the first half-hour), it doesn't really matter which. A freshly purchased big-to-small jack jutted out of each side of my green guitar cable, connecting my dictaphone to my trusty old laptop. My guitar lay aside, music books piled on the floor. TD was sitting on the sofa, studiously taking notes and looking very attractive as she did so. And I was paying attention to the computer, half an eye on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, another half on the emerging waveform on the screen. The other eye was trained on the girl next to me. She turned, and we exchanged smiles.
Suddenly, an unexpected rush of longing. I felt it too. I steadied myself to catch her as she threw herself at me. Swift, decisive, definite. I ran ym hands over her curves, like a sculptor's hands on soft wax. Henri was waxing lyrical with his flowing words. Even my penis was waxing, the familiar feeling as I saw her kecks sliding down her legs sending blood rushing through my body, making the shaft twitch and grow.
"Please..." she whispered. "Please..."
She reclined, her back on the sofa, legs in the air. It had been long, very long; work and bad timing had kept us apart. At that moment I was hit by the realisation. We had been doing nothing but enjoying each other's company. Encoding The Mersey Sound. Snuggling on the sofa in my studio. Reading books, holding hands, planning food. It was all a way of compensating for our weeks of loneliness, listlessness and longing. Sharing our time. Our space. Expressing our love, our desires. Well, this was one more way of doing that. Just one more.
She tumbled forwards, deftly flopping over onto all fours. She was still very wet; I could tell. Well, as I surmised, we were alone in the house. My studio is on the attic floor, so we were away from everything else. And we certainly had all the time in the world for this.
Adrian Henri carried on talking. His soft voice mixed with the happy oohs of TD as I entered her deeply from behind, and my joyful yells as I felt my own enjoyment build up...
...and even without Henri, it surely would have been a kind of poetry, in as of itself.
I went to work yesterday feeling like I really needed to have sex. Granted, that was entirely my fault; I had a sneaky watch of soft porn before I'd left for work, but the feeling hadn't dissipated when I left the house. It hadn't even gone by the time I got on the train. I wasn't turned on so much when I eventually got to work (and a good thing that is, too; turning up with a huge erect cock may have got me slightly into trouble...), but the background noise was still there, like an echo that had yet to recede.
It didn't bother me so much until I reached my first break. This was half an hour, give or take, and although my bad angel was clearly goading me ("Go on, ILB, have a wank in the staff toilers, you've done it before, as long as you're not hurting anyone..."), my good angel - the one that usually speaks with my voice - took precedence ("That's stupid. You'll feel like a prat, you'll be ashamed of yourself, and you'll be flushed, so your colleagues will ask if you're running a temperature or something.") and I quickly dismissed the idea of relieving myself of my horniness.
Alas, the through of masturbation - especially in an accessible place - had somewhat brought back indecent thoughts, coupled with flashes of soft porn scenes I know well. I shrugged it off with great effort and returned to my work.
And eventually came my lunch break.
At this point, fate was really conspiring against me. Not only was I once more free of things to do, I had a while hour in which to do them, nobody would care if I were back late, and while eating my lunch (which included chocolate), I was reading an uncorrected proof copy of Losing It, which is a collection of stories about first-time sex. Damn you, world!
"Well, look who's come crawling back,|" cackled my bad angel as I entered the staff toilet. In my defence, I genuinely needed to use the toilet, but we all knew what was going to happen. Up came the flashes, again, this time recollections of sex that I'd actually had myself (ref: the last two years; sub ref: last week; location: my bed; position: astride). And that's not the only thing that came up. I was sitting there with an erection and the way ahead was clear. So I ignored it until it went away and then continued having my break.
Yes, really.
It was the most difficult thing I've done since GCSE Maths. But I went back to work and finished off the day nicely, without and sort of painful internal struggle. I am awesome.
Then I had a really nice orgasm when I got home.
Hate sports as I do, I am loath to use the following analogy, but I've always batted for team "Good" of the (ficticious, in my humble opinion) good/evil divide. I've always been good, since before childbirth. I was about a week late because I didn't want to cause my mother too much pain - that's how good I am.
Unaccustomed as I am to deeds which are not saintly and benign (although occasionally I am a little mischeivous), evil deeds - I have discovered - are a lot more fun. Yes, they're not my thing, but I think that - as long as one reverts to being good - the occasional evil deed can be refreshing for the soul. Think a good guy going bad for a while, like all the heroes in Blackest Night. That sort of thing.
Take today, for example. My lovely, long-suffering girlfriend - who is feeling quite unwell - was faced with the miserable prospect of having to spend a day in the company of my mother. I'm not even entirely sure my father could do that, so the drinking girl had no chance. And I sure as hell wasn't going to put her through that. So - we devised an intricate web of lies (that's right, lies) in order to spare her from suffering this terrible fate. Alas, due to our devising of this thoroughly evil and really rather clever plan, we have to be apart this weekend, which puts me at a disadvantage, because I can't see her, and I miss her so.
Which, you know, proves that evil doesn't really work. Or even if it does, it has its bad consequences. Nevertheless, our dastardly little plan worked, and therefore you may excuse me while I try something I rarely ever get a chance to do...
*ahem*
Mua.
Muahaha.
Muahahahaha!
Muahahahaha!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
[As ever, names may or may not have been changed.]
Lights up on the staff room at ILB's work. Everyone is tired.
Alex: Has anyone got any more dirty jokes?
Enter Hannah, a girl of uncertain roots. She sits on the highest chair possible.
Hannah: I've got a true story.
Alex: Is it funny?
Hannah: It is, really.
Alex: Okay, let's hear it!
Everyone turns to look. Hannah recites her tale.
Hannah: Well, there was this guy. He was a doctor at a hospital in London, and he decided to hold a house party for all his friends. It went really well, and everyone was having a good time. But then, towards the end of the party, he started having sex with his girlfriend...
ILB: As you do.
Hannah: ...and, anyway, something caused her...
A more senior member of staff walks in. Everyone goes quiet.
MSMOS: What are you guys talking about?
Alex: Just sharing work-related information.
MSMOS: Okay.
She walks out.
Alex: I'm not sure she believed that...
ILB: Carry on, Hannah?
Hannah resumes her tale.
Hannah: ...Okay, well, something caused her vagina to tighten up, with him still inside her. And he couldn't pull himself out! So, in the end, they called an ambulance, and ended up getting taken to the hospital where he worked, and everyone recognised him!
Alex: What, with him still on top of her?
Lydia, a typical Essex Girl, slides off her chair and does a kind of exaggerated cowboy-step around the room, presumably miming being taken to hospital with a man on top of her.
Lydia: Yeah, this is pretty difficult to do.
Everyone stares.
Lydia: It's a good thing she didn't get lockjaw...
She demonstrates. Everyone else looks uncomfortable.
Sarah: You know, if it were me in that situation, I'd have waited at least a day before calling an ambulance! Just in case a solution presented itself... I can't think of anything worse than being taken to the place where you work in that situation, could you?
ILB chooses to remain silent.
- Katy Perry didn't have sex with Russell Brand on their first date.
- Someone once had sex with somebody who may or may not have been a Russian spy, but she has tits so that's okay.
- One in an inordinately large amount of women suffers from hypersexuality, and this is an illness.
- The News Of The World is shit.
Has anyone watched The Big Bang Theory? It's very good, you should watch it. We watched six episodes last night - back-to-back, illegally via streaming internet video - and there's a scene in Series 3 wherein one of the characters, having been engaged in flagrante delicto with another one of the characters, utters the phrase "you really are a genius!" (implying that he has done something sexually impressive). Geniuses - genii? - can be very good in bed, therefore. I'm a genius, so I should know.
Not that intellectual ability had anything to do with what I did in bed last night. In fact, I'm not sure anything contributed to what I did besides luck. I'd certainly like to be able to do it again, anyway.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we hadn't had sex for a while. I mean, it's probaly not exactly a long time, compared to three years or so, but nevertheless, it had been at least a few days, plus we'd spent a large part of the day together and hardly touched each other by that point. She was also very sleepy. (Officially so was I, actually, but less so.) But when we started kissing, I noticed a spark, very briefly; something brisk in the air, a little taste of unfamiliarity. It was how she tasted the first time we kissed. Something new, something exciting.
I picked it up. I ran with it. This excitement was mine to play with, so I didn't let it out of my hands. I slipped down between her legs and I licked. Repeatedly. Her clit bulged out as an obvious button to press and I pressed it. Getting back into my stride, everything came rushing back to me. I knew just what to do and so I did it. With one finger in her cunt, and one stroking her "other" hole, I pushed my tongue forwards, so the flat was pressing, and surrounding, her clit. That set her orgasm off, and I felt it again - the twisting, shaking, thrusting and the sounds she made. All so familiar, and wonderful to have set off. But there was still something I hadn't quite done. So I moved on.
And so I waited for the signal and I moved, my cock sliding into her. That spark again. This time, with an air of "you've done something right". And I had. I still don't know quite what it was - the angle? The timing? I don't really want to know, in some ways. All I know is that if I could bottle it, I'd be running this town.
Whatever it was, it worked. I moved inside her, propping myself up with my hands so I could look down at her. And her face - her face showed it all. Eyes closed shut, opening periodically in a look of surprise and disbelief. Mouth fully open, breathing and moans both evident. Hair sprawled out behind her. And her whole face was glowing. Yes, glowing. Like some sort of acquired halo hovering around her. Clearly, she was enjoying it. The actions of her body suggested something of a continuous orgasm. Maybe I'd just managed to pick up where the last orgasm left off. It certainly felt that way.
After a while I reached my own peak, and after experiencing my own orgasm, everything slowed down a little... until we stopped. Cue the post-coital acquisition of cold water and afterglow snuggling. Except there wasn't any acquisition of drinks, no matter what kind We were both too spent to do anything. Especially her. I stroked her aftershocking body for a while until she just fell asleep where she was. Naked. Without the duvet drawn over her or anything.
I looked at her. Her face still had a slightly fading glow. Asleep, she looked content. Clearly, I had the knack of this sex thing, after all.
I glanced around for want of something to do. I didn't feel like sleeping, myself. Grabbing a copy of An Inspector Calls from the shelf, I started to read, and thus began the wait for her to wake up.
before I worked myself (and her) up to the peak, but at least this didn't put me off too much. In fact, I had a great time.
