Female Condoms

Re “A Condom of Her Own--This Is Liberation?” Commentary, Feb. 6:

In her cynical analysis of the reasoning behind the new female condom, Ellen Goodman displays the alarming feminist bigotry that unfortunately has become all too prevalent among many (but not all) women today. To say that the introduction of another form of sexual protection is “one step backward in male responsibility” is absurd and reeks of hypocrisy.

Like any responsible male, I view condoms as necessary for safe sex, despite their inconvenience and the fact that they diminish sexual pleasure considerably for a man. I find Goodman’s contention that it is women who have “taken on the full responsibility for birth control” both offending and absurd to the extreme.

I, like a lot of men, have made a concerted effort to be informed about and sensitive to women’s issues. But it’s difficult to justify that effort in the face of the garbage Goodman is spouting. She criticizes the female condom as a “device that eliminates all male responsibility.” What, then, is a male condom but a device that eliminates all female responsibility?

All that Goodman’s myopic diatribe proves is that a woman can be as much of a chauvinist pig as any man.

ANTONY RICHARDS

North Hollywood