Safe Sex Can Be Fun

If only condoms had the appeal of lacy lingerie.

“Who wouldn’t want to wear a condom then?” asks Mary Klein, a sex therapist in Palo Alto and author of “Ask Me Anything: A Sex Therapist Answers the Most Important Questions for the ‘90s” (Simon & Schuster, 1992).

In other cultures, such as France, Klein says people “eroticize condoms and sex play so that condoms aren’t considered some damn thing that needs to be put on. That’s what we need to do [in the U.S.] if we want people to use condoms. People should be expressing themselves like this: ‘I want to have really good sex with you, and it would really turn me on if we used a condom.’ ”

The disease-and-dying approach isn’t working, say Klein and other experts. “What person at, say, 22 thinks about getting sick? Or about dying?” Klein asks. “That’s the great thing about being 22.”

A 1989 study suggests the scare tactics aren’t working. It found that few people used condoms despite fearing AIDS and knowing that a condom reduces the risk.

More recent figures from the National Center for Health Statistics show that more teens are having sex with no contraception.

Six years ago, Steve had unprotected sex with a teen girl. “Nothing scared me,” says Steve, now 24, from Diamond Bar. His worry-free attitude lasted a couple years, until he “finally” acknowledged to himself that he’s gay.

“I entered the gay community, and I was surprised at how educated [it] is about STDs, especially AIDS,” he says. “Thankfully, they don’t try to scare everyone about sex. They teach AIDS like they’d teach cancer. It could be nothing, it could be everything.”

* For information about any sexually transmitted diseases, call the American Social Health Association’s confidential counseling service at (800) 227-8922.

* For a free STD booklet, in English or Spanish, write to “There’s Something You Should Know,” P.O. Box 9132, McLean, VA 22102.