Akash Sama­roo

Be­ing in a re­la­tion­ship with some­one means hav­ing se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions and mak­ing im­por­tant de­ci­sions as a unit. But how many cou­ples have the con­dom con­ver­sa­tion?

“Con­dom ne­go­ti­a­tion is the abil­i­ty for one or both part­ners to talk about and agree on how they pro­tect them­selves dur­ing their ac­tiv­i­ty. It could be use of con­doms, it could be use of pro­phy­lax­es such as in­jecta­bles that women use for hor­mone con­trol, it could be fe­male con­doms, it could be oth­er in­trauter­ine de­vices, but it’s re­al­ly about hav­ing that con­ver­sa­tion with your part­ner and agree­ing on how to pro­tect each oth­er,” ex­plains Som­mer Hunte, the se­nior pro­tec­tion as­sis­tant in com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­tec­tion for the of­fice of the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees.

And ac­cord­ing to Rox­anne Layne, the out­reach co­or­di­na­tor for the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FPATT), it does not have to be a heat­ed de­bate.

“I think the prob­lem is when the con­ver­sa­tion takes place, be­cause the con­ver­sa­tion usu­al­ly takes place at the point of in­ti­ma­cy and that’s not when it should take place, it should re­al­ly be in a more ca­su­al set­ting when you’re out and lim­ing and talk­ing and get­ting to learn about the per­son’s be­hav­iour, not when things are heat­ed and then you’re look­ing to ask, ‘are we us­ing con­doms?’”

Both Layne and Hunte agree this is a vi­tal ear­ly step to “feel out your part­ner” and in that way the po­ten­tial red flags do not man­i­fest in­to gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV).

“When peo­ple think of GBV it’s most­ly about who hit who, and who is get­ting a pro­tec­tion or­der or who killed some­one. But be­ing able to pro­tect your­self in sex­u­al in­ti­ma­cy is a form of agency that should not be tak­en away and if it’s tak­en away, then it is an act of vi­o­lence,” Hunte said.

“And if that per­son wants con­trol over that,” Layne added, “what else would they want con­trol over? So, this is a flag to see if this per­son is the best per­son to get in a re­la­tion­ship with and again that’s why I say to have this con­ver­sa­tion at an ear­ly stage.”

How­ev­er, both women say the con­dom con­ver­sa­tion goes be­yond in­ti­mate part­ners. And there are so­cial and gen­der fac­tors that cre­ate bar­ri­ers to women’s sex­u­al safe­ty and safer sex prac­tis­es.

Chief among them, eco­nom­ics.

“In work­ing with sex work­ers, we learnt they would get paid more for skin-to-skin sex, so to ne­go­ti­ate with their part­ner, we showed them how to put on the con­dom with their mouth so it be­comes a lit­tle more sen­su­al, so peo­ple can en­joy the act of it be­cause they feel that con­dom use is this sto­ic thing but you can make it fun,” Layne told Guardian Me­dia.

Mean­while, Hunte al­so ex­plained that the so­cio-eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion of a per­son plays a se­ri­ous role in this.

“Be­cause if there’s that de­pen­den­cy there on the dom­i­nant part­ner, it re­al­ly ex­ac­er­bates the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and the agency of that per­son to make re­quests in those re­la­tion­ships, and, of course, com­ing from the UN­HCR, we see it a lot with refugees and mi­grants, who, be­cause of their le­gal sta­tus, any­thing they en­gage in re­al­ly has risk at­tached.”

Hunte said the UN­HCR is us­ing these 16 days of ac­tivism against GBV to spread aware­ness.

“We de­cid­ed to do very friend­ly pack­ages with in­for­ma­tion and so­cial me­dia pack­ages to re­al­ly give peo­ple some tips on how to start these con­ver­sa­tions, on the best tim­ing to have them and to give them the tools to en­sure that the agreed up­on out­come is plea­sur­able to both par­ties as much as pos­si­ble.”

Hunte said they are en­gag­ing in con­dom dis­tri­b­u­tions with the sup­port of FPATT, who do­nat­ed the con­doms. They are al­so sup­ple­ment­ing the pack­ages with lu­bri­cants.

“And we are al­so giv­ing in­for­ma­tion on where peo­ple can get these things with­out it be­ing su­per ex­pen­sive or with no cost at­tached. FPATT gives these things away for free be­cause we un­der­stand the im­por­tance of per­sons to pro­tect them­selves with­out a cost at­tached.”

Mean­while, FPATT said they con­duct ed­u­ca­tion ses­sions in the cor­po­rate sec­tor year-round.

“We have the staff en­gage in putting on con­doms, we ask them to show us how they put it on, and some of these things are in­cor­rect, so we give them the tips and the tools, a lot of peo­ple do not know how to open a con­dom, you will not be­lieve.”