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Jennifer was absent, and I’d agreed to take notes for her, so I did my best. It should have been easy enough, but the subject matter had unexpectedly turned graphic and lurid. At least it pulled my attention away from my worry over Minty’s plans.
“Researchers find condom refusal goes up among a certain subset of gay men despite the current risks associated with HIV and anal sex. Can anyone make a guess as to who this subset is comprised of, and why they refuse condoms?”
A beautiful Indian girl in the front row raised her hand. She answered questions a lot in the class, and I think Donnie had a thing for her because he got greener and gulped hard every time he called on her.
“Yes, ah, Aditi?”
“Committed partners,” she said with a toss of her head.
Donnie looked surprised but nodded. “Correct, and why do you think that is?”
“Intimacy,” she said, her voice going a little high-pitched, like maybe she’d just figured out that she was going to have to talk about sex stuff to respond. “Earlier in the lecture, you said that humans are driven to attain intimacy with each other—emotional, sexual—to promote reproduction.”
Donnie took over from there. “That’s right. Some researchers are arguing it’s instinct, and evolutionarily to our benefit, for the human animal to have unprotected sex that leaves a deposit of semen in the receiving party.”
“But gay men can’t reproduce,” some idiot guy offered with a nasty laugh. “So that’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, it’sinstinct,” Donnie said again. “Instinct is neither smart, nor dumb. It serves a purpose that goes beyond logic.”
“But how does just a little barrier between you and your partner reduce intimacy?” an older student asked. “Surely pleasure is pleasure. And even if our mindcantell the difference, there’s no way we would notice it consciously.”
“We can and do notice it,” Donnie Huggins said. “This is exactly why heterosexual men try to talk their girlfriends into letting them go without a condom—claiming it’ll feel better to them. Is it true? Physically, negligible, but emotionally? Yes. Is it logical? No. Do they do it anyway? Yes. We can surmise that for gay men it’s the same thing.”
“But that’s not true—”
“That’s debatable,” Donnie said, cutting her off.
It was interesting to see him getting some real confidence as he spoke on this subject. I suspected this might be what he was doing his grad school thesis on.
He went on, “Research is beginning to indicate that male bodies and minds are hardwired to perceive penetration of, and ejaculation within, the body of the person we’re engaging with sexually asmorepleasurable,moresatisfying than any other kind of orgasm. In heterosexual relationships, you can see that men prefer to achieve orgasm while fully inside the woman. Withdrawing before climax leaves a sense of a failure to connect, a lack of satisfaction, and a lack of intimacy.”
“That’s what I’ll tell my lady next time we bang. ‘No condom, honey, because I want you to feel my loooooove.’” Guffaws sounded in the room.
Donnie shrugged. “It might sound manipulative, but these illogical urges seem to be backed by some degree of science. But, let me also state that this so-called ‘love’ and ‘sense of intimacy’ ischemical, cooked up by hormones and neurotransmitters. Dopamine and the like. A logical, reasonable,unarousedlove is going to say of course it’s more loving to protect your partner against pregnancy or disease by using a condom. Right? That only makes sense. But that chemical love? It’s driven by another kind of logic—the logic of ‘reproduce at all costs.’ It’s not the smartest kind of logic, of course. It can’t see that a man leaving his semen behind in another man will inevitably fail in the evolutionary directive that’s causing these feelings in the first place. Instinct only knows thatthat’sthe key. He must put his semeninsidesomeone else andleaveit there. Anecdotal evidence implies that instinct rewards us for following those commands by giving stronger, better orgasms and a heightened sense of intimacy, affection, and love.”
“Is thattrue?” one of the women near the back of the room asked.
“Science isn’t about true or false; it’s about theories that are more or less challenged,” Donnie hedged. “These are currently more challenged, but I have the journals in my office, and I’ll be happy to lend them to you for photocopying or reading purposes.” He stood up straighter. “This isnot, however, a license to have unprotected sex. It’s not permission to pressure your girlfriend or boyfriend into it either. It’s simply an explanation of how human beings make choices in the heat of the moment when under the influence of powerful internal chemicals.”
“Bad choices, you mean,” the first guy muttered.
“Bad or good isn’t the prerogative of instinct. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that understanding our instincts might help us have more empathy for choices that we perceive as having risky outcomes—teen pregnancy, HIV. Possibly, by having understanding, we might find more compassion for those who do follow that instinct, and in so doing take on risks that maybe we don’t like or understand. It doesn’t have to be a blame game, folks. People don’tdeservebad consequences for doing something we’re nearly all hardwired to want to do.”
“We’re nearly all hardwired to eat sweet things, but that doesn’t mean we should eat candy all the time,” Jennifer called out.
“And you don’t, do you?” Donnie agreed. “But you do eat sweet things sometimes. And those times are very enjoyable, maybe even more so for not doing it ‘all the time’ as you put it.”
Both Jennifer and the other student hushed.
“But doesn’t HIV change the risk-and-reward balance?” an older student with a gray beard asked. “How does it remain evolutionarily sound to go with an instinct that might expose you to infection?”
“Evolution moves both quick and slow,” Donnie said. “In this case, it’s too slow to alter the instinct of men alive right now today. But, perhaps, if things stay as terrible as they are now—God, let’s hope not—then we might see a change in our sexual instincts in the future.” He shook his head. “But it’s unlikely. Semen deposit is key to human survival. The human animal isalwaysgoing to feel driven to do that.”
“What about women? Do they want that too?”
Donnie smiled. “Good question. Our data is anecdotal for the most part, but many women report that sex is more pleasurable for them when their lover doesn’t withdraw before ejaculation.”
“Aw, hell no, he can just leaveall thatin the condom,” a lady in the back of the room called out. “Who needs that mess?”
