When you're getting ready for the wedding, the smug marrieds love to come out in droves to warn you that your sex life is about to change in a big way. They're absolutely right. Welcome to freedom.
Freedom from the Trojan Man and his brethren that is. Only an estimated 4 percent of married couples cop to condom usage for birth control after they get hitched. Which begs the question: you're not in high school anymore, so why are you using a high school form of protection?
Condoms, as I've always seen them, are a necessary evil. Necessary to prevent pregnancy, yes, but even more so to prevent disease. They're good for the time period when you're still thinking, "I don't know where you've been."
Marriage frees you from not knowing. Provided you made a good choice (and if you didn't, excuse me, but why are you still married?), you've got someone you trust implicitly. Hopefully you've both been tested and come out clean on the other end. Protection in the wedded bliss phase ceases to be about STDs and starts being about "we don't want a baby."
If you aren't there yet, oh, it's a relief. Maybe even a bigger relief than not having to worry about that first date or the first kiss or the first time you take a good poo while he's in the next room. I wouldn't go back out on the dating scene for anything with this post-pregnancy body, but I especially don't want to go back to the days of wondering "is that a bump on his penis or is he just happy to see me?"
There's nothing like a deep level of trust and understanding, and sex after the wedding gives it up in spades. In 10 years of marriage, there have been a handful of times when the curse of the condom came calling: in between different prescriptions of the pill, for example, or in the months immediately following his vasectomy. In other words, it's only been in the absence of another version of birth control that I found the inconvenience of condoms necessary in our monogamous relationship.
So if you can't get on the pill, you just had your IUD out, or you're still breastfeeding, I understand the condoms. As for the rest of you, I think you're missing out.
Do you bother using condoms?
Image via Paul Keller/Flickr