Tue 2 Jan 2007
This guide focuses on the basics of safer sex, and on how to make whatever precautions you choose feel as pleasurable as possible. Safer sex precautions are obviously not necessary when neither you nor your partner(s) have anything you could transmit to each other (and will be completely safe in your interactions with anyone else during the course of your relationship, and when birth control is not an issue, etc.), but in all other cases your peace of mind can be enhanced by making your own choices about safer sex ahead of time and sticking to them.
Please note that safer sex is about dramatic risk reduction against the most serious sexually-transmitted ailments, not complete risk elimination for every possible condition (for example: the virii for cold sores and warts can be spread through unbarriered contact with any infected area, including health-looking skin that a condom would not cover).