THE STEREOTYPES – ‘MEN NEED TO BE IN CONTROL’ (THE CAP)
The cap lies in the vagina. It is a temporarily accommodated guest without eyes or ears. Provided it does its job, it is tolerated, and guests are fine to have around if you feel well. If you are not feeling so well, they are not so fine.
Most doctors are familiar with the issues that a cap brings to the fore for a woman, but the feelings it arouses in the man are less well studied. Men have been heard to use combative phrases to decribe it. T don’t fancy catching my weapon on that’, and ‘What if I knock it into the wrong position?’ For them it is not an unnoticed companion in their private place.
Mr E. is now separated from his wife. Things had been strained for some time. She had asked him to go back to condoms ‘because of the mess’. Later she announced, ‘You can leave them off if you want now.’ Mr E. said he could cope with the cap, but could not understand how hurt he felt when she told him she had been using it for several weeks before she told him. ‘I had hoped it meant we were getting closer’, he said, ‘but that thing [the cap] was worse because I couldn’t see it.’
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