The more time I spend with them, the more I feel that condoms are the worst idea man has ever come up with. And no, it has nothing to do with the “feeling.”

I hate condoms because the little Catholic boy in me gets embarrassed every time I have to buy them. He’s not scared of wasting his seed (Sing it! Every sperm is sacred…), he’s scared of someone knowing about it.

I avoid the subject of “them” as much as possible because “they” embarrass me. When people see condoms, they know exactly what you’re doing. It’s a complete invasion of privacy.

My resident assistant freshman year got so annoyed with my stammering, woebegone way of asking him for free condoms he provided that he said, “Why be embarrassed? You’re getting laid. That’s awesome, you moron.”

But that didn’t make me feel any better. If anything I was even more uncomfortable. (He knew I was having sex…gross.)

Even when I think of my RA’s inspiring words, I still approach the cash register, box of phallus wrappers in hand, and get the same scared, bottom-of-my-stomach nausea. More and more I think this is my body’s physical reaction to the embarrassing-but-true reality that I am feeling judged by the clerk.

You probably don’t think about it too much, but the clerk at your grocery store knows more about you than most people. He or she knows what kind of food you put in your body, your favorite toothpaste, and now your sex life (I can only assume that they also giggle about your KY Warming Liquid as well).

It’s too much to imagine they know all of that. Some of my best friends have no idea.

I will concede that the clerk probably doesn’t care about me personally, but still, with all of the talk about “keeping it in the bedroom,” it does suck. Just imagine their thoughts: “Frozen pizza…peanut butter…box of Trojans? Who’s sleeping with this idiot?”

Terrifying.

The only idea worse would be if the clerk were actually depressed about the situation. What if they saw me there with condoms and thought, “Why am I alone?” That’s the type of thing that puts Woody Allen on a psychiatrist’s couch every week.

I worked at a McDonald’s for nine months and, believe me, we judged people all the time. A person with that expansive double-ass (where the front and back are equal orbs) would get ridiculed for hours after they left. I add in the knowledge of that person’s sex life, and I don’t want to imagine the things we’d have said.

My girlfriend asked me about why condom purchasing made me nervous (as I talked her into buying them instead) and, when I was done telling her, she stared at me for about 30 seconds before calling me an idiot. And she’s right. I shouldn’t be embarrassed about practicing safe sex.

But think about this if you agree with her: The clerk at the grocery store has a tattoo on his neck that says “Maddog.”

If you’re OK with that guy knowing about your plans, then buy up.  Then could I just have a couple?

Patrick Duganz

“Quarantine,” as Dr. David F. Musto, a Yale University drug policy historian, noted in his 1986 article “Quarantine and the Problem of AIDS,” comes from the Italian word for “forty days.” That’s the arbitrary length of time ships coming from supposedly contagious areas used to be held at a distance from port to prevent disease from spreading to the city’s population. It’s an old idea, used back then to evoke a feeling of safety from diseases like leprosy, yellow fever, and cholera. On Friday, Australian Prime Minister John Howard declared it a fit idea for AIDS.

More specifically, he said on Friday that Australia should bar HIV-positive immigrants from entering the country, according to an AP report. Howard said Health Minister Tony Abbott was looking into means of tightening Australia’s HIV-exclusive immigration policy, the report adds. Currently, Australia’s health screening program unconditionally bars immigrants with active or untreated tuberculosis but evaluates HIV-positive applicants on a case-by-case basis.

While an Australian move towards a more HIV-exclusive immigration policy would hardly make it the first nation to bar all HIV-positive people entry — Russia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates all unconditionally ban HIV-positive people from entering their borders — the decision would put them among a small and dwindling group of nations maintaining absolute bans. France and Britain have admitted non-citizens infected with HIV, and Costa Rica, South Africa, and Thailand have all lifted HIV-exclusion policies, according to one 1998 report.

Current U.S. immigration policy, signed into law by President Clinton in 1993, excludes HIV-positive people from entering the country. The U.S. first categorized HIV as a “dangerous contagious disease,” added it to its exclusion list, and began requiring mandatory testing of all applicants for the virus in 1987 under President Reagan.

Unlike President Reagan, AIDS isn’t a subject I would normally discuss. Outside of a few debate rounds in high school when the other side chose to debate U.S. HIV-exclusion policy, I knew little about the topic before I set out writing this post. I’m not an activist on the issue and certainly not an expert. I don’t even know anyone who is HIV positive. Still, I think the issue prompts a more thoughtful, hard look at how we react to incurable, mysterious diseases like leprosy and cholera. Australians are (at least somewhat understandably) scared of AIDS, but in this case, perceived security should not trump the individual value of immigrants in Australia or elsewhere. Australians, give out condoms and research cures. Don’t throw up a wall and pretend the black-plague-at-the-gates will disappear if you hide in your own quarantine.

In The Fray Contributor

How am I supposed to blog when a literary giant has fallen?
The Tart cried. Adam too. As always, Maud has the best links and the soulful brevity.

Jennifer Leblanc

Politicians need to stop acting as if they understand the plight of the working man.

Wednesday, former Sen. John Edwards, currently running for the Democratic presidential nomination, worked a shift as a nurse aide at the Sarah Neuman Nursing Home in Mamaroneck, New York. This publicity opportunity was part of "Work a Day in My Shoes," a program sponsored by the Service Employees International Union.

Some might say, “Wow, Edwards is really trying to understand how it is to be blue collar.” Not me. I’ve worked as a nurse aide in a mental hospital, and I know first hand that one day working in those shoes is easy. It’s the next day, and the day after that, that’s a real pain.

Though it goes without saying: Nursing homes and hospitals of all types are hard places to work.

Take a moment and imagine working with the sick and infirm all day. Imagine a guy with Alzheimer’s who cannot remember his daughter, or a diabetic woman who has lost a leg and is terribly afraid she’ll lose much more. Now imagine seeing this everyday, and people in much worse condition, and not saying “To hell with this.”

Let me tell you this: It’s not easy. You wake up and you think of the people at work — those improving, those not — and you don’t want to do it. But you do anyway because you know how things are, and something makes you want to help (Note: It’s not the pay).

That’s why I can’t stand seeing a politician “working in someone’s shoes.” For them — and their publicist, the media, etc. — it’s a show. When you’re doing it day after day, watching how people are continuously abused by the system, then you understand the situation. And there isn’t one reporter there to ask you about it.

Sen. Edwards is a fine person I am sure. I voted for him and Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and I did it proudly, feeling that he would help the so-called little guy.

Both of my parents work in healthcare. My mom is a nursing home social worker and my dad, until recently, worked as a nurse aide in the same mental hospital I did. I’ve grown up watching the whole system because it’s put food in my stomach.

But not for a minute do I believe Sen. Edwards has clue one how it feels to be in that line of work. Yes, he has worked with insane men (I’m from a state that sent Conrad Burns to the Senate three times), but not in the way I or my dad did.

Frankly, I’m fine with that. I’m not looking for someone to understand how it is to live paycheck to paycheck.

But more importantly, I’m not looking for someone acting like they do.

Patrick Duganz

Once a week I go to the movies. By myself. I'm probably going to do this every week for the rest of my life. I sit where I want, no one finishes my drink, and most important, I get to see whatever I want. For Grindhouse, I was definitely on my own. But for this one, I'm dragging everyone back with me.

I went Saturday night. I was expecting it to sell out, so I bought my tickets online. I also got there early to avoid sitting next to an old-school, genuine "grindhouse" viewer. Neither happened. There were maybe 20 people in the cinema with me. But those 20, like me, cheered and clapped at the end of the second film. The last half hour alone was worth the ticket price.

The first movie is quite campy — half homage, half spoof of B-movies. It's entertaining to see B-movie kings like Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn alongside A-List Bruce Willis. Lost's Naveen Andrews was wonderfully slimy in a Miami-Vice-style suit and British accent. Otherwise, there are lots of zombies, cheap jokes, and a smokin' sex scene interrupted mid-way by a polite apology about a missing reel. Dang.

The second movie has two parts — I don't provide spoilers, so feel free to keep reading. I could care less about the first part — it was just the foundation for the end but with great music. I admit — I was bored. And I was thinking, "I get how this will end, chicks die, yadda yadda." Oh no. Instead, I am going to build a shrine to Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms, and Rosario Dawson.

First I started smiling uncontrollably. Then I was laughing. When it was over, had there been a man sitting beside me, I would've made him my bitch. And liked it.

So I see the headlines about the movie's five-million-dollar, opening-weekend failure and think, huh? But…? Why? Why is Harvey Weinstein apologizing? My God, man, stand by your product. I do agree with him about the length of the movie. Three hours and 12 minutes is quite a stretch. They're toying with the idea of splitting the movies into two showings. My money goes to the second one. Yours should too.

Jennifer Leblanc