Dear Carol,

In spite of all the changes in AIDS awareness and treatment, I am still doing my best to practice only safer sex. I'm cool with my condom knowledge, and I've dumped all my lubes with nonoxynol-9 since hearing that it can be more harmful than helpful. But I remain confused about the contradictory info about plastic wrap (using it for going down and rimming). The question boils down to -- microwaveable or no? I've heard (if I understand this correctly) that the microwaveable kind has pores and so it isn't really safe. Can you give me your thoughts on this?
-- Nuke-able or No?

Dear NoN,

First, congratulations on your resolve. Many people have begun to act like HIV "is soooo 20th century" -- doing safer sex education (much less having safer sex) has become more challenging than ever. And good for you for working to stay informed. Good Vibrations got rid of our nonoxynol-9 products many years ago, after it became evident that the germicide was also a pretty strong mucosal irritant. So much of our safer sex knowledge gets disseminated on a grassroots, word-of-mouth basis that it's no surprise that good information as well as confusion is spread.

Plastic wrap, as you know, is used in lieu of a dental dam -- that often too-small piece of latex that someone once likened to "holding a hanky over a hot springs." Any concern over contracting HIV (or other sexually transmitted bugs) through cunnilingus and oral-anal play can be alleviated by using either the dam or a sheet of plastic wrap. Plastic wrap has the added advantage that you can see through it and, well, let's be frank, aim with some accuracy at your target. Its greater-than-dental-dam size means you don't have to spend quite as much energy wrangling it into place and keeping it there, and a great trick is to put the end of a long sheet of it below your lick-ee's butt, which will hold it securely while you lick and do other fun things with your hands. (Plus it comes in different designer colors these days, very festive; it's clingy; and you can use it for bondage and other fun things.) As with dams, you can increase the sensitivity of the lick-ee by putting some lube against the skin -- the lube helps the plastic cling even better, and instead of dry plastic against her or his skin, your partner gets a sexy, slippery feel.

But you know all that. What about your choice of plastic wrap? The biggest issue here is not in fact whether the brand you choose is microwaveable (I'll get to that in a second), but rather whether it is a tough and hardy brand or a flimsy, easily rippable one. Off-brand plastic wraps can tear rather easily, and a sheet of wrap with a big hole in it is clearly inferior to an intact sheet, even one with microscopic pores.

Now, using plastic wrap for this sort of thing is clearly "off-label," meaning that the folks who manufacture it are not, as a rule, thinking about oral-genital contact. In turn, this means that the people who help us wrap our leftovers are not trotting off to the Food and Drug Administration to get a conclusive OK on the sexual use and efficacy of their products. In the past several years, the FDA has turned its attention to at least one brand of oral barrier, the Lollye (aka Glyde) dam. As such, the FDA does have standards about oral barriers: "Barrier products provide protection from various routes of disease transmission. FDA recognizes that the safety and effectiveness of barrier devices for oral sex present the same issues as barriers for other applications, i.e., biocompatibility, barrier integrity and device placement."

That's all good (and if the FDA were looking at such uses for the regular plastic wrap we buy at the supermarket, doubtless the under-the-butt placement strategy would meet with great approval). But the off-label nature of plastic wrap as safer sex tool means that we have less information about it than we could use.

Here's where I weigh in. It's correct that microwaveable plastic is designed to be heated and to let steam pass through its pores, which is where it got its bad safer sex rap. In this it resembles lambskin condoms, in a way, which have not been recommended for safer sex use even though there may be situations where using a skin condom beats using no condom at all. But microwaveable wrap becomes porous as temperatures rise. Unless your tongue work gets your honey way up into the mercury (literally, not just metaphorically), you're not at greatly elevated risk.

Additionally, while the body fluids you may encounter doing oral sex can contain HIV, there is statistically a lower transmission risk from even unprotected oral play than from the transmission methods associated with intercourse. This is not to say oral play is risk-free -- if nothing else, it is easier to get or pass some other STD pathogens this way (such as gonorrhea) than it is to transmit HIV. There are certainly good reasons to use that plastic wrap apart from its usefulness as a bondage toy.

If you're still concerned, the Glyde dam, which Good Vibrations carries, has several advantages (beyond its FDA-conferred specialness) over ordinary dental dams. It's thinner and larger -- so sensation travels through it better, especially if you do the lube trick mentioned above, and it's easier to hold in place. It's latex, which has a nice silky feel. Even thinner, and in convenient sterile, individually wrapped foils are Good Vibes' very own design, Slicks. The Sensate Latex Hot Pants are also silky and thin, with the additional plus that you wear them like a regular panty, so the "device placement" issue, so dear to the wonks at the FDA, is a done deal. You might also want to look at Violet Blue's Ultimate Guide to Cunnilingus -- since you care enough to accessorize, you obviously want to do your very best!