I’d rather hear about condoms from the Pope than from the Spice Girls

My problem with condoms was always a very different confusion from that which apparently afflicts the Pope. It was simply that I felt sure they would be far too large, like putting a tea cosy on a soft-boiled egg. And so I never used them, to spare the embarrassment. Also, I was never entirely certain they quite fitted in with my romantic illusions about the sexual act, especially not the prophylactics you can buy from vending machines in pub toilets and are advertised as being ‘cheese ’n’ pineapple flavour’ — not really Keats, is it? I know plenty of men who feel likewise, too, and are apt to use any number of excuses when, so to speak, push comes to shove. One girl I once knew told me about a chap she’d become most enamoured of and whom she eventually, after a few drinks, took to her elfin grot. He had no condoms and refused to wear them anyway, telling her: ‘But don’t worry — I cannot ejaculate, for I am a Buddhist.’