—cedar

Dear cedar,

Indeed, dental dams are hard to find. But there are still several places in most metropolitan areas you can either purchase or obtain free dental dams for safer oral sex with your partner(s) of any gender.

A promising first stop for those seeking dental dams in Gotham may be reproductive health service organizations, such as Planned Parenthood New York City or the New York City Department of Health. Private sellers and businesses specializing in safer sex supplies are also a good option. Babeland, with locations in New York City, sells dental dams for just under two dollars, and also provides confidential online shopping and shipping services. Condomania, which offers a range of dam sizes, and Good Vibrations, which offers a non-latex dental dam option, are good bets for appropriating dental dams online. College students may also want to check with their campus health provider or student health services for getting your hands on dams.

Unlubed or dry condoms can easily be made into good substitutes for dams. With scissors, carefully snip off the elastic band part and tip of the condom and then cut down its length. The resulting rectangular piece of latex (or polyurethane if someone is latex sensitive) is stretchable. If you're in a pinch, you can also use non-microwaveable plastic wrap.

Dental dams are a type of barrier method that protect against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). For women having sex with women, vaginal fluid or blood exchange during oral sex or other sex play has the potential to infect a partner if one of the partners is infected. Keep in mind that dental dams are useful at reducing risk in oral sex performed on a woman (regardless of the gender of the person performing oral sex), and are also useful in oral-anal sexual contact, a.k.a. rimming (again regardless of the gender of giver or receiver).

Dam-finding difficulties likely stem from the well-deserved attention given to condoms' effectiveness at preventing both pregnancy and infection transmission. Also, condoms were designed with sex in mind, while dams were originally created to help dentists focus on a particular part of the mouth during an oral procedure. Condoms are less expensive than dams and that means a lot in the marketplace.

The market and the sexual health industry clearly need to break the "dam" on ready access to these helpful safer sex supplies. In the meantime, the resources above should lead you in the right dam-finding (and using) direction.

Alice

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