The L word

A few summers ago, a friend and I were getting hot and heavy spur of the moment in the backseat of his vintage Cadillac (no seatbelts and at least as roomy as a dorm mattress!). It was nighttime in heavily forested rural North Carolina, so neither of us could see a thing until he opened his door to perform the usual post-coital clean-up, at which point he leapt out of the car and started screaming, “What did you do to my dick, woman?!”

If you’ve never seen a man with a quickly shrinking GREEN erection jumping around, make it a life goal. Hilarious. It turned out that I had simply grabbed a green, sparkly and mint-flavored condom from the random health center assortment in my bag, unbeknownst to both of us because of the utter darkness. He got over it (the sparkles were actually kind of cute, we decided), but after our green sex, he did the least green thing possible: he peeled off the condom and flung it out into the woods. At the time I said nothing, but I like to think I have since reformed into a budding ecosexual. When I started my reformation, I looked at the basic materials for my safe sex routine: partner, contraception and setting.

In terms of a green partner, I didn’t immediately seek a Prius-driving, hemp-wearing vegan (though vegetable-lovers are supposed to have the sweetest sex juices), but my opinion of a potential lover does drop markedly if I have to explain fluorescent bulbs or why we should shower together (to save water, of course). When my partner has been battery-operated and awkward to take through airport security, I’ve found a lot of changes to make. For one, many sex toys are made with PVC softened with phthalates. The former is environmentally costly to produce and dispose of, and the latter has a long list of health risks. Phthalates are in fact banned from children’s toys but not adult toys because they are usually sold as “novelty items” (not intended for actual use) to escape some unfortunate obscenity laws. Solution: buy 100 percent silicone or natural (wood or glass) toys, and if it needs to buzz, find one that’s rechargeable or solar-powered and save some batteries from the landfill. I’ve found Holistic Wisdom (http://www.holisticwisdom.com/) and Earth Erotics (http://www.eartherotics.com/) have nice selections of green gadgets.

I’ve never been big on altering Mother Nature’s cycles, so I decided a long time ago that high-dose hormonal birth control wasn’t for me, and in terms of STD prevention, you can’t beat condoms. It turns out they’re pretty environmentally friendly — ironically, as long as you don’t try to reduce, reuse or recycle them. Latex condoms are biodegradable, but they do it best in a landfill, so no flushing them down a toilet or burying them on a camping trip. And using organic lube can only help the process — I’ve learned to avoid lube with petroleum derivatives in it.

As far as setting goes, it turns out I can save on the heating bill if I set the thermostat lower at night and warm up the room with pre-bedtime shenanigans. I can also save energy and do it in the dark, or by the light of local beeswax candles.

I’ve realized that the sustainability of sex applies to me as well as to the environment. If I take the easiest route to sex and don’t make an effort to have sex that’s good for me — and I don’t just mean safe, I mean good for my mind, body and soul — I’m getting myself into bad habits with potentially lifelong consequences. As with all types of sustainability, however, it can be difficult to be immediately 100 percent sustainable, so I just shoot for as environmentally- (and me-) friendly as possible.