Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Travelling and sexual health
If there's any chance of using them, take condoms with you on your travels.
Article by : SpunOut.ie
- Remember that the age of consent for sex may be different in the country you're travelling to. Check here to make sure you're not at anything illegal!
- Be aware that in other cultures, showing a lot of bare skin or snogging your partner in public may be offensive to other people. Always show respect to the customs of the country you visit.
- Remember that alcohol and drugs have a nasty habit of lowering your inhibitions: making you do things (like having sex with a stranger) that you regret later.
- When you're abroad, alcoholic drinks might be stronger than at home and hot weather can also make it easier for you to get drunk. Try to control your drinking and save yourself both the beer goggle syndrome and a vicious hangover in the sun.
- Try to buy a well known brand of condoms such as Durex, Mates or Condomi with a CE mark or BSI kitemark BEFORE you go travelling. Condoms are available in pharmacies, vending machines in nightclubs and pubs, some supermarkets, GUM clinics and often in students unions and health centres.
- Oil based lubricants (like Vaseline, sun cream or after sun lotion) can damage condoms very easily. If you need a lubricant, make sure it's water based.
- If you take the contraceptive pill make sure to bring enough pills to last the entire trip. Also, watch out for the stomach upsets that are common when travelling- these can stop your contraceptive from working. You should use condoms and follow the same advice as for forgetting to take the pill.
- If you have been vomiting within 3 hours of taking the pill, are taking other medication or have diarrhoea then your contraceptive might not work. You should use condoms and follow the same advice as for forgetting to take the pill.
- Find out more about sexual health.
