Dear Dr. Miro, I’ve insisted on using condoms with my girlfriend but she says she’s allergic to them. Is that even possible? I’m trying to be a responsible man but she’s making it really difficult and accusing me of not trusting her. So far this has resulted in me not getting ANY. I don’t feel like arguing about this and want to be with someone I can have sex with. Sincerely, Have Condoms Will Travel Dear HCWT, Good for you for trying to use condoms! First of all, a responsible grown up man deserves to be with someone who does not accuse him of mistrust when in reality you are doing the most trusting of all things. Your current girlfriend may indeed be “allergic” to something having to do with the condoms. Does she get a rash when using latex gloves or some band-aids? This will be a big indicator as to whether or not she has a latex sensitivity. Latex allergies are a lot more common than most people imagine. If this, indeed, is the problem, you have great options! You could get a Poly-Urethane prophylactic, like the Trojan Supra, which is actually stronger and thinner than latex while transmitting body heat. Or, you could go with a Poly-Isoprene love glove. Both Durex’s Avanti Bare and Lifestyles’ Skyn will meet that choice. These are the newest technology and cost less than other materials. PLUS, they are amazingly soft, stretchy and strong. If your GF’s sensitivity is not latex related, she may be reacting to chemicals and spermicides used in the pre-lubricated condoms, such as Nonoxynol-9. Though a seemingly a good idea, and as the name suggests, spermicides utilize substances that kill sperm. However, this happens due to the bleach like properties, which can...

About a month ago, the video rental and streaming subscription service Netflix announced that it was nearly doubling its charges for its most popular subscription plan from $7.99 a month to $15.98. Upon hearing this news, we all went ballistic. I certainly did. I’ve been a loyal customer for years, and now they want to raise my rates simply because they can? Well, screw you, Netflix! How about I just cancel my membership altogether? Suck on that! This was my initial reaction. Of course with time I learned that the plan wasn’t really changing. I could keep getting the one disc at a time for the same price, or for the same price I could simply go without discs and have unlimited streaming of movies. I just had to pay more if I wanted to keep both. And I never actually signed up for both—I just got the free streaming when they added it for no additional price and soon found myself using it more than the discs I get in the mail. So really, they’ve been giving us something for nothing for a while, and now they just want to start charging for the extra stuff. What I find interesting here is not the story of Netflix or iTunes or the New York Times, or any other Internet content provider that suddenly decides it needs to charge more for its material. What is interesting is how it feels like such a violation to us as consumers—a betrayal of charging more for our basic content consumption necessities. Yes, necessities. Because with most forms of entertainment today, especially entertainment that is regularly fed to us in our homes or on our mobile devices, things have evolved from being exciting frills to our lives to basic...