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Talk about a midnight snack.
Whether it’s a brief hookup or a lifelong partner, safe sex and sexy undergarments are key — especially when they’re combined.
A first for undies, the US Food and Drug Administration has authorized prophylactic panties for oral sexually transmitted infections.
The ultrathin, synthetic, flavored underwear from Lorals prevents your lover from biting off more than they can chew, so to speak, by not leaving you or them with an STI.
“Oral sex is not totally risk-free,” Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the New York Times.
There is an increased need for extensive protection, especially as “teenagers are initiating their first sexual activity with oral sex,” Marrazzo explained. But even for sexually active people of all ages, using protection can “reduce anxiety and increase pleasure.”
Herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis can all be spread via oral sex, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as human papillomavirus, known as HPV — which is one of the most orally transmittable STIs. HPV can be relatively harmless for some; for others, it could lead to a cancer diagnosis of the genitals, cervix, anus, mouth or throat.
Use of dental dams — a thin piece of stretchy rubber that extends over and inside the vagina, held in place by hand — are typically encouraged by doctors for safe oral sex, but are rarely used. Worse still, they’re more costly than condoms, and harder to find. Typically located online or in adult stores, dams can also be DIY’d by cutting up a condom.
“They’re extremely unpopular,” Marrazzo told the Times. “I mean, honestly, could there be anything less sexy than a dental dam?”
Until now, dental dams were the only available and approved method of protection, but Lorals’ FDA authorization might mean safer oral sex doesn’t have to be so cumbersome.
Founded by Melanie Cristol, Lorals makes disposable, latex underwear that prevents “the transmission of bodily fluids, harmful pathogens and sexually transmitted infections,” the brand claims. Sold in both bikini or “shortie” cuts, the panties are as thin as condoms, but taste way better — like vanilla.
Cristol’s idea for a protective, sexy panty was birthed while on her honeymoon in Mexico, with her then-wife in 2014. When she learned that she’d contracted an STI herself, she rold the Times that she struggled to find the right protection options to share with her partner.
“I was just so discouraged,” said Cristol, who was both a corporate lawyer and a sex educator before launching Lorals. “I wanted to feel sexy and confident and use something that was made with my body and actual sex in mind.”
She invented more than 20 rounds of prototypes before landing on the right design.
Lorals is for “people with vulvas,” their website declares. The name, according to Cristol, was inspired by the letter L, which “evokes words like love and lust.” And the tongue-curling motion that produces the L-sound, “feels a little bit like a movement you use” while participating in oral sex.
One happy customer called them “a solution I didn’t know I needed,” according to the Times. Others were impressed with its comfort and stretchability, and that they tasted like “a cookie.”
“I never thought I would feel that again,” one consumer named Shelly confided to the Times. Her partner, Ashton, a cancer survivor, is immuno-compromised, and requires all the added protection available.
Cue: Lorals. Said a more satisfied Shelly, “He was very, like, gung-ho about it when he realized that: ‘Oh, I can do all the things.’ ”