In the spirit of the new year, I have a confession and a resolution to make. It’s time to come clean and be clean.

Meet Dirty Jersey, my friend-turned-lover and partner in crime on our mutually assured path to destruction, disease, pregnancy or all of the above. That’s right, I’m the queen of stupid decisions regarding condom usage. I really have no excuse except for the one glaringly obvious reason: the really attractive guy who was lying naked in bed next to me who I was crazy about.

From the moment we started hooking up, I wanted to have sex with Dirty Jersey so badly, it took all of my willpower to take things at a reasonable pace. One night, finally, we were about to have sex when I realized he wasn’t wearing a condom. Dirty Jersey was literally about to enter me when I arched my hips back and asked if he was forgetting something. He looked confused, as if he didn’t have an entire Costco-sized box of condoms under his sink just in case, and slapped one on and kept going like nothing was wrong. Since that night, despite his protests, I insisted on a condom every time like I knew I should.

Somewhere during the next five or six times we had sex, my resolve dissolved. I went from being adamant about using protection, to making Dirty Jersey pull out to get a condom, to finally staying quiet about it. Part of me hoped that he would catch on to my desire to use a condom, but he never did. To be perfectly honest, it felt amazing without it and it was just as much my fault as it was his. Unfortunately, even in blissed out post-coital moments, I couldn’t help feeling that what we were doing was wrong. That little voice inside my head was screaming at me about how a visit to Planned Parenthood was right around the corner.

Gazing up into the face of my best-friend-turned-lover, it was hard not to trust he was telling the truth about being clean. And, honestly, I would get so wrapped up in the moment and in wanting him, that condom usage wasn’t exactly always at the forefront of my thoughts. It was really hard to stop what we were doing to get a condom when my thought process was Please. Fuck. Me. Now. Uttering a coherent, “Um, maybe we should use a condom because I really don’t want to have your children,” didn’t really seem possible in the moment.

I may be guilty of condom-use abuse in the past, but now, I am most definitely reformed. It also helps that I’m not dating Dirty Jersey anymore. My carelessness would not have been worth it if I had caught something from him or gotten knocked up, regardless of how cute I thought he was at the time.

From now on I really don’t want my attraction to someone to get in the way of using a condom, even if they are so incredibly hot and we magically fall naked into bed together. It’s just not worth it.

So, I resolve to not get so caught up in the moment that my good judgment gets left on the floor with my clothes.