The
Playboy
Advisor
When is a woman most fertile? My girlfriend makes me wear a condom when we have sex, but she can't possibly be able to get pregnant every day of the month.
- -- T.R., Los Angeles, California
According to a study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine," a woman has a window of about six days during her monthly menstrual cycle when she can be impregnated. Her hot zone is the day of ovulation, during which one of her ovaries releases an egg into one of her fallopian tubes to hook up with any available sperm. Your girlfriend's remaining fertile days occur during the week or so before ovulation, and in some cases a day after. That doesn't leave much room for error if you want unprotected sex without the possibility of pregnancy, especially because calculating when ovulation occurs can be tricky. Keep your condom on and leave the body temperature charts, hormone tests and guesswork to couples who are ready for the miracle of life. What you're looking for used to be called the rhythm method. It was very successful -- at making babies.
I am engaged to a wonderful man. The problem is that nearly every time he spots an attractive woman, he cranes for a better view. He stops midsentence to stare, which makes me feel unattractive. What's your take? Am I being oversensitive, or is he being boorish?
- -- F.A., New York, New York.
He's being boorish, and you can tell him we said so. We'll never condemn a guy for recognizing and soaking up the aura of a beautiful woman, even when he's already with one. But this sounds like a simple matter of manners. When his partner is talking, a gentleman listens. And no matter how gorgeous a female passerby may be, he doesn't crane his neck for anyone.
All reasonable questions--from fashion, food and drink, stereo and sports cars to
dating problems, taste and etiquette--will be answered personally by the Advisor.
Before you write, please review the Frequently Asked
Questions, which includes answers to many common sexual questions. The most
provocative, pertinent queries will be presented in the magazine and on this Web
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Illustration by Istvan Banyai
Reprinted from Playboy, April 1996 Copyright © 1996 Playboy Enterprises,
Inc. No part of this article may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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