While doomscrolling on TikTok the other day, I landed on a podcast clip of influencer Hallie Batchelder calling condoms an “ick” and saying they “ruin the vibe.” Her video was instantly met with backlash for her backwards comment, and shockingly, Batchelder responded by doubling down. But I don’t just think Batchelder had a bad take in poor taste; I believe she accidentally summed up a bigger dilemma in our dating culture.
It’s not really about condoms. It’s about how we’ve turned intimacy into something that should feel good, but never feel too real.
Batchelder’s logic went something like this: Condoms are gross, the sight of one “kills the mood” and if a guy has one ready, that’s an ick. This line of logic is dangerous because it makes safe sex seem unsexy and preparedness feel promiscuous. In 2025, apparently, being responsible is embarrassing.
It would be easy to write Batchelder off as another misinformed influencer, but that would be dishonest. Her comment struck a nerve because it reflects how a lot of people actually feel about sex. We want it to be spontaneous, like it is in the media that we consume. We hate when it reminds us that we’re humans with bodies and consequences. So, there might be some truth to Batchelder’s claim. While condoms might not ruin the vibe, they might ruin the fantasy.
Maybe the reason we “get the ick” from condoms is because they make things too real. A condom represents intention; in a culture that encourages plausible deniability in relationships, this doesn’t sit well. Everyone wants things to be spur of the moment. No planning, no follow up and no risk of looking like you genuinely cared. Therein lies a strange contradiction — we want sex to feel intimate, but not vulnerable.
Why does it feel easier to hook up with someone than to text them the next morning? Maybe because vulnerability, or admitting we care, feels riskier than the act itself. When someone reaches for a condom, it snaps the illusion. Suddenly, there are boundaries, bodies and consequences. This fear doesn’t stop at intimacy, though. It spills over into how we think about sex and power.
In trying to reclaim sexual power, women have started mirroring the careless behaviors that have historically disempowered them. When it’s cooler to joke about going “raw” than to talk about consent or safety, we confuse indifference with empowerment. It might look like liberation, but it is a form of regression. By downplaying women’s vulnerability and encouraging men to dismiss responsibility, this narrative is undoing years of progress and education pushing for safe sex.
That progress was never guaranteed. We’re suppressing the very best traits we’ve learned, such as sensitivity and awareness of risk, at a time when access to sexual health resources is shrinking rapidly. Condoms shouldn’t be the burden of women alone, but we’re often the ones who pay the price of this ignorance. Across the U.S., safe sex and reproduction programs are critically underfunded. In California alone, $12 million in federal funds were terminated after the state refused to remove references to gender identity in its sex-ed materials. Moreover, under the Title X family-planning programs, millions of dollars in grants have been withheld from clinics serving low‐income people. Family planning centers like Planned Parenthood have become politicized, and abortion, once a constitutional right, is now a geographic privilege. So when platformed influencers mock condoms, it lands in a culture that is failing to both teach and fund safer alternatives.
So maybe getting hung up on some misinformed influencer’s words is an overreaction, or maybe it’s time we recognize how easily misogynistic rhetoric, even when coming from a woman, slips into the mainstream and how dangerous the implications are when it does.
With that being said, Haven, the Shaw Wellness Institute and the Center for Women and Gender Studies all offer free condoms. And realistically, if the condom ruins the vibe, maybe the vibe was never there.
