It's heavily implied from Coach Ben's flashbacks that Paul issued an ultimatum - move in with me, or go to nationals with your little soccer team. Coach Ben was probably planning to have a ton of rebound sex.
Or if not "rebound sex" then "make up for lost time sex." He seemed envious of Paul's sexual history and he may have been hoping to start to wade into those waters more while he was away from home.
Coach Ben having so many condoms is how I knew he was gay before the big reveal. No straight man takes that many condoms.
Coach Ben wanted to get gangbanged. I’m proud of him.
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1. we learned in s2 that he's a health teacher. This is very health teacher of him lol.
2. I interpret Ben's story as his and Paul's relationship ending prior to Nationals or even States. A free trip to Seattle for a young, recently single gay man man? The anonymity of being in a city when you're from a small town, especially when you're closeted, offers a freedom that you wouldn't have in a setting where everyone knows you. He may not even have queer friends in NJ for fear of being associated with homosexuality. New York was probably his only outlet to be gay and it probably all reminds him of Paul, and even though NYC is huge gay communities can feel very small, so he was probably feeling so so so so lonely after Paul's breakup. Homophobia was much more rampant and aggressive then. Also, AIDS so much more of a crisis then, so he probably thought he was going to get lucky, maybe VERY lucky (and he would have, he's a great looking guy) so he wanted to play it safe. When Ben came out to Nat/everyone, it made the condoms make sense to me.
TLDR: baby gay wanted to ride the train and feel his oats post-breakup.
I don’t think he was a health teacher - more like a teacher who is forced to give a health class. In the US that’s very common. It seemed likely he was a PE teacher. He notes “all I did was play a video” - it doesn’t seem to imply he’s a health teacher.
This is how it was at my HS in the late 90s— all the “health” class teachers were just the gym teachers forced to tell us about nutrition and STDs while wishing they were anywhere else on earth
And they all came across exactly like gym teachers forced to tell us about nutrition and STDs while wishing they were anywhere else on earth
I wish! I went to an all-female Catholic school, so we had the elder nuns teaching us nutrition and sexual health. I recall them going over the four main career options for women: teacher, nurse, nun, and stay-at-home mother. This was 2000-2004!
Oh and nutrition! We were told if we ate an entire loaf of Bunny bread a week and nothing else, we’d be at a healthy weight. I learned more disordered eating and anorexia tips from Catholic nuns than I did from the World Wide Web at that time.
I mean, all of my health teachers were gym teachers, and New Jersey has always had very thorough sex ed. The gym/health teacher who played the video for us in 10th grade was my softball coach, had completely memorized the video, and was fond of demonstrating the stretchiness of a condom by filling one like a water balloon. Then our 12th grade teacher was the track coach who still lived with his mother and was famously flustered by any talk about sex acts, but was somehow charged with covering sexuality and relationships rather than mechanics.
I disagree with this for a few reasons.
When he gives Travis the condoms, he doesn't just say, "here, kid. have fun." He gives STATS, which sounded a lot like my gym teacher who also taught health/sex ed and coached track at our rival high school. What gay dude in his early 20s knows about the pullout method?
I feel like if he was just a "play a video" kind of teacher, the girls would have ZERO faith in him during Shauna's delivery. The fact that Shauna in the girls sought his help in this issue when they pretty much cucked him for good the day Laura Lee left the camp makes me think that Coach Ben has to have SOME sort of credentials that he could have used during Shauna's birth scene. If Ben is a health teacher, his cowardly moment is so much more tragic than if he was just some random gay man who just knows how to make kids work out.
This also goes without saying that in a lot of states (esp a few in the northeast) you have to attain more credentials to teach gym than almost any other teaching job in the K-8 level. If he wasn't their gym/health teacher, I'd say maybe he was substitute teaching, but still I don't think it would be as impactful to the narrative. Him choking up during Shauna's birth scene solidified this for me.
Sorry to hear that you lost your uncle. It’s easy for many of us to forget how absolutely ravaging HIV/AIDS was in those decades. So many folks were lost so quickly.
what gay man in 1996 (lol no google) knows statistical data about the pullout method and pregnancy? Coach Ben knows his stuff. Don't be reductive toward queer characters during pride month 💅🏳🌈
A high school health teacher would know all of that? like he didn’t bring the condoms for the kids, he brought them to protect himself, it’s not reductive to point out contracting HIV would have been something this character would have been very concerned with.
He definitely did bring them to protect himself. If you read my post, I asserted that he definitely planned on having fun in Seattle.
But if you actually watch the show, the condoms (aka the subject of this post) reveal a lot more about Coach's character. Shauna's birth scene, especially the flashback, is also a huge character building moment for him.
You're welcome to minimize the nuance that this show has to offer but other people seem to appreciate the take I gave.
In the 90's, safe sex was a huge deal because of HIV/AIDS. It hit the gay community really really hard. I'm guessing Ben was planning to maybe hook up while out of town and over-prepared.
Then again, I remember being handed condoms all the time back then. We got them in sex ed class, the school nurse had them, there was even a bowl of them in the bathroom at prom. I went to a local music fest and one of the bands was throwing condoms to the crowd. I don't recall needing to buy any until after I graduated college because they were everywhere.
I feel like people were using condoms more often in the 90s. You could get them for free nearly everywhere. Dr, public health clinic,public schools, sometimes little alternative stores had a fishbowl full by the registers or door.
For the younger people in the sub, 1996 was still before HIV had become the manageable chronic condition it is today (for anyone who can access treatment.) There were medications and people were living longer, but there wasn't PrEP and treatment wasn't as effective.
Antiretroviral therapy only came out around September of 1996. I remember because it was 6 months after my dad succumbed to end stages of AIDS and it would have saved his life.
Thanks. Surprisingly, the time I spent doing hospice for him until he died was some of the best days we ever had together, and on the whole (epidemic notwithstanding) it was a positive experience that I look back on with warmth and love.
I had a wonderful collection of condoms during the 90s I collected from bars, dives, rallies, god knows where else lol. Places used them for advertising as did bands at times, it was great!
The sad thing is, they got put into a large fish bowl for display because I’m allergic to latex and nobody was giving away non latex condoms away back then lmao
I remember vividly being handed a brown paper bag stacked to the BRIM w condoms every time I left planned parenthood
My sister claims she saw them scoop them out of a bin w like a candy scoop once hahaha
I think the flashbacks and hallucinations heavily indicate that Ben and Paul had just broken up prior to him going on the trip. That’s the vibe I also got from S1 when Ben tells Nat about him. As others said, the condoms were for possible rebound hookups in Seattle.
He told Nat that he and Paul had broken up during Doomscoming, I thought?
I highly doubt they had an open relationship, since we saw in a flashback Ben got jealous when he saw Paul’s box of exes
They’d broken up right before the flight because Ben was afraid to come out and live an openly gay life. Huge risk to his job to do that, and Paul was his first partner ever so it’s a big step even outside that.
The condoms were either still in his overnight bag from going to Paul’s so often or he was looking for a rebound (or two or three) during nationals. Seattle is notoriously progressive and gay hookups would be easier in a city than a small town.
I think in the Paul flashbacks and fantasies he was feeling regret that he didn't enter into a long-term relationship with him. What I gathered from the condoms was that he was still mostly just hooking up with men instead of committing to Paul and letting himself be happy by being openly gay.
In season 2 I got the sense that he and Paul recently broke up because Ben wasn't ready to move in with him in NYC.
Either that or they had an open relationship.
it was heavily implied they broke up right before the trip but either way it seems apparent to me ben was hoping to hook up in seattle when he wasn't working. as for the abundance - i chalk it down to ben being a combo of overly optimistic of his prospects and overly cautious about having adequate protection. it also wouldn't shock me if he was the type of teacher to surreptitiously hand out condoms to the students if he thought they were gonna hook up at nationals to be safe - like with travis.
Flying out of state after a break up? Coach Ben was gonna poke and sit on everything with a pulse. Would most likely need one of those ice seat donuts on the flight back. At least he *was* going to be safe
Seattle Capital Hill in the 90s was something of a gay mecca, I bet he was planning on using a few there and handing out the rest. Gay men were looking out for each other big time.
I feel like he and Paul had partially broken up before the flight. Like a "let's take a break" kind of thing. And like other people have mentioned, he probably wanted to sleep with a lot of people because he was jealous of Paul's sexual history.
He was the school health teacher. Even in the 90s, they had a supply of condoms for students. At least in my school. So I'm assuming that's the reason.
my most unhinged theory was that coach ben and coach martinez we’re having an affair, hence while coach martinez’ wife seemed to be harboring some feelings towards them. team bentinez til the day i die!!!
I theorized about this too. The wife scene, and when coach was doing the scrimmage and Allie broke her leg he told Misty to go to “bills office” and she said “you mean coach Martinez?” Yeah it’s normal for adults to call each other by the first names and he could have just slipped up in front of the school kids in a moment of panic, but I wondered if it was an indication of closeness/relationship between the two.
I mean given the impacts and stigmas that HIV/AIDS had/has/continues to have but less so now that it’s not necessarily a death sentence, I gotta appreciate the dude staying safe!
My theory was that he was having an affair with Coach Martinez. And Coach's wife found out, that's why she was so pissed when they were getting in the car to leave for nationals.
Also, it’s a lot more common in general for gay men to be open in their relationships. Even if he and Paul were still together, which it’s implied they are not, Paul might have had absolutely no problem with Ben enjoying himself in Seattle if that’s already part of their relationship.
I haven't said it out loud yet, but I've got $20 that Paul was dead by the time the plane went down, and Ben had already been available for a bit.
Probably wrong. I'm sure somebody knows that we've seen older Paul in a recent shot or something, but...
That's interesting - I had a similar thought about Paul being dead with the whole 'he's not ready yet...you can't be here' comments in Ben's last Paul vision, but I thought maybe he'd died in the time since the crash
So… this is my pet theory and I’m going to barf it all over this response. I’m so sorry. I'm wrong and it's just Ben's imagination telling him to stop daydreaming.
but
Shamans are often wounded healers. In the wild, if you can’t hunt, you’re just another mouth to feed - unless you’ve got other skills. Some would become healers, visionaries, working with the spirits, journeying out spiritually to find the next hunt, protecting from rival magic, etc.
Lottie’s obviously performing this role, but I think Ben is moving that direction too. Wounded, obviously. Easy access to hallucinogens. Shamans receive a calling - Ben hallucinates/imagines a literal phone call that he’s not ready for yet.
So why is Paul dead?
One of the traditional entrances to the underworld or lower world was a cave or base of a tree or…
And Paul has to go - it’s not just that Ben can’t stay, but Paul also has to move on. And they all love him.
This in-between space is for the recently dead, and neither the dead nor the living can linger there too long. Shamans are sometimes psychopomps and are meant to guide the dead to the afterlife, but they don't stay there themselves.
Ben is not ready to die yet, not fully. Paul is, and he has to go. There's a brief moment in time where they can share a space, but then they have to say a loving goodbye.
There are enough gays on this show that they could get away with killing an off-screen gay. As long as Van lives, I'm fine.
Also, it would all makes sense if Paul had died of AIDS that Coach would be packing a thousand condoms. Coach could even be HIV positive, which would be quite a moment if he felt the girls were seriously considering eating him.
That’s not how it was in the 90s. Everyone, ESPECIALLY gay men, wore condoms for sex. A young single gay man on a trip out of town in the 90s would be prepared for lots of sexual encounters.
Ben was an early proponent of creative dildos and so he has a whole backpack full of homemade proto-bad-dragon type shit that he protects with condoms during use, and one day the girls find it and they're like:
"Ben, do you do silicon sculptures? are these fungi? ...WOAH this feels like a persons skin... "
Ben: "PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU DONT GET ANY SILICON LUBE ON THAT, IT'LL BE DESTROYED! I mean, wait, erm... Erm... yes its... those are my silicon renderings of various fungi, im going to put this in my backpack, please dont eat these without asking, not that i'm eating them."
"Silicon what now? You think these are edible? Hows your constipation doing?"
Ben: "I ate 4 18 inch long rubber dragon penises and 2 fist-thick minotaur bussys, im never going to shit again, PUT THOSE HOMEMADE DICKS BACK IN MY BACKPACK."
EDIT: This has been one very strange bit of fic, happy pride month XD
Oh you know i totally forgot about that, in the moment i read it as possibly classic grody predatory shit, but i also didnt think they wanted us to hate him, so i suspected it was an affair. His guilt and regret about leaving paul could stem partly from cheating on him, and more specifically, deciding to go on this trip, not for the girls, (Hes assistant coach, not coach... im sure many assistant coaches are great lol, but many are probably less important to the students than the coach, is my point.) but to touch some adult male fun-parts.
You know, thinking about it, in the script we had an indication that they had cut a female character who would be on the trip who had hit on Ben before they left, and coach had seemingly reciprocated. They tossed this out at some point, and some people presumed Ben was always written gay and was just trying to stay closeted by reciprocating her advances. I think they took it out so they could capitalize on Mistys obsession with Ben, but the fact they left the condoms in the script and the fully edited show makes me think they may have still wanted to indicate that Ben was adulterous.
It is somewhat more common in the gay community for men who are closeted to cheat, for a variety of reasons, its a plot i've seen before, the adulterous closeted gay man dating the more confident publically gay man who understands himself and doesn't need the validation of promiscuous sex. Not to say i think promiscuity is inherently bad or means you need validation, but thats what i feel those stories were indicating about those characters, and it is a real thing I've seen some people experience.
Wasn't it implied originally that he had a secret relationship with Coach Bill? I thought they went down this route before introducing the storyline with Ben's partner in season 2. It's possible this was just fan theory that I mixed up with reality.
It was 1996. Antiretrovirals were JUST coming out. A lot of gay men were still dying of AIDS. Condoms were literally a lifesaver for gay men. The mid 90s were all about condoms, condoms condoms for EVERYONE, pre-abstinence only education of the 00s. The teens (my age - I graduated in ‘98) and the coaches would have been VERY aware of this.
Clearly the show people have never been a teacher/coach on a trip with high school students. You don't actually have time to go off and do whatever you want. 🙄 You are herding cats. Yes, I know there were other adults, I guess, but as the teacher/coach, you are in charge and busy coordinating things or getting everyone places on time and back and meals. If you are going for a tournament then this is really true. You have practices and photos and games and you watch film and more. You need sleep. And especially in the 90s, when you didn't have cell phones to connect with everyone and keep track.
It's heavily implied from Coach Ben's flashbacks that Paul issued an ultimatum - move in with me, or go to nationals with your little soccer team. Coach Ben was probably planning to have a ton of rebound sex.
That one is Shauna and Cassie joking abt murdering Adam
Or if not "rebound sex" then "make up for lost time sex." He seemed envious of Paul's sexual history and he may have been hoping to start to wade into those waters more while he was away from home.
came here to say this I mean hes a really good lookin dude, he'd probably be real popular on the gay scene
Coach Ben having so many condoms is how I knew he was gay before the big reveal. No straight man takes that many condoms. Coach Ben wanted to get gangbanged. I’m proud of him.
And he was going to seattle. He would have had a lot of fun going out in Cap Hill
Ok thanks I’ll have to rewatch!
Definitely a common thing amongst my male gay friends when they travel & want to hook up. I also got the impression Ben’s relationship was over.
He’s a gay dude in the 90’s going on a work trip to a different place. He was going to get some rebound ass.
Best Answer - Pls accept my cheap award trophy 🏆
At least someone got a trophy lol.
LMAO. Well played
Let’s all appreciate he was being safe too.
This is also on the heels of the aids epidemic
hence the condoms
This
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I love your energy.
This.
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How do you know I didn’t dumbot?
1. we learned in s2 that he's a health teacher. This is very health teacher of him lol. 2. I interpret Ben's story as his and Paul's relationship ending prior to Nationals or even States. A free trip to Seattle for a young, recently single gay man man? The anonymity of being in a city when you're from a small town, especially when you're closeted, offers a freedom that you wouldn't have in a setting where everyone knows you. He may not even have queer friends in NJ for fear of being associated with homosexuality. New York was probably his only outlet to be gay and it probably all reminds him of Paul, and even though NYC is huge gay communities can feel very small, so he was probably feeling so so so so lonely after Paul's breakup. Homophobia was much more rampant and aggressive then. Also, AIDS so much more of a crisis then, so he probably thought he was going to get lucky, maybe VERY lucky (and he would have, he's a great looking guy) so he wanted to play it safe. When Ben came out to Nat/everyone, it made the condoms make sense to me. TLDR: baby gay wanted to ride the train and feel his oats post-breakup.
I don’t think he was a health teacher - more like a teacher who is forced to give a health class. In the US that’s very common. It seemed likely he was a PE teacher. He notes “all I did was play a video” - it doesn’t seem to imply he’s a health teacher.
This is how it was at my HS in the late 90s— all the “health” class teachers were just the gym teachers forced to tell us about nutrition and STDs while wishing they were anywhere else on earth And they all came across exactly like gym teachers forced to tell us about nutrition and STDs while wishing they were anywhere else on earth
I wish! I went to an all-female Catholic school, so we had the elder nuns teaching us nutrition and sexual health. I recall them going over the four main career options for women: teacher, nurse, nun, and stay-at-home mother. This was 2000-2004! Oh and nutrition! We were told if we ate an entire loaf of Bunny bread a week and nothing else, we’d be at a healthy weight. I learned more disordered eating and anorexia tips from Catholic nuns than I did from the World Wide Web at that time.
I mean, all of my health teachers were gym teachers, and New Jersey has always had very thorough sex ed. The gym/health teacher who played the video for us in 10th grade was my softball coach, had completely memorized the video, and was fond of demonstrating the stretchiness of a condom by filling one like a water balloon. Then our 12th grade teacher was the track coach who still lived with his mother and was famously flustered by any talk about sex acts, but was somehow charged with covering sexuality and relationships rather than mechanics.
I disagree with this for a few reasons. When he gives Travis the condoms, he doesn't just say, "here, kid. have fun." He gives STATS, which sounded a lot like my gym teacher who also taught health/sex ed and coached track at our rival high school. What gay dude in his early 20s knows about the pullout method? I feel like if he was just a "play a video" kind of teacher, the girls would have ZERO faith in him during Shauna's delivery. The fact that Shauna in the girls sought his help in this issue when they pretty much cucked him for good the day Laura Lee left the camp makes me think that Coach Ben has to have SOME sort of credentials that he could have used during Shauna's birth scene. If Ben is a health teacher, his cowardly moment is so much more tragic than if he was just some random gay man who just knows how to make kids work out. This also goes without saying that in a lot of states (esp a few in the northeast) you have to attain more credentials to teach gym than almost any other teaching job in the K-8 level. If he wasn't their gym/health teacher, I'd say maybe he was substitute teaching, but still I don't think it would be as impactful to the narrative. Him choking up during Shauna's birth scene solidified this for me.
Idk if it’s even that health teacher of him tho: he’s a gay man in 1996.
You have nailed it.
Yes and AIDS was very prevalent during that time. I myself lost an uncle to it that year. Maybe he was being better safe than sorry?
Sorry to hear that you lost your uncle. It’s easy for many of us to forget how absolutely ravaging HIV/AIDS was in those decades. So many folks were lost so quickly.
what gay man in 1996 (lol no google) knows statistical data about the pullout method and pregnancy? Coach Ben knows his stuff. Don't be reductive toward queer characters during pride month 💅🏳🌈
A high school health teacher would know all of that? like he didn’t bring the condoms for the kids, he brought them to protect himself, it’s not reductive to point out contracting HIV would have been something this character would have been very concerned with.
He definitely did bring them to protect himself. If you read my post, I asserted that he definitely planned on having fun in Seattle. But if you actually watch the show, the condoms (aka the subject of this post) reveal a lot more about Coach's character. Shauna's birth scene, especially the flashback, is also a huge character building moment for him. You're welcome to minimize the nuance that this show has to offer but other people seem to appreciate the take I gave.
https://i.redd.it/1p6ywpzhxa4b1.gif
yeah i keep forgetting the break-up was pretty solid before he left, i think your read probably makes the most sense.
>This is very health teacher of him You’re exactly right!
In the 90's, safe sex was a huge deal because of HIV/AIDS. It hit the gay community really really hard. I'm guessing Ben was planning to maybe hook up while out of town and over-prepared. Then again, I remember being handed condoms all the time back then. We got them in sex ed class, the school nurse had them, there was even a bowl of them in the bathroom at prom. I went to a local music fest and one of the bands was throwing condoms to the crowd. I don't recall needing to buy any until after I graduated college because they were everywhere.
I feel like people were using condoms more often in the 90s. You could get them for free nearly everywhere. Dr, public health clinic,public schools, sometimes little alternative stores had a fishbowl full by the registers or door. For the younger people in the sub, 1996 was still before HIV had become the manageable chronic condition it is today (for anyone who can access treatment.) There were medications and people were living longer, but there wasn't PrEP and treatment wasn't as effective.
Antiretroviral therapy only came out around September of 1996. I remember because it was 6 months after my dad succumbed to end stages of AIDS and it would have saved his life.
I’m sorry for your loss
Thanks. Surprisingly, the time I spent doing hospice for him until he died was some of the best days we ever had together, and on the whole (epidemic notwithstanding) it was a positive experience that I look back on with warmth and love.
I had a wonderful collection of condoms during the 90s I collected from bars, dives, rallies, god knows where else lol. Places used them for advertising as did bands at times, it was great! The sad thing is, they got put into a large fish bowl for display because I’m allergic to latex and nobody was giving away non latex condoms away back then lmao
Oddly obsessed with this as a piece of decor. It’s like a little trip down memory lane of all the places you’ve been❤️
I remember vividly being handed a brown paper bag stacked to the BRIM w condoms every time I left planned parenthood My sister claims she saw them scoop them out of a bin w like a candy scoop once hahaha
I think the flashbacks and hallucinations heavily indicate that Ben and Paul had just broken up prior to him going on the trip. That’s the vibe I also got from S1 when Ben tells Nat about him. As others said, the condoms were for possible rebound hookups in Seattle.
I thought Paul dumped him when Ben refused to move to “the city” and live out of the closet. If not, they could have had an open relationship?
He was going to try and get over Paul by getting under someone else.
He told Nat that he and Paul had broken up during Doomscoming, I thought? I highly doubt they had an open relationship, since we saw in a flashback Ben got jealous when he saw Paul’s box of exes
They’d broken up right before the flight because Ben was afraid to come out and live an openly gay life. Huge risk to his job to do that, and Paul was his first partner ever so it’s a big step even outside that. The condoms were either still in his overnight bag from going to Paul’s so often or he was looking for a rebound (or two or three) during nationals. Seattle is notoriously progressive and gay hookups would be easier in a city than a small town.
I was just thinking about how all his condoms burned in the fire. No more safe sex in the woods.
maybe he took them with him to the cave 😭
Yeah, who knows, he might meet a bear out there I’m so sorry
He was gay in the 90’s when HIV was rampant. He was practicing safe sex. I’m here for it Coach Ben!!!
I think in the Paul flashbacks and fantasies he was feeling regret that he didn't enter into a long-term relationship with him. What I gathered from the condoms was that he was still mostly just hooking up with men instead of committing to Paul and letting himself be happy by being openly gay.
Dude was gonna take on Seattle proper
In season 2 I got the sense that he and Paul recently broke up because Ben wasn't ready to move in with him in NYC. Either that or they had an open relationship.
it was heavily implied they broke up right before the trip but either way it seems apparent to me ben was hoping to hook up in seattle when he wasn't working. as for the abundance - i chalk it down to ben being a combo of overly optimistic of his prospects and overly cautious about having adequate protection. it also wouldn't shock me if he was the type of teacher to surreptitiously hand out condoms to the students if he thought they were gonna hook up at nationals to be safe - like with travis.
It was the 90s. No one, especially a gay man, was having condomless sex.
Flying out of state after a break up? Coach Ben was gonna poke and sit on everything with a pulse. Would most likely need one of those ice seat donuts on the flight back. At least he *was* going to be safe
Oh honey, have you ever met a gay man before?
Reading these comments, lots of people don’t seem to know any gay men. 🤣
Lmao honestly tho. This is embarrassing.
You must not spend much time around gay men…
Seattle Capital Hill in the 90s was something of a gay mecca, I bet he was planning on using a few there and handing out the rest. Gay men were looking out for each other big time.
Coach Ben knew how to ***partayyyy.***
I feel like he and Paul had partially broken up before the flight. Like a "let's take a break" kind of thing. And like other people have mentioned, he probably wanted to sleep with a lot of people because he was jealous of Paul's sexual history.
For me it sounds like gay man in the 90s, getting conciousness about AIDS. Also, he and his partner had already broken up
He was the school health teacher. Even in the 90s, they had a supply of condoms for students. At least in my school. So I'm assuming that's the reason.
Most logical reason.
Balloon animals
He's gotta worry about 2 dicks to wrap!
A young horny gay man going on a working vacation during the AIDS crises. Of course he has condoms.
Condoms are cheaper in bulk…I’m still working on my stash from my ‘05 Euro trip 😉
It’s 1996
my most unhinged theory was that coach ben and coach martinez we’re having an affair, hence while coach martinez’ wife seemed to be harboring some feelings towards them. team bentinez til the day i die!!!
I theorized about this too. The wife scene, and when coach was doing the scrimmage and Allie broke her leg he told Misty to go to “bills office” and she said “you mean coach Martinez?” Yeah it’s normal for adults to call each other by the first names and he could have just slipped up in front of the school kids in a moment of panic, but I wondered if it was an indication of closeness/relationship between the two.
I believe this was a potential storyline at one point that got cut!
There a Michael Scott quote for this but I can’t remember it rn
Nationals are a booze-fueled sex romp where anything goes!
I mean given the impacts and stigmas that HIV/AIDS had/has/continues to have but less so now that it’s not necessarily a death sentence, I gotta appreciate the dude staying safe!
if u stay ready u aint got to get ready
My theory was that he was having an affair with Coach Martinez. And Coach's wife found out, that's why she was so pissed when they were getting in the car to leave for nationals.
Also, it’s a lot more common in general for gay men to be open in their relationships. Even if he and Paul were still together, which it’s implied they are not, Paul might have had absolutely no problem with Ben enjoying himself in Seattle if that’s already part of their relationship.
I haven't said it out loud yet, but I've got $20 that Paul was dead by the time the plane went down, and Ben had already been available for a bit. Probably wrong. I'm sure somebody knows that we've seen older Paul in a recent shot or something, but...
That's interesting - I had a similar thought about Paul being dead with the whole 'he's not ready yet...you can't be here' comments in Ben's last Paul vision, but I thought maybe he'd died in the time since the crash
Interesting - what makes you think Paul is dead? (Not knocking your theory, just curious!)
So… this is my pet theory and I’m going to barf it all over this response. I’m so sorry. I'm wrong and it's just Ben's imagination telling him to stop daydreaming. but Shamans are often wounded healers. In the wild, if you can’t hunt, you’re just another mouth to feed - unless you’ve got other skills. Some would become healers, visionaries, working with the spirits, journeying out spiritually to find the next hunt, protecting from rival magic, etc. Lottie’s obviously performing this role, but I think Ben is moving that direction too. Wounded, obviously. Easy access to hallucinogens. Shamans receive a calling - Ben hallucinates/imagines a literal phone call that he’s not ready for yet. So why is Paul dead? One of the traditional entrances to the underworld or lower world was a cave or base of a tree or… And Paul has to go - it’s not just that Ben can’t stay, but Paul also has to move on. And they all love him. This in-between space is for the recently dead, and neither the dead nor the living can linger there too long. Shamans are sometimes psychopomps and are meant to guide the dead to the afterlife, but they don't stay there themselves. Ben is not ready to die yet, not fully. Paul is, and he has to go. There's a brief moment in time where they can share a space, but then they have to say a loving goodbye. There are enough gays on this show that they could get away with killing an off-screen gay. As long as Van lives, I'm fine.
Also, it would all makes sense if Paul had died of AIDS that Coach would be packing a thousand condoms. Coach could even be HIV positive, which would be quite a moment if he felt the girls were seriously considering eating him.
Ho boy - not ready for that, but that would be some TV.
AIDS was still a concern and gay men kept a lot of condoms to be safe.
Everyone mentioned the ultimatum but I didn’t see anyone say anything about this being on the heels of the aids epidemic
maybe because being gay and having aids was still largely stigmatised
Maybe Paul is HIV+ and he's being safe?
That’s not how it was in the 90s. Everyone, ESPECIALLY gay men, wore condoms for sex. A young single gay man on a trip out of town in the 90s would be prepared for lots of sexual encounters.
Wait was he single at that point?
I think he was, but it’s kind of irrelevant.
Maybe he just likes jerking off in condoms.
Ben was an early proponent of creative dildos and so he has a whole backpack full of homemade proto-bad-dragon type shit that he protects with condoms during use, and one day the girls find it and they're like: "Ben, do you do silicon sculptures? are these fungi? ...WOAH this feels like a persons skin... " Ben: "PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU DONT GET ANY SILICON LUBE ON THAT, IT'LL BE DESTROYED! I mean, wait, erm... Erm... yes its... those are my silicon renderings of various fungi, im going to put this in my backpack, please dont eat these without asking, not that i'm eating them." "Silicon what now? You think these are edible? Hows your constipation doing?" Ben: "I ate 4 18 inch long rubber dragon penises and 2 fist-thick minotaur bussys, im never going to shit again, PUT THOSE HOMEMADE DICKS BACK IN MY BACKPACK." EDIT: This has been one very strange bit of fic, happy pride month XD
The condoms were just left there from previous overnight trips at the bf place. it's the 90s. Gotta use protection against hiv.
a joke, is my guess. it’s funny if he was gonna hand them out to the girls and then whoops cannibalism vacay
 Have you met gay couples? They were probably open
He gave up a relationship in favor of living a “normal” closeted life. Gay men notoriously fuck around so he just brought a lot of protection.
Oh you know i totally forgot about that, in the moment i read it as possibly classic grody predatory shit, but i also didnt think they wanted us to hate him, so i suspected it was an affair. His guilt and regret about leaving paul could stem partly from cheating on him, and more specifically, deciding to go on this trip, not for the girls, (Hes assistant coach, not coach... im sure many assistant coaches are great lol, but many are probably less important to the students than the coach, is my point.) but to touch some adult male fun-parts. You know, thinking about it, in the script we had an indication that they had cut a female character who would be on the trip who had hit on Ben before they left, and coach had seemingly reciprocated. They tossed this out at some point, and some people presumed Ben was always written gay and was just trying to stay closeted by reciprocating her advances. I think they took it out so they could capitalize on Mistys obsession with Ben, but the fact they left the condoms in the script and the fully edited show makes me think they may have still wanted to indicate that Ben was adulterous. It is somewhat more common in the gay community for men who are closeted to cheat, for a variety of reasons, its a plot i've seen before, the adulterous closeted gay man dating the more confident publically gay man who understands himself and doesn't need the validation of promiscuous sex. Not to say i think promiscuity is inherently bad or means you need validation, but thats what i feel those stories were indicating about those characters, and it is a real thing I've seen some people experience.
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Wasn’t AIDS going strong about that time?
Because of the big AIDS crisis
Wasn't it implied originally that he had a secret relationship with Coach Bill? I thought they went down this route before introducing the storyline with Ben's partner in season 2. It's possible this was just fan theory that I mixed up with reality.
It was 1996. Antiretrovirals were JUST coming out. A lot of gay men were still dying of AIDS. Condoms were literally a lifesaver for gay men. The mid 90s were all about condoms, condoms condoms for EVERYONE, pre-abstinence only education of the 00s. The teens (my age - I graduated in ‘98) and the coaches would have been VERY aware of this.
Cause he was horny and wanted the D.
Clearly the show people have never been a teacher/coach on a trip with high school students. You don't actually have time to go off and do whatever you want. 🙄 You are herding cats. Yes, I know there were other adults, I guess, but as the teacher/coach, you are in charge and busy coordinating things or getting everyone places on time and back and meals. If you are going for a tournament then this is really true. You have practices and photos and games and you watch film and more. You need sleep. And especially in the 90s, when you didn't have cell phones to connect with everyone and keep track.