I know that some folks have a hard time incorporating condoms or other barriers into their sex lives. Maybe you forget to pick some up, or you assume a partner will have some on hand and they don't, or you just haven't made it a priority to have safer sex consistently.
But as much as we hear users coming in worried about pregnancy risk, young people are much more likely to pick up STIs than to become pregnant, and some types of sex that aren't pregnancy risks do carry STI transmission risks (if you need a refresher on if a certain type of sex puts you at risk for either, here's a refresher: Can I Get Pregnant, or Get or Pass On an STI From That?). So it really is important to get in the habit of practicing safer sex with partners - even if you or your partner haven't had any, or many, previous partners! One way that's helped me keep safer sex in mind is to put together a little travel kit I can keep with me. Some people like to have a box or tupperware container to stash under a bed or in a nightstand, but since I often only see my partners when I travel, I have a smaller setup that's easy to tuck into a bag.
Mine contains a few types of condoms, a dental dam, and a couple of non-latex gloves, and I have a 3oz. bottle of lube I can slip in with my liquids if I'm traveling by air. Because I'm a huge dork I knitted a cute little pouch to put everything in, but a small box (even a tin for mints, if you just want to carry a few condoms and nothing else) or sturdy bag would be fine for a travel-sized kit. My setup's pretty minimal, but folks in relationships where someone can get pregnant might want to keep a pack of Plan B on hand for emergencies in their kit.
Even if you don't need a travel kit, maybe you could just make sure there's always some condoms, dental dams, or whatever you might need for your sex life in your bedside drawer, sex toy box, under the bathroom sink, etc. But I think making a kit in a nice special box or other container can make using barriers easier to remember and more fun to use.
Anyone else have a setup like this, or other thoughts on ways to make barrier use second-nature in relationships?