Condoms useless if Incorrectly Used

By tony leather, 18th Aug 2012 | Follow this author | RSS Feed | Short URL http://nut.bz/h_7ieejz/
Posted in Wikinut>Health>General Health>Sexual Health & STDs

If more care were actually taken when electing the safe sex route, instead of the frantic fumbling that so often proves ineffectual, then society would be all the better for it.

Condoms useless if Incorrectly Used

All the talk people hear about safe sex and the use of condoms to help prevent both unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease becomes totally meaningless if the rubbers are used incorrectly. When used as they should be, condoms are 98% efficient at preventing pregnancy, World Health Organization figures show.

In many cases though, and quite typically, the rate of unintended pregnancy despite condom use stands at about 15%, because errors in usage are all too common, including the glaring mistake of putting one on part-way through the act, or taking it off too soon.

Add to these errors that of not leaving space at the tip for semen to collect, besides that common failure to look for damage before use, and it is not hard to see why breakage or leakage is far more prevalent than it should be, sexual health journal researchers reported on Feb. 17th.

Professor Richard Crosby- University of Kentucky - co-authored the recent study, with Stephanie Sanders- Indiana University Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. With colleagues, they studied 16 years worth of condom error research, back through 1995.

Over 50 studies from 14 countries, western nations like the UK and USA predominating, which involved diverse groups, from married people, sex workers, college students and more to give the broadest range of condom usage. Between 17 to 51.1% of those questioned donned condoms partway through, which rendered fliud-exchange prevention void.

Between 2 and 24.8% put the condom on too late, and results also showed that multiple mistakes were made in the way that people put condoms on. 25% said they unrolled the sheath first, as opposed to the correct method of unrolling over the penis. Between 25 to 50% failed to leave room at the tip of to collect ejaculate. 75% of men and, amazingly, 82% of women failed to check for damage before use.

Up to half had experienced a condom break, 13 to 19% having experienced one leak, both of which problems can be exacerbated by incorrect use, including employing the wrong kind of lubricant - oil-based lubricants will degrade latex condoms - or storing the rubbers incorrectly. If more care were actually taken when electing the safe sex route, instead of the frantic fumbling that so often proves ineffectual, then society would be all the better for it. Think about that the next time that passion overwhelms you. Whether you like it or not, babies are a life-time commitment, and if parenthood does not figure in your plans, then you know what you have to do.

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Meet the author

tony leather
mainly non-fiction articles, though I do write short stories, poetry and descriptive prose as well. Have been writing for over ten years now