Condoms are in the news this week, with Bill Gates offering thousands of dollars to anybody who can make them better than unprotected sex. Lady Friday has a few ideas…
Condoms are hardly the sexiest items in the bedside table, and we’ve all become slightly used to that.
The smell of latex, the annoyance of getting them on, the complaints about loss of sensation and lack of lubrication – familiar and apparently here to stay.
Not, however, if Bill Gates has anything to do with it.
You wouldn’t pick Mr Gates as a big propounder of improving sexual pleasure, but his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is offering $100,000 to whoever can invent a ‘better’ condom.
The reason? Lack of condom use, for whatever reason, is a huge factor behind the spread of AIDS/HIV, and the Gateses are intent on making using one so alluring nobody can resist.
And there’s $1 million in eventual funding for any idea that appeals and can be quickly mass-produced.
As they put it: “The one major drawback to more universal use of male condoms is the lack of perceived incentive for consistent use. The primary drawback from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure as compared to no condom, creating a trade-off that many men find unacceptable.”
So they’re looking for a condom design that can either neutralise this decreasing-pleasure problem, or, better, increase pleasure, making them a bonus rather than a drawback. Now that would be fantastic.
The $100,000 impetus has already started the brains of inventors working hard. One frequently raised idea has been getting rid of latex altogether.
Latex is great for sexy suspenders and corsets, the argument goes, but condoms need updating. Latex sets off allergies, is only effective if it’s thick enough to catch sperm (and therefore makes men less sensitive), and is difficult to wrangle and fit.
So what are the alternatives? Condoms used to be made, weirdly enough, of animal parts. They may look like a shiny new invention, but actually there are condoms still existing today that were used as early as the 1640s – and were made of pig intestine.
Other, older birth control devices have been found made out of tortoise shell, horn and paper. Those days are hardly going to come back again, but ‘increased sensitivity’ condoms have tried and failed to conquer the whole sensitivity issue.
One major competitor for the prize is the ‘origami condom’. It’s being currently approved for distribution, and its big selling point is that rather than being a simple sheath, it looks faintly like a stretched-out accordion or Chinese lantern.
Why? Because apparently this shape mimics the contractions and openings of actual contact with the vagina, and causes pleasure rather than hindering it.
It’s also not rolled, meaning it can be pulled on incredibly quickly, and is internally lubricated.
Our problems with this idea? One, it looks like a sea creature and may prompt laughter rather than arousal, but two, its accordion pleats appear to have slightly sharp edges and we’re not sure how that would work with sensitive internal tissue.
Other ideas include high-tech fibres so thin they feel completely invisible, or impregnated with high-stimulation gels or creams.
If you have any ideas, shoot over to the Grand Challenges page of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and see if you can make sex better for everybody…
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday…
