Condoms have never been popular among men, despite the best efforts of teachers and Cosmo. I hope Gates changes that
So, graphene, who's heard of it? I'll admit that I hadn't until this morning, when it was revealed that the Nobel prize-winning "wonder" substance is being hailed as the solution to the timeless problem of men who say they don't like wearing condoms. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a £62,000 grant to the scientists at Manchester University who believe the material, which is a form of carbon that is one atom thick, can be combined with latex to create a super-strong, super-stretchy, supercondom. This is excellent news, since I am a five-year-old and find condoms hilarious. Our prime minister looks like one, and he is a constant source of mirth to me.
Then again, condoms are hilarious. It's difficult to write an article about them without acknowledging that fact (indeed, the Telegraph barely managed it, choosing to round theirs off with a quote saying that this new use for graphene might "touch our everyday life in the most intimate way"). It's a little plastic sheath (or two little plastic sheaths, if you're "double-bagging" it) that you roll onto a penis like a little floppy popsock, and sometimes it's brightly coloured too, just to make the whole thing that little bit more ridiculous. And that's before you get on to the novelty varieties.
What's more, the supercondom is apparently going to be "more pleasurable". They're not saying than what, but I'm assuming they mean "more pleasurable than the closest brand name competitor", not, "more pleasurable than unprotected sex", because that's another thing that goes unacknowledged during sex education lessons: lots of people don't like using them. I can't help thinking that if, in addition to making the nation's teenagers do the whole "put the condom on the plastic penis in front of all your peers" rigmarole, they also added a little footnote on this, we'd actually be getting somewhere.
How I wish that someone had given me a heads up (no giggling at the back) that: "This is condom, certain men are going to try and do everything they can to ensure that you don't use one, but, y'know, do." When you're a teenage girl and being cool and pleasing boys seems like the most important things in the world, asking him to strap it is secondary, especially when you're still unsure as to how sex really works and want to make sure you're doing it "properly". As illustrated by our big old teenage pregnancy rate, doing it "properly" seems to have come to mean "going in bareback", and that's not good.
When it comes to condoms, part of educators' problem seems to be their attempt to utilise condoms' inherent comedy value to try and put across a more serious message: something which, admittedly, this article is also trying to do, and is probably failing at. In the case of the British state education system, however, this seems to have meant showing a bunch of 15-year-olds a cartoon VHS featuring a dancing condom, with the result that everyone walks out of the class believing condoms to be the naffest thing since that Grange Hill episode about how only cool people take drugs. Meanwhile, the likelihood of continental efforts such as the French "sexy fingers" campaign being shown in our schools look less likely with every knockback to the campaign for better sex education.
Condoms remain the only method of contraception that prevents against STIs and, despite what the Catholic church might tell you, their existence and availability are of fundamental importance to the freedoms of both men and women, especially in developing countries. Yet, in the UK, I'm always surprised when I meet adults who use condoms, and that's because I've spent such a large part of my life believing that men hate them and that, because of that, I need to hormonally alter myself and take regular trips to the clap clinic. Whenever anyone got pregnant at school, the implication was always that the girl hadn't been careful enough, had dropped the ball in taking her pill. No one ever said: he should have worn a condom, because you can't go wrong if you cover your dong. Instead, what we get is Cosmopolitan's recent Condom Kama Sutra, which attempts to "make condoms sexy" by suggesting a series of "moves" a woman could do, one of which involves applying one with your tits. Perhaps I don't need to point out that this, once again, puts the onus on women to "convince" men to use barrier contraception, but then I also didn't think I needed to tell Cosmo "you know what's really sexy? Not getting genital warts." Which is why I am fully supportive of the supercondom. There's too much nonsense around not to be. Reported by guardian.co.uk 16 hours ago.
So, graphene, who's heard of it? I'll admit that I hadn't until this morning, when it was revealed that the Nobel prize-winning "wonder" substance is being hailed as the solution to the timeless problem of men who say they don't like wearing condoms. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a £62,000 grant to the scientists at Manchester University who believe the material, which is a form of carbon that is one atom thick, can be combined with latex to create a super-strong, super-stretchy, supercondom. This is excellent news, since I am a five-year-old and find condoms hilarious. Our prime minister looks like one, and he is a constant source of mirth to me.
Then again, condoms are hilarious. It's difficult to write an article about them without acknowledging that fact (indeed, the Telegraph barely managed it, choosing to round theirs off with a quote saying that this new use for graphene might "touch our everyday life in the most intimate way"). It's a little plastic sheath (or two little plastic sheaths, if you're "double-bagging" it) that you roll onto a penis like a little floppy popsock, and sometimes it's brightly coloured too, just to make the whole thing that little bit more ridiculous. And that's before you get on to the novelty varieties.
What's more, the supercondom is apparently going to be "more pleasurable". They're not saying than what, but I'm assuming they mean "more pleasurable than the closest brand name competitor", not, "more pleasurable than unprotected sex", because that's another thing that goes unacknowledged during sex education lessons: lots of people don't like using them. I can't help thinking that if, in addition to making the nation's teenagers do the whole "put the condom on the plastic penis in front of all your peers" rigmarole, they also added a little footnote on this, we'd actually be getting somewhere.
How I wish that someone had given me a heads up (no giggling at the back) that: "This is condom, certain men are going to try and do everything they can to ensure that you don't use one, but, y'know, do." When you're a teenage girl and being cool and pleasing boys seems like the most important things in the world, asking him to strap it is secondary, especially when you're still unsure as to how sex really works and want to make sure you're doing it "properly". As illustrated by our big old teenage pregnancy rate, doing it "properly" seems to have come to mean "going in bareback", and that's not good.
When it comes to condoms, part of educators' problem seems to be their attempt to utilise condoms' inherent comedy value to try and put across a more serious message: something which, admittedly, this article is also trying to do, and is probably failing at. In the case of the British state education system, however, this seems to have meant showing a bunch of 15-year-olds a cartoon VHS featuring a dancing condom, with the result that everyone walks out of the class believing condoms to be the naffest thing since that Grange Hill episode about how only cool people take drugs. Meanwhile, the likelihood of continental efforts such as the French "sexy fingers" campaign being shown in our schools look less likely with every knockback to the campaign for better sex education.
Condoms remain the only method of contraception that prevents against STIs and, despite what the Catholic church might tell you, their existence and availability are of fundamental importance to the freedoms of both men and women, especially in developing countries. Yet, in the UK, I'm always surprised when I meet adults who use condoms, and that's because I've spent such a large part of my life believing that men hate them and that, because of that, I need to hormonally alter myself and take regular trips to the clap clinic. Whenever anyone got pregnant at school, the implication was always that the girl hadn't been careful enough, had dropped the ball in taking her pill. No one ever said: he should have worn a condom, because you can't go wrong if you cover your dong. Instead, what we get is Cosmopolitan's recent Condom Kama Sutra, which attempts to "make condoms sexy" by suggesting a series of "moves" a woman could do, one of which involves applying one with your tits. Perhaps I don't need to point out that this, once again, puts the onus on women to "convince" men to use barrier contraception, but then I also didn't think I needed to tell Cosmo "you know what's really sexy? Not getting genital warts." Which is why I am fully supportive of the supercondom. There's too much nonsense around not to be. Reported by guardian.co.uk 16 hours ago.