December 13, 2012 • 61 mins
The earliest depiction of a condom is found in a 15,000-year-old cave painting. Ever since humans realized sex led to children, we've been using condoms to prevent pregnancy. Join Josh and Chuck for this comprehensive tour of all things condom.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with me as always Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh,
you put it together, rubb us and lube. You've got
yourself stuff. You should know. You have a lawsuit on
(00:23):
your hands from you, right, Yeah, somebody how you doing? Man? Oh,
I gotta speeding ticket on the way here. I'm piste off.
Well everything of the last fifteen minutes before we started recording,
as I explained, No, we talked about regular stuff that
didn't influence my my feelings about this. But you're still
(00:44):
like you had to burn your bonnet well for that cop. Man.
This state patrol they don't miss around, No, they don't.
There's no like, there's no small talk, there's no nothing.
It's give me your license and then here's your ticket.
I was like, but get and that was anyone who
refers to you and the what the second person is, citizen?
(01:05):
They're they're pretty serious people. Yeah, I'm gonna go to
court though, why not? Good for you? Man? You know,
we don't we don't work. You never know you might
get out of it. Yeah, we'll give it a shot. Yeah.
So aside from that, I had my condom on, so
I was safe driving. That's good. Yeah, you always wear one, right,
(01:27):
you can't be too careful? How often do you change it? Gross? May?
That is so gross? All right? Uh, let's talk about
Measure B. Have you heard a Measure B. H. It
is a referendum that Los Angeles County floated in this
last election that passed of the vote. Um, it said,
if you're in the porn industry and you're filming, you
(01:47):
have to wear a condom. Good. Well, it depends on
who you are. If you are a citizen, yeah, you
probably think it's good, especially if you voted in favor
of it. Sure. If you're in the porn industry, though,
you're like, people don't want to see that, and um,
they're actually talking about moving from Los Angeles, which is
(02:08):
a big deal. People, I don't want to see a
condom in their porn movies. I guess I don't want
to see any of that stuff. I don't want to
see what's attached to the condom either. Okay, so you
wouldn't care? Uh no, yeah, I guess so I don't
want to see any stuff. Like apparently there's a longstanding
thing in the porn industry. It's like, you just don't
(02:30):
show condoms. It just it reflects the unnatural nous maybe
of of what you're seeing. Um, what you're like, Well,
wait a minute, that's probably not the pizza guy after all,
you know. So um, it blows the illusion that that's
real stuff. So they're talking about about moving from Los Angeles,
which is huge Los Angeles because apparently in just Los
(02:52):
Angeles County porn it's a billion dollar industries in the valley,
just in one county. Can you imagine in that So
there's a big carefuffle going on right now over condom
usage in the porn industry. To ever tell you about
the time I scouted the porn stage for video shoot. No,
was this did key for Sutherland's driver take you there? No,
(03:13):
But I was working as a p A and we
couldn't afford like a real stage, so we they sent
me out to the valley of this porn stage to
go videotape it and see what it looked like. And uh,
it just like a boardroom with a bed in the corner,
and a candy shop with a bed, and a gymnasium
locker room. With a bed. It was really gross and
I didn't want to touch anything. And uh, as I
(03:34):
was leaving, a bunch of big muscly men came in
to get their shoot on. Oh is that right? Yeah,
was a gay porn I had that afternoon. It was Oh,
so it's just like whatever. It's like, it's a it's
a sound stage. Yeah, they take all comers, you know.
And so these two dudes walked in and I walked out,
and I don't think we ended up using the stage,
(03:56):
but it was funny. In the conference room set there
was a framed like Olan Mills or I was a
painting of Burt Reynolds and Lonnie Anderson like at the
head of the conference room. No way, yep, sort of got.
That's one thing about porn and stream moguls. They seem
to always have like a great sense of humor. I
think this is before Boogie Nights, even because I didn't
(04:17):
make that connection. It was just Burt Reynolds. That was
definitely before Boogie Nights. But I mean think about Larry Flint,
He's he has a great sense of humor. Um, Hugh Hefner.
Maybe I think the less hardcore you get, the less
away the further away from hardcore, you get the less,
the less of a sense of humor. The publisher has.
(04:38):
I bet there's some mathematical formula in there. We'll see
it one day, alright, So condoms is what we're talking about. Um,
we should say, if you're young, you might want to
ask your parents if you should listen to this. Oh man,
you know that is a good c o A like.
I think it's up to parents how they educate their
children with this stuff. So we have you have been
(05:00):
war Warren. Go put your little pot uh player down, Goss,
Mom and dad? Should I be listening to this? We're
gonna be very clinical here, but it's about sex and reproduction,
so it can't be too careful. I wonder how many
kids just like pull the cheeks over? What do you think?
I don't know? Vast majority? Okay, so um, let's try
(05:22):
this again. We're talking condoms, um, and apparently they what
we think of as condom usage normal, widespread. It's talked about,
there's billboards whatever. Is actually a fairly recent phenomenon. The
billboards and things. Yeah, and just the idea of like
(05:44):
using condoms like that's that's pretty recent. Um. From the eighties.
And actually it was HIV that kind of um spurred
this condom age that we live in now. But there
have been like another golden age of condoms, uh shortly
after the Great War, right, that's right. Venarial diseases were
(06:05):
pretty easy to get if you were a sailor on
leave in Europe, and so they encouraged troops to uh
use use condoms and distributed them in the in the ranks,
among the ranks, and when they came back home, they
kept using. My guess they hit a big boom here
in the in the nineteen what I guess forties. Post
war era died down in the sixties because the pill exactly,
(06:27):
and then picked back up again in the eighties because
of HIV. Yeah, because we we figured out things too clever,
things like penicillin and all that stuff. Um that most
of the STDs that condoms were preventing at the time
you could just treat with antibiotics. So people weren't too
concerned with that kind of thing. And then the pill
came along and I was like, we have no need
for condoms orsoever. But then and then condoms us had
(06:50):
started to go through the roof, which is good. Yeah, Um,
but apparently condoms are an extremely old idea. At the
at least, putting something on the over your penis, whether
for recreational purposes or whatever, is at least fifteen thousand
years old. Right, Yeah, I think Tracy of pop Stuff
(07:12):
wrote this article. We should point out she's responsible for
the most comprehensive podcasts we've done. Yeah. I never even
think twice when I look in and see her name
in the Byline'm like, oh, well, we should totally do this. Um. Yeah.
She points out that fifteen thousand years ago we have
found cave paintings that show images of a sheathed penis. Yes,
so it's unclear whether or not these garments and decorations
(07:37):
and sheaths on the penises of Egypt and Greece and
India and Japan were for uh, contraception, as a barrier
method or adornment. I guarantee they weren't probably thinking of
the woman's comfort, No, especially when all yeah, the Japanese
version of the penis sheath or condom was made of
(07:58):
horn or Tortoiseshell, they didn't care about the lady's pleasure.
That's just mind boggling, my painful sound me. I don know,
no kidding. Um, so we know people started using condoms
as a means to prevent pregnancy by the Roman era,
I think, of course. Yeah, anytime it's sexty times stuff.
(08:21):
They were leading the way totally. You know. Yeah, anybody's
see Caligula can tell you that. Um. But then by
the time Shakespeare rolls around, condoms are pretty common. Yeah
if you count you know, wrapping linen around the penis
and tying it in a little bow with a ribbon
(08:42):
at the bottom. That's a condom back then, or stuffing
something into the urethra and using a draw string, um, ribbon.
But it's another way that they did things. I should
post um photos of your facets of your face that
I'm taking like throughout this episode. Yeah. Um. And well
by the time Shakespeare's age, Uh, people are using condoms
(09:05):
pretty frequently. And one of the things they're using it,
probably the main thing they're using it for, is to
prevent syphilis, because just like in World War Two, sailors
to the New World came and contracted this new disease
that was found only in North America at the time. Um,
and or I should say the Western hemisphere. Uh. And uh,
(09:27):
they brought it back, and they figured out after a
little while like, oh wait a minute, I think it
has to do with sex. So they started using condoms
for a disease prevention through that. So this is a
pretty big point here, right, Like by the the age
of exploration, people understand that you can cover the penis
to prevent pregnancy and to prevent disease. Yeah, that's a
(09:47):
huge advancement in society. I guess totally. They were. They
were on it. They still like rolled in their own
feces and like she ever washed their hands or took
a bath, but they knew how to prevent syphilis with
a little something in the urethro the draw stream. That's right.
By the mid seventeen hundreds, Tracy points out, they were
starting to use um condoms made from animal membranes, animal
(10:10):
guts basically, which if you they still have these today,
if you use something called cheapskin, it is not cheap skin,
but it is you know, cheap guts and testine lining. Yeah,
and you can still buy those. I think they were
about what like one percent of the total sales these days.
And they recommend those only if you are like a
monogamous couple. That's disease free and you're just using it
(10:32):
to like not get pregnant because it's very thin. Yeah,
but it's not. It's it's porous, I believe enough for
pathogens to pass through. Yeah. Like you don't want to
use that if to prevent getting HIV? No, not smart? Um,
Well you want to use is a rubber condom. That's right.
Thank you Charles Goodyear, Yeah, who gave us not only
(10:55):
rubber condoms, but um tires, uh, ebber hoses, rubber belts,
pretty much anything that they made of rubber. You can
thank Charles Goodyear for it because of his process of vulcanization,
which is he added um sulfur and lead oxide to
rubber from the Heavia Braziliens tree. Yeah, which they had
(11:18):
been tapping that tree for a while to get this,
you know latex, this liquid rubber but um. Yeah. Volcanization
is where it became a thing that you could mask,
you know, produced and it was safe and it was
uh stronger and uh more elastic, so you know, less
likely to break, but it was also thicker and rougher.
(11:40):
You had to go to your doctor to be fitted
for one of these condoms. The good the good part
is you could wash and reuse it. It was basically
like your your your condom. You probably wrote your name
on it. I imagine if you got fitted though, in
the doctor's office, that would have to be with an erection, right, Yeah,
you remember the little reflex hammer? Yeah, I do. What
does that to do this? That's how they did it, alright.
(12:04):
So I guess back in the day, you would go
to your doctor and get an direction, and he would
fit you with a condom right made from vulcanized rubber,
probably a bit of a uh investment at this time
as a man, so I doubt if a lot of
people were wearing him. Still, so again, imagine this is
what I imagine. It basically probably looked a lot like um,
(12:26):
a the nipple of a baby bottle. Yeah, sure, you know.
I'll bet you there's somebody who collects old time e condoms,
some rich dude who has like an old time e
condom collection. Yeah, of course, Um, there's someone who collects
everything old you know. Uh. So by apparently people were
using this. This is eighty nine when charls could you
(12:48):
come with volcanization? So we're talking like the mid to
late nineteenth century. People are using these rubber condoms from
usible rubber condoms, and then everybody patted on the back
a guy named at Killian Killian's red beer inventor. Maybe no,
it's possible. Um. He's more famously known, however, for um
(13:10):
creating a process of making condoms directly from latex, which
again is the sap of the rubber tree found in Brazil,
West Africa, now Southeast Asia. Now UM. And he would
take these glass molds that where you could argue ballack
in nature, you know, uh, and that he would dip
(13:31):
it directly into latex. I think he did it with
his hand like that. I'm just just initially he did.
So he would dip these these molds or um forms
right what they're called formers, just into latex and uh
he would then vulcanize that, and what you had was
(13:53):
a thinner, stronger, UM better I guess condom. Yeah, thinner
and longer, which is like that's what you want out
of a condom because you want to have the sensation intact,
but you want to be safe and also had a
longer shelf life, and all of a sudden, latex was
the way to go. Yeah, No, it's all condoms worldwide
(14:16):
are latex. And that's a lot of condoms, as we'll see. Yeah,
it's some numbers. Should we should we talk about nicknames
or not? This seems a little silly to me. I
thought it was silly too. Let's skip it then, Okay,
maybe we should just drop them in occasionally. Okay, you know,
so people know because it's in here, so it's legit,
right instead of condoms, will say jimmy hat. Okay, further
(14:39):
chilly and came up with the latex Jimmy hat. Right. Uh,
I guess if you don't know what a condom is
at all, we should go ahead and say it is
h a tube. It's a bag like tube that the
male penis fits in, open on one end, obviously, and
closed on the other. There's a little reservoir tip to
(15:00):
collect the semen um supposedly, and um, it's got a
little uh ring around the open end, a thin rim
that you uh that you roll down upon the penis.
And that is a condom and it it basically it
(15:20):
blocks fluids from touching each other, which is how you
get pregnant and how you get disease. Keeps all those
fluids separate right the the form of this. The basic
concept of the condom hasn't changed much over the eons,
but just these little advances and technology like making them latex.
Late tex is not porous, yes, Um, the only way
something's going to get through is if there's some sort
(15:41):
of damage to it or something like that. Um, the
condoms the same what you just described as generally been
in use for hundreds or thousands of years. Right, yeah,
it's a barrier method. Um. These days there are I
don't think we should talk about all those standards because
my eyes started to water a little bit when I
was eating all those with the length, the width, and
the thickness. No, no no, we should talk about that. But
(16:03):
later on all the standards when it was just like
really international codes. There are international codes governing how they're made. Well,
which is good. I'm not knocking that, sure, it's just
not exciting. Um. So yeah, these days, the length they
are at least six point three inches hundred and sixty millimeters.
Well you did the conversion. Well I think you kind
(16:25):
of have to say an inches, don't you. But have
you noticed that how stuff works? Articles have gone metric? Yeah,
now it's metric. The meat one, the live ground meat
one both in in metric. All right, well, I don't
know what to say about that. What about the width?
What is the width of econom win lead flat fifty
two millimeters which I did not convert to inches. The
(16:46):
thickness is point zero seven millimeters. That's that's very thin, which,
like we said, that's what you want out of a condom.
You want something strong, but you don't want to ruin
the sexual experience by wearing a rubber glove of you
know what I'm saying, rubber glove to just and keep
(17:07):
the rubber gloves on your hands, that's right. They powder
these things with things like silica and corn starch and
magnesium carbonate to keep the latex from sticking to itself
in packaging, or they can come loobed up with either
regular lube or made from silicone, or spermocidal lube, which
(17:27):
this is good to know now that I'm married, but
I was shown it on this back then. Apparently the
spermocidal lubricants can make things worse, specifically non oxid all nine. Yeah.
It says that they found that when used with a condom,
it doesn't really do much to kill sperm, and even worse,
it can cause vaginal irritation, which can lead to easier
(17:50):
disease transmission. Yeah, so that's apparently not a good thing
to use non oxid all nine on your condoms. Very
good to know. And that's not knocking in nine because
think that's what's also you used outside of a condom, right,
as as supermocidal. Right, so it's more affective there, I guess.
How about manufacturing a condom, chuck it all. It all starts, um,
(18:14):
either in the forests of Brazil, Southeast Asia, or West Africa,
which is where you'll find the rubber tree, which is
still to this date where latex comes from, unless it's
synthetic latex of course. But let's say you're you're going
the natural route, and um, you go to Brazil and
get you some SAP, which again sap from uh latex
(18:35):
or rubber tree is latex. Okay, so you get that,
you take it back to your factory, right, that's right.
Maybe in Brazil, maybe in Thailand, who knows, is that
what they make these? Okay? I think they make them
pretty close to the rubber plantations. All the pictures in
this article are in like Thailand or Brazil or whatever.
And that's where you're gonna find rubber trees. Um, well
(18:59):
it doesn't only pane latex. You're gonna probably have some
other ingredients in your bucket there of of sap, well, yeah,
you added along the way. Yeah, antifungal and antibacterial compounds.
You want to keep the things clean. Zincos side, which
is accelerates the vulcanization process. Uh, stabilizers like potassium laurate, UM,
(19:20):
sulfur maybe which is another vulcanizing agent, ammonia antiquagulant. I
didn't know that. Yeah, it keeps things from coagulating really,
and uh, other pigments and preservatives too, you know, because
you wanted to have that lovely fleshy look in strawberry flavoring.
Well we'll get to that too. Um. So these add
(19:42):
to the shelf life. Um. They make it harder to
break down because rubbers biodegradable naturally, and you don't want
it to break down. That's what happened the old day's
when the easies lubes, the natural rubber would just break down.
Your kind of wasn't worth much for long, right, Um
and Tracy points that this is a good reason why
you never want to throw a condom used or otherwise
in a toilet. That's not how you throw a condom away,
(20:05):
because it doesn't break down. It's just gonna gum things up.
It's gonna catch all the hair and toilet paper and
all that stuff and grow bigger and bigger and just
basically become this big giant condom damn in your sewer pipe.
That's right. So what do you do? Uh? You um
wrap it in tissue paper. She suggests wrap that tissue
(20:27):
paper in foil, put the foil in a five millimeter
thick flat garbage bag, and bury it in your yard.
That's how you properly dispose of a used condom. That's
not true, but she does recommend the tissue and the
waste basket. Yeah, just not the toilet, or if you're
in New York City, just on the street or sidewalk,
just fine, in the back of your cab. Have you
(20:49):
ever noticed all the condoms one, there's a lot of
them out there. It's just it's a thing. It's definitely
a thing. If you live in New York you know
about it, or you point the tiles or something. I
just don't get it, Like, are these people having sex
in the street? Throw them out the apartment. Maybe maybe
that's what they're doing. That's gross, I know. Could you
imagine walking down the sidewalk after a nice dinner. Alright,
(21:13):
So you've got the liquid latex goes in the vats,
and then you've got the formers, which have been around
for a while, and they are glass or ceramic molds
of a penis, and they're on a conveyor belt. Dip
it into the bat, get it, turn it and circle
to get a nice even coating and dry it out,
and then maybe a second or third dip to make
(21:35):
sure it's sticking off right, and then it's into the
tunnel oven for vulcanization. It has all of those, um,
those the zinc oxide and the sulfur in it to
help it vulcanize, so when it's exposed to heat, it
becomes stronger, that's right, right, Um. And then after that
I found this a little unsettling, Yeah, because I just
always thought of tondos it's like untouched. It's like a
(21:56):
brand new newspaper, like you could deliver a baby with it,
you know. Um. But apparently after vulcanizing, the condoms are
taken off of the formers, right, Um, and they are washed. Yeah,
you're so the condom you're you're you're using has been
washed before. I just to find it odd. I guess
probably mechanically washed, right, Yeah, it says a washing machine
(22:18):
um and invest to remove odor, pathogens and allergen. So
it's good that they're doing this. But I agree with you.
I kind of thought it was just like you know,
it was made and packaged immediately and then it goes
on your body, right exactly, Not quite, so you you
wash it. And then there's quality testing, which is a
lot of pretty cool stuff. There's some there's some cool
(22:41):
quality tests. If you ask me, well, let's get into it, then, well,
there's a standard called zipping, popping, rolling, and other condom testing. Yeah,
what you're testing for is you want to prevent three
things that make a condom uh ineffective. Breaking the condom
not good, slipping off definitely not good. In leaking. None
(23:02):
of these are good because they are uh you know,
they're not preventing the one thing or two things that
you're trying to do, which is either pregnancy or some
sort of socially transmitted infection. Not you notice that she's
not STD anymore. It's s t I. I didn't know that.
When did that happen? Maybe she just made the change herself,
(23:25):
you think, No, I think I think it's I don't know,
because maybe disease doesn't quite scientifically capture all. I'm sure
that's so. Yeah, I don't know when that happened, but
I'll bet it is fairly recent. Um. So, one of
the two tests that they're really looking at is you
don't want it to break and you don't want it
to leak, right, Yeah, So they test the condom's tentile strength. Basically,
(23:49):
they just get a bunch of third graders in there
and blow the condoms up and see how much volume
it holds until it breaks. Right. Yeah, they're not third graders,
but that's pretty much the long and short of it.
They inflate them, they stretch them, um, they fill them
with water and hang them up. Yeah. I guess these
are the they're testing, um, either whole batches or selected
(24:09):
condoms from the batch. And yeah, they hold filliple water
and look at it. That's the that's the utter test.
Is that what it's called? Okay, I just made it up,
but I think it's good. I bet you that's what
they call it. On the line and they're literally look
at it or else, if they want to be slightly
more scientific, they'll roll it along like water absorbent paper
and see if there's any water um and there shouldn't
(24:31):
be remember again, late text condoms don't have any kind
of pores um. And then there's another leaked test, which
is a lot more scientific or at least it's probably
fun or to do. I wonder how many factories use
this method, if it's such a supermodern or or what
and it's suchis factories soon this there's also like third
party companies that like make their money by testing condoms
(24:54):
for factories or maybe as watch dog groups. That's true.
So how does the electricity work? So there's a couple
of different ones. There's one where they take condoms and
they they they put them atop metal rods that have
been dipped in conductive solution. Then they run a current
through these metal rods and the the condoms being rubber,
(25:17):
shouldn't be conductive. But if there's holes or tears or anything,
and I'm like, the current will run through the condom
and then they have a computer watch to see, you know,
if any had a current run through them. Then the
other one is where they turn the voltage up. Yeah,
this is a dry test, um, and they basically like
(25:37):
run a current again through a bunch of condoms and
if there's any holes or whatever, those condoms will like
burn or melt stinks. Yeah, burn rubbers doesn't smell good. Um.
So those are the main ways that they will test
condoms to make sure that you're all good to go
when it's go time. You know what I'm saying. Uh. Slippets, however,
(26:00):
something they cannot test for because slippage, my friend, is
up to you how you properly or improperly used the condom.
Slippage is user error. Yeah, and I'm ashamed to say that.
And we're about to go over the tin steps and
how to properly use a condom. I didn't know about
one of them, the circumcised step not well, I didn't
(26:22):
know about that. Well it is it, Well, we'll get
to it. Um. So Tracy says, a storage is where
it starts. You got up to store it properly. So, uh,
heat and light is not good. Wallets, pockets and glove compartments.
In other words, everywhere teenage boys forced to store their
condoms is not where you should store a condom. You
know it's all bad. You want to keep it in
(26:45):
a dry um just sort of room temperatures like atmosphere
and not at the roller rink. Look at number two.
You look at the package, make sure it's all you know, intact,
it's not opened and as the expiration date, you know
you're within that range. Yeah, and when you do open it,
you want to open it carefully. You want to tear
(27:06):
along the one side. Sometimes it was a notch. Tracy
points out that you don't want to open it with
your teeth or pointing fingernails. Yeah, you don't want open
your teeth for a couple of reasons, but one of
them is you don't want to break it right. Um,
you want to make sure the condom is right side up.
This is the one I didn't know. I didn't know
there was the right side sure, I didn't know that.
(27:27):
Oh well, Um, I just forty almost forty two years old.
I had no idea that there was an up. And
I know you're talking about but there is a way
to tell um what's up and what's down. And the
tip the reservoir should be pointing up unimpeded. I had
no idea. That's the that's the top right. I'm just
(27:48):
learning this. So you take that reservoir right and you
um squeeze the air out of it, hold it shut,
class bit shot with your fingers and put it over
the tip of the penis. We're doing this. You realize this.
We've suddenly become a sex side podcast. Yeah, you you
missed though. If you are uncircumcised, you want to gently
pull your foreskin back to relieve the glands, which is
(28:10):
the tip of the penis. So you put the tip
of the put the condom over the tip of the
penis with the reservoir squeezed shut, and then you start
to unroll it. Take a chuck, just number six. Um.
She also pointed out if you don't have it right
side up, it won't unroll correctly. That's why there is
a top side and the downside, which now explains a lot. Um.
(28:33):
Unroll the condom down the length of the penis all
the way to the base. You gotta take it to
the base. You want it. You want full protection here. Um. Otherwise,
because if you look, if you use a condom perfectly,
then we'll find out your chances of disease and pregnancy
are virtually nil. Yeah, problems arises when you you know,
you may be not roll it all the way down
or accidentally get a testicle caught in there. Um, if
(28:58):
you need lube, use a water based lube. You don't
want to make the mistake of using like vaseline. I
guess I should say petroleum jelly or baby oil or
lotions or anything like that, anything that could. Yeah, that's
all oil based, and that's gonna not do you any
favors in the reliability department. Right, you want it to
(29:19):
be water based lubricant, that's right. But she also points
out that you using extra lubricant is effective in preventing
breakage during um anal penetration, but in vaginal penetration it
can actually increase the likelihood of breakage of the condom.
I did not know that. I did not know that either.
(29:39):
So we're learning right along with you people. Yeah, I'm
so glad to want to you sees anymore? Being married
is great. Uh so after the male ejaculates, this is
post coital ejaculation, you hope. Yeah, that's true. Um, you
want to hold the rim of the condom to keep
it from slipping off when you um, exit the vagina
(30:03):
and withdraw the penis. Uh. And and before the erection
is lost. You don't want to have the condom on
lose your erection while you're still in mid penetration. Uh.
And then you want to run outdoors to begin the
disposal process, which as we sat into the yard, right,
(30:24):
that's right, remove the condom, wrap it in a tissue,
put it in a garbage can, and don't reuse it.
No matter what your friend says, don't reuse it, and
don't wear two of them. Yeah, a lot of people
have latex allergies. Late condoms are latex, So some people say, well,
late text works the best. I'll just use um a
(30:45):
sheep skin membrane condom over my penis and then put
a late text one over that. Apparently that is basically
just really upping the risk of breakage of both. Yeah.
Or if you think you know two is better than one,
I don't know where this person and has been. That's
just not smart. You should probably not be with that person.
If you're thinking about were two condoms, just walk away
(31:07):
from the bowling alley and go home or the roller
rink again. Uh. And Tracy also points out for our
younger listeners. Condoms break more often if they're blown up
or filled with water before use, So don't use it
as a toy and then use it as a you know,
disease preventer, right and if it breaks, stop what you're doing,
(31:30):
get a new one. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a
big one, because you don't want to be like, oh
well I went through the first couple of steps doing it,
it was fine. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, if you're
serious about this, then what you're trying to do is
prevent pregnancy or infection. You're gonna want to replace it
like it's worth if you used it in the first place,
(31:50):
then you might as well stop for a second and
another one. All right, Um, don't be a jerk. I
guess that's what you're saying. You're trying to prevent, like
you said, pregnancy, most people are when they use condoms
or um, more than thirty types of viruses or bacterial
infections or parasites. Right. Yeah, sex is dirty business. It
(32:11):
certainly can be. I think this proves that, um, there
is a god. All right, So you know, all those
diseases in bacteria for the most part, do we need
to go over those sure, chlamydia, uh, genital herpes, genital warts, gnarrhea,
hepatitis B, HIV of course, pubic lice, um, syphilis, trick omniasis. Yeah,
(32:37):
yeast infections, these and many more can all be yours
if you don't use a condom and you sleep with
somebody who has any of them. Yes, and genital warts
and herpes and pubic lice and a few other s.
T i s can still be yours even if you
do use a condom, because they are not passed through
the fluids. They are passed through skin and hair and
(32:58):
other stuff down there in that area. Yeah. Um, so chuck,
how effective our condoms, like you said, when when you
use them correctly, they work, like they've been proven to work.
Like we have come to the pinnacle of mail um
(33:19):
prophylaxis with the latex condom, Like it totally works. If
you use it correctly and you use it every time,
you're going to be fine. Uh. And they know this
by um by doing studies of specifically seroh discordant um couples,
which means one couple as HIV and one person in
(33:40):
the couple of HIV the other partner doesn't, And they
found that people who used the condom correctly every time
they had sex had pretty much a nil chance or
z chance of UM contracting HIV by the end of
this study. Yeah, that's a two year period of these couples,
so that there's you know, a lot of sex going on.
(34:00):
It wasn't just like, hey, you had sex one time
and you didn't get HIV. That's great, right, So good
good study from UNAIDS or un AIDS, which that makes sense, UNAIDS,
like they're fighting AIDS, they should be called UNAIDS. Is
this United Nation though? Um? And they found though that
couples that that didn't use them all the time, just
kind of here they're had a fourteen to twenty one
(34:23):
percent chance of UM contracting HIV during the study. Yeah,
and pregnancy prevention is pretty similar UM over the course
of the year. And of course I don't see any
ages or anything like that here. It just says a woman,
but a woman using a condom of the course of
the year, who uses it perfectly for every act of
sexual intercourse with a man has only a three percent
(34:43):
chance of becoming pregnant, So ninety seven effective. That's pretty good. Sure, Um,
if you use a condom typically which is apparently not
that great, not that well. Um, and you're a woman,
you have twelve percent chance of an unplanned pregnancy. But
both of those beat not using anything at all, which
(35:06):
leads to an eight percent chance of getting pregnant over
the course of a year just by having sex. And
it doesn't say how many men or anything like that
many trips to the roller rink this entails, so what
year is it? So there's st a lot of roller
rink sex going on. What got me started was the
idea of like a condom like in your pocket, remember
(35:28):
the condom ring in the genes or in your wallet
or whatever. Just associate that with the roller rink and
like kids with like half mustaches and like mullets and
stuff like that. So that's that's where the roller rink
reference came from. All right. So, um, some folks say that,
you know what, if you make condoms available to my teenager,
(35:49):
it's gonna encourage them to have sex. Um. Studies suggest
that is not the case. Um. This one study observed
over four thousand teenagers over an eight year period, which
is a pretty good study if you ask me. By
the end of the study, all of the participants were
sexually active, and the teenagers who use condoms during their
(36:10):
first sexual encounter were not more likely to have more
partners than those who did not, but the condom using
teams were less likely to have been diagnosed with connoete
or chlamydia. So this study at least points out that
it's not gonna encourage promiscuity, but it will keep you
from getting pregnant in disease. I think, um, being in
(36:32):
your teens encourages promiscuity. Yeah, you know, And that's kind
of the whole argument. It's like, are they going to
do it anyway? And if they are, then make sure
they have plenty of condoms. And other people say, well, no,
they're not gonna do it anyway, they just need to abstain,
and condoms are like the devil's temptation. I'm ready for
for humanity to evolve more in that realm. Like it
(36:54):
made sense for for eighteen year old males to be
at like their peak of sexual prowess and girls being
able to get pregnant when they were fourteen, you know,
three years ago, when we were living two thirty years old,
it made sense. These days, it's just like a cruel joke. Well,
you know. It's interesting is we're actually going the other direction,
like puberty coming younger and younger. A the average boy
(37:18):
enters puberty and I don't that this doesn't mean sexual maturation,
but begins puberty at like age seven or eight. Now
that's crazy. And see nowadays people are getting not everyone,
but people are waiting longer in general to get married
and have a family. And it's getting harder and harder,
uh for older people to get pregnant much less. The
man who was you know, starts to decline after eighteen
(37:42):
years old. You get married in your mid thirties, it's like, sorry,
you know, my best days were, We're wasted right well,
which is ironic because by that time you can grow
a decent mustache, I know, you know, all right, So, um,
there's this whole thing associated with condom. State are a
unique breed of product. You know, if you look at
(38:05):
them as a commodity, as a retail product, then they
should be the same as a candy or a toy
or you know, what have you. But something that these um,
these other products lack is what's called social marketing, which
is what makes condoms virtually unique. There is a there's
a great public interest in condoms being purchased and distributed
(38:28):
and easily gotten by everybody in the world, whether it's
for population control which is pretty sinister sounding, um or
through disease prevention. But governments around the world invest heavily
in condoms, and by doing that, they basically just buy
a bunch of condoms and turn around and selimented discount. Yeah,
(38:51):
it's called social marketing. And the ideas that if they
don't want to make them free, although you know, there
are plenty of places that give out condoms, um, but
they want to make them very cheap for those who
can't afford them, because the idea is that if you
pay for something, you're more likely to use it. Uh,
sort of like the co ed model. These kids who
pay for their textbooks instead of just giving them textbooks,
(39:13):
the more likely to use it. So, I don't know
what I've made that connection, but it's sort of the
same thing. Well it is, it's the exact same principle you, um,
you have some sort of ownership over something you've paid for. Yeah,
and Tracy said, the rule of thumb is that a
year supply of condoms should cast no more than one
percent of the target countries per capita gross national products.
And I don't think that's just Tracy saying that either. Well,
now she didn't make that up. So um, there's uh,
(39:37):
the other aspect of it. There's buy part of one
part of social marketing is buying condoms and distributing them
for cheap um. And this is like federal government, national
government level stuff. Uh. And then the other side of
it is educating the public. Yeah, you got to wear them, yeah,
and you have to know how to wear them. We
could probably get some federal funding for this episode if
(39:59):
you ask a little kickback. You have to know how
to wear them, you have to know what they do,
you have to know why to wear why you should
wear them. Um, you should be able to explain it
in plain simple terms to anybody who who who is
riding a bus that if they don't wear a condom,
they can die, or their junk can fall off, or
there's all sorts of terrible stuff that can happen to
you if you don't wear a condom. Right, Yeah, and uh,
(40:21):
it's been pretty successful in countries like Thailand where they
have a big commercial sex industry. Um. In nineteen eighty
nine they started a campaign for commercial sex workers to
use condoms at the time, always use them and pretty
amazing results. UM In nineteen eighty nine, before the campaign,
(40:42):
fourteen percent of the sex workers had consistently used condoms.
By just five years later used condoms and uh not. Coincidentally,
UM S t I cases diagnosed among sex workers fell
from four over four or a thousand per year to
just under thirty thousand per year. That's a huge, huge
(41:04):
drop off. Just use the condom, that's all you gotta do.
And the rest of the world watch Thailand. Their jaws
fell open, so they started buying condoms like crazy. So
like in two thousand, for example, UM South Africa bought
two hundred and fifty million condoms to million condoms. Botswana
(41:25):
purchased twelve million UM four hundred and fifty million condoms
in India And these are the places where you know
they need to use condoms, like you need to use
them everywhere, but places that are have places like Africa
and in India are like in Thailand. Obviously you need
to use the condoms. Why to prevent disease and to
(41:48):
prevent pregnancy, right, but what I mean you you would
want to do that anyway? Well, that's what I said.
But places that are overpopulated and people are dying because
they're starving, and where diseases ram in villages, it's a
little more important than other places that would say. I
think it's probably kind of a controversial statement though among
people who don't feel like you should be using condoms.
(42:11):
You know that that's government carrying out population control? H
Is it? I don't know, I don't know. I think
on its face, yeah, it definitely is. The government's very
interested in, like not having a starving population. In one
way to do it's a control population. But is that
(42:31):
a bad thing? Like? Do you if people are willing
to use condoms when they have them handy, um, then
you know, why wouldn't you want to provide that to them. Yeah,
it's not a bad thing. I'll go defend that until
my dying breath. Um. So this is um, this is
a ton of condoms we're talking about. That was just
two thousand, right, many tons of condoms. Right. Apparently the
(42:55):
condom industry, which is just loving this social marketing stuff, um,
is producing between eight and twelve billion condoms of a year. Right.
Apparently we would need fifteen billion to effectively cover everybody
for a year. Yeah, every everybody is sexually active, you
would need fifteen billion condoms, so they're close, but not
(43:18):
close enough. Right. That means everybody in the world does
it more than twice a year, because there's like six
billion people on the planet. Right. Uh well yeah, I
mean if you want to average out like that, right,
I think a lot of people aren't. A lot of
people are doing it more, right, but sure if you
want to throw an average on it. Um. The thing
(43:39):
is is that so we're we're short of condoms, which
is mind boggling. There's only sixty factories on the planet
making condoms for the whole world, So when you look
at it like that, it's pretty impressive. But apparently the
condom industry is stepping up the call and by is
projected to have to produce twenty five billion condoms. Uh. First,
(44:00):
that's a six billion dollar industry. That's good, But what's crazy,
that's a six billion dollar industry. Los Angeles County from
porn makes one six of the equivalent of the entire
condom industries. Money in porn in just porn, yea, in
just that one county. Yeah, see how everything is connected?
I do uh. So here in the United States, the
(44:23):
f d A controls something called good manufacturing practices UH
rules and standards for making drugs and things like condoms.
So the f d A is IS has standards. There
are also international standards. The International Organization for Standardization UM.
They have their own standards that cover these medical devices,
(44:46):
and they have silly numbers attached to them, but that
really means nothing to anyone, does it. Well? In case
you ever wanted to know, I s O four oh
seven four Colon two zero zero two is the international
standard for condom manufacture and distribution. That's right. And we're
talking about standards. We're talking about acceptable levels of condoms
(45:08):
that are defective per batch UM credit. I would imagine
the average consumers like zero. That'd be nice UM accreditation
for labs that test these procedures material shelf life stability,
they're just making sure all that is up to snuff UM.
And again, as we said there, the the standards are
(45:29):
in this manual called zapping, popping, rolling, and other condom
testing tools that very repeating UM condoms used to be.
They're a little more acceptable to buy these days. Shouldn't
be embarrassed to walk into your grocery store by condoms,
said the forty one year old. Exactly, But it's not
that way for everyone. It's not that way for every
(45:51):
group because they are taboo. UM. In some religions UM.
Catholicism UH famously does not allow the use of contraception.
Orthodox Judaism apparently Islam does allow it if you are
married heterosexuals, hed heterosexuals, and you have reason to prevent pregnancy,
(46:14):
and then UM. Conservative Christian groups have long promoted abstinence
rather than the use of condoms, and sometimes even fought
the education and distribution of condoms for reasons we said earlier,
like they think it makes their children promiscuous and they
will want to have sex because they now have this condom.
That is the key to them wanting to have sex.
(46:37):
And it's not to the government to carry out population
control exactly. UM. In Nevada has been mandatory to use
condoms if you are in a brothel, so highly regulated
UM sex industry there, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada. Excuse me, So
Josh who uses condoms? Uh, everybody who can get their
(47:01):
hands on them apparently uses condoms. UM. The u N
says that two thirds of the world has ready and
available access, ready and easy access to condoms. Right, and
they actually created a definition. I'd love the u N
You know, ready and easy access to condoms mean you
have to spend less than two hours a month buying condoms.
(47:24):
So I guess like taking a bus into town or
something like that. Yeah, if you live in the middle
of nowhere Africa, it might take a while to get
a condom. So this distribution net of condoms needs to
be pretty uh, pretty wide, pretty um woven, well woven. Yeah,
and then um, you also don't want to pay more
(47:45):
than one percent of a person's monthly take home pay
wherever they live. That's right. So when the un IS
in the world is trying to distribute these and make
them available, those are the criteria they look for as
far as like what they're going to charge people maybe
in one of these less developed countries, right, Um, and
they we found that because of efforts like this, condom
(48:07):
use around the world has increased. Apparently, prior to the eighties, Um,
evaluations of condom usage has just been like married couples.
I don't understand why. Um, apparently things were there was
maybe tawdry or something. Who knows, but UM. The Brits
went ahead and did a survey in nineteen fifty and
(48:29):
found that UM for their first sexual encounter of men
and women used a condom by about sixty did. Right,
so there's definite increasing condoms condom usage. UM. They found
that people who live with their partners typically use condoms less. UM,
(48:51):
people who makes the older you are, the less you
would be, the less likely you would be to use condoms,
probably again because you're in a long term monogamous for
like and ship right Uh and then um, people with
latex allergies tend to not use condoms. Yeah. And these
were studies from Europe mainly, but I imagine it's pretty
(49:11):
similar in other parts of the world. Yeah, but hearteningly
people UM in Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Britain. They found
that the more partners of person had, the more likely
they were to use condoms. To use a Jimmy hat
a French letter, French letter. I don't even know what
that one is, all right. There are female condoms UM
that are fairly new. Um. When when do they come
(49:37):
around Switzerland? Approved here in the United States? And and
uh it is a UM. Paul yourthane sheath sort of
like the male condom, except it's just it's got two rings,
one on either end, one a little smaller on one end,
and that it fits in the woman's vagina, and it's
(49:57):
sort of is just like a reverse of what the
male condom is. They some of the benefits as a
woman can put this in um beforehand, whereas a man
obviously has has to be go time, has to have
the erect penis right exactly like the woman can insert
this anytime anytime. UM. Well, I'm sure they are you know,
(50:18):
recommendations for how long that you use this thing as well. Um.
But it is another barrier method that protects against HIV
and pregnancy and uh yep. Because it's poly ethane, you
can use oil based lubricants y um. And also in
places where it's difficult or impossible because of social norms
(50:41):
for a woman to insist that the guy wear a condom. Um,
this is very useful because it's it's given control of
who uses the condom win to the woman. Um. It
is more expensive, which is one of the disadvantages and
um that could lead some people in developing nations to
(51:02):
wash it and reuse it, which is not recommended UM
and apparently in trials clinical trials it's slightly less effective
at preventing pregnancy and s t I S and male condoms,
but it's way, way, way better than nothing obviously. Um,
what else do we have? We have spray on condoms, Yeah,
(51:24):
sort of not yet there and they're still being toyed with. Apparently,
this guy named I can't remember his first name. His
last name is Krauss. He's a sex educator from Germany.
UM and he apparently had trouble finding condoms that fit
him when he was younger, a younger man. He's thirty. Now.
(51:45):
I get the idea that he was small. Oh, I
got the idea that the opposite idea. I don't know
because later in the article he talked about being small
and like I want to make condoms for smaller guys
because oh I missed that part. Yeah. Um, well, it's
funny new ideas to have a range of sizes, like
six sizes. The markets wide open for small conds apparently
(52:07):
tried and tried it a few years ago and like
this continued him almost immediately because they didn't sell any
condoms for the smaller man or something, right, Yeah, although
magnum condoms like have seventeen percent of the market share,
they're like fifteen percent bigger than normal condoms. Yeah and
and crosses. Uh. His theory is that guys that are
smaller don't want to walk into a store and buy
(52:29):
the small condoms, so he wants to I mean, he's
he's working on the spray on condom, but he's also
working on different sizes that I think are a little
more um. The packaging is a little less obvious, you know,
it's not like you don't walk up and by like
the teeny leaning. Well, he originally, you know, I think
he wants to make it a little more clandestine. He
(52:51):
originally set up this website, which is pretty cool, um,
where you can download this measuring tape that you print
out and use, and then you enter in your dimensions
in the website and it brings up all of the
condoms for sail in Germany that are likeliest to fit
you best. This is pretty cool. Yeah, but now he's
created the spray on condom. Yeah. Here's how this thing works.
(53:14):
You put your penis in a tube and it's sprays
from many different directions the condom latex onto your penis,
your erect penis and um, then it has to dry,
which is one of the problems that it this is
when it sprays, so some dudes are worried that that
might ruin the mood. Um, some guys were a little
(53:35):
worried about putting their penis in this tube period. And
then um liquid latex takes about two to three minutes
to vulcanize, and in order for people to buy these things,
he thinks it's gonna have to be ready in like
five to ten seconds. So because it's like you better
learn how to juggle or something to like keep the
interest going for those couple of minutes. Is that what
(53:58):
does it? Juggling? Juggling or I don't know, maybe making
an omelet. And then there are the anti rape condoms,
which are controversial to say the least. A South African
doctor came up with these and they are like the
female condom, but it's also like, um, I hate to
say it, but like the closest analogy is like a
Chinese finger trap. Yeah, like that, once the potie goes in,
(54:22):
there's these plastic teeth that hold it in place and
only a doctor can remove this basically giant female condom
that's now attached to your penis. And the reason she
came up with this was because rape in South Africa
is um out of control. Some survey from two thousand
nine found that one in four South African men admit
(54:44):
to raping a woman and that they think possibly one
point four million women are raped in South Africa every year.
That's the population of Phoenix. So this woman came up
with this. It's basically like the female condom that will
immediately inflict pain on the rapist. The woman can, I guess,
get away, but the man stuck with this on right
(55:07):
and he has to go to the emergency room where
hopefully the police will be there to arrest him. Well,
the woman doesn't necessarily get away, which is one of
the pitfalls that she admits to. It could encourage a
violence against the woman in the moment um, and another
person from the c d c UH says that it's
(55:27):
also a form of enslavement. It's um a constant reminder
of a woman's vulnerability um and it gives them also
a false sense of security. But the psychological trauma of
the rape is still there. But at least you're gonna
catch the guy, is the rationale. And um, when people
say that have told her this is a medieval thing
(55:49):
that you're coming up with, she says, so is rape.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Yeah,
and that thing is called the rape x are a
p hyphen a x e. And I believe it's raybacks
dot com maybe or something that takes you to the website.
But if you type in ray backs into your search browser,
that's gonna bring that up. What else, Chuck, I don't
(56:12):
have anything else. You don't want to talk about? The
goat condom. That's population control, man, all right, let's talk
about it like we are goats. To some people, there's
a something called an oh lore that um it's basically
this impediment that hangs from the abdomen of a male
goat that keeps him from Um, it's a barrier to
(56:33):
prevent him from penetrating the female during intercourse, right, And
they use this to control goat population so that they
don't starves. Familiar, And it's not a you know, it's
not something that goes on the penis. I think it's
just a physical barrier that just like a the male
(56:53):
goat chastity belt that the goat knocks into its Thanks
thank God for that. Yeah, just it's good though I'm
crack wise, but sure than starving goats. That is condoms.
Well done, Well done to YouTube, not much giggling. I
(57:13):
wonder how many times we said penis penis a bunch
more than we ever have in a conversation. I would say,
I would say that's probably fairly accurate. I wonder if
we topped that Sara Lives gets use of penis, remember
at the newdist camp. Oh yeah, with Kevin Nelon and
Mike Myers, And that's great. Uh, let's see. If you
(57:36):
want to know more about condoms, you can find this
very thorough comprehensive article on the subject. By typing condom
into the search part how stuff works dot com. You
can also type in sex and reproduction and it'll bring
up a lot of really good, well written, well researched
articles that will probably answer a lot of questions you
might have about that kind of thing. Yeah, I think
(57:57):
we should start peppering these throughout. Do a little more.
Set said here and there. Okay, that's good. Um, you well,
since we said sex said, since Chuck said sex said,
you know what that means? You know what that means.
It's time for listener mail. All right, UM, I'm gonna
call this music experiment. Um, you guys are awesome. Been
(58:19):
listening since about two thousand ten. Just listen to Why
does music provoke emotion? I thought I would share an
experiment that I did a few years ago. I came
up with the idea of listening to my music in
sequential order by year of release. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I don't have his name now I feel awful. Um.
I started biting it up by five years, and each
five year period took about one and a half to
(58:40):
two weeks. So he's basically only listening to that era
in order, one at a time, So like the fifth
week of September ninety two, which never existed like that,
you well, just in order, like I'm listening to the
nineteen five these music for this week. So the whole thing,
(59:03):
uh ended up taking about three and a half months,
which is much longer than I planned. I'm a big
music guy and I started at around pre nineteen fifties.
I should note that while I did this, I did
my best to isolate myself musically. What did listening to
anything else that wasn't from that period that I was
in that week. That's kind of cool. I ended up
being one of the most rewarding experience I've had in
a long time. Aside from noticing many new things and
(59:25):
songs that I had listened to countless times before, I
feel like I began forming a connection with the time
period of the music I was listening to. Now. At times,
I could almost feel the angst or even excitement of
events long past, as if I had lived them, events
that weren't necessarily mentioned or addressed in the songs themselves.
(59:45):
For the time I was done, I felt like I
had traveled through time. I had a strange connection with
events I had never experienced except through the music that
was popular at the time of those events. Many things
that didn't make much sense to me musically, all of
a sudden had a different significance. So thanks for the
work guys. Definitely makes my drive to work a much
(01:00:06):
more enjoyable. Thanks again, And I wish I had your name. Well,
we'll read it if you send it in nice Okay, Yeah,
so sorry, Gary Urst, Billy or Johnny or Fred Cole
cole um. I see, we don't want people's condom stories
to Yeah, of course we do. It seems like a
bad idea. I think it's a great idea. Well, then
(01:00:26):
you ask for guys. We want your condom stories. Ladies,
we want your condom stories. Okay, if you live in
New York City and you can explain, that's a good
one of the condoms on the street inside. Although what's
there to explain really well, I mean where they come from.
Maybe they're coming up from the sewer when Oh, that's
a good idea. Maybe they are, or or maybe they're
being tossed out of cabs. Maybe they're from the roller rink. Anyway,
(01:00:51):
if you want to get in touch with us, you
can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff we
Should Know, and you can send us a good old
fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
(01:01:11):
how stuff works dot com. H
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with me as always Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh,
you put it together, rubb us and lube. You've got
yourself stuff. You should know. You have a lawsuit on
(00:23):
your hands from you, right, Yeah, somebody how you doing? Man? Oh,
I gotta speeding ticket on the way here. I'm piste off.
Well everything of the last fifteen minutes before we started recording,
as I explained, No, we talked about regular stuff that
didn't influence my my feelings about this. But you're still
(00:44):
like you had to burn your bonnet well for that cop. Man.
This state patrol they don't miss around, No, they don't.
There's no like, there's no small talk, there's no nothing.
It's give me your license and then here's your ticket.
I was like, but get and that was anyone who
refers to you and the what the second person is, citizen?
(01:05):
They're they're pretty serious people. Yeah, I'm gonna go to
court though, why not? Good for you? Man? You know,
we don't we don't work. You never know you might
get out of it. Yeah, we'll give it a shot. Yeah.
So aside from that, I had my condom on, so
I was safe driving. That's good. Yeah, you always wear one, right,
(01:27):
you can't be too careful? How often do you change it? Gross? May?
That is so gross? All right? Uh, let's talk about
Measure B. Have you heard a Measure B. H. It
is a referendum that Los Angeles County floated in this
last election that passed of the vote. Um, it said,
if you're in the porn industry and you're filming, you
(01:47):
have to wear a condom. Good. Well, it depends on
who you are. If you are a citizen, yeah, you
probably think it's good, especially if you voted in favor
of it. Sure. If you're in the porn industry, though,
you're like, people don't want to see that, and um,
they're actually talking about moving from Los Angeles, which is
(02:08):
a big deal. People, I don't want to see a
condom in their porn movies. I guess I don't want
to see any of that stuff. I don't want to
see what's attached to the condom either. Okay, so you
wouldn't care? Uh no, yeah, I guess so I don't
want to see any stuff. Like apparently there's a longstanding
thing in the porn industry. It's like, you just don't
(02:30):
show condoms. It just it reflects the unnatural nous maybe
of of what you're seeing. Um, what you're like, Well,
wait a minute, that's probably not the pizza guy after all,
you know. So um, it blows the illusion that that's
real stuff. So they're talking about about moving from Los Angeles,
which is huge Los Angeles because apparently in just Los
(02:52):
Angeles County porn it's a billion dollar industries in the valley,
just in one county. Can you imagine in that So
there's a big carefuffle going on right now over condom
usage in the porn industry. To ever tell you about
the time I scouted the porn stage for video shoot. No,
was this did key for Sutherland's driver take you there? No,
(03:13):
But I was working as a p A and we
couldn't afford like a real stage, so we they sent
me out to the valley of this porn stage to
go videotape it and see what it looked like. And uh,
it just like a boardroom with a bed in the corner,
and a candy shop with a bed, and a gymnasium
locker room. With a bed. It was really gross and
I didn't want to touch anything. And uh, as I
(03:34):
was leaving, a bunch of big muscly men came in
to get their shoot on. Oh is that right? Yeah,
was a gay porn I had that afternoon. It was Oh,
so it's just like whatever. It's like, it's a it's
a sound stage. Yeah, they take all comers, you know.
And so these two dudes walked in and I walked out,
and I don't think we ended up using the stage,
(03:56):
but it was funny. In the conference room set there
was a framed like Olan Mills or I was a
painting of Burt Reynolds and Lonnie Anderson like at the
head of the conference room. No way, yep, sort of got.
That's one thing about porn and stream moguls. They seem
to always have like a great sense of humor. I
think this is before Boogie Nights, even because I didn't
(04:17):
make that connection. It was just Burt Reynolds. That was
definitely before Boogie Nights. But I mean think about Larry Flint,
He's he has a great sense of humor. Um, Hugh Hefner.
Maybe I think the less hardcore you get, the less
away the further away from hardcore, you get the less,
the less of a sense of humor. The publisher has.
(04:38):
I bet there's some mathematical formula in there. We'll see
it one day, alright, So condoms is what we're talking about. Um,
we should say, if you're young, you might want to
ask your parents if you should listen to this. Oh man,
you know that is a good c o A like.
I think it's up to parents how they educate their
children with this stuff. So we have you have been
(05:00):
war Warren. Go put your little pot uh player down, Goss,
Mom and dad? Should I be listening to this? We're
gonna be very clinical here, but it's about sex and reproduction,
so it can't be too careful. I wonder how many
kids just like pull the cheeks over? What do you think?
I don't know? Vast majority? Okay, so um, let's try
(05:22):
this again. We're talking condoms, um, and apparently they what
we think of as condom usage normal, widespread. It's talked about,
there's billboards whatever. Is actually a fairly recent phenomenon. The
billboards and things. Yeah, and just the idea of like
(05:44):
using condoms like that's that's pretty recent. Um. From the eighties.
And actually it was HIV that kind of um spurred
this condom age that we live in now. But there
have been like another golden age of condoms, uh shortly
after the Great War, right, that's right. Venarial diseases were
(06:05):
pretty easy to get if you were a sailor on
leave in Europe, and so they encouraged troops to uh
use use condoms and distributed them in the in the ranks,
among the ranks, and when they came back home, they
kept using. My guess they hit a big boom here
in the in the nineteen what I guess forties. Post
war era died down in the sixties because the pill exactly,
(06:27):
and then picked back up again in the eighties because
of HIV. Yeah, because we we figured out things too clever,
things like penicillin and all that stuff. Um that most
of the STDs that condoms were preventing at the time
you could just treat with antibiotics. So people weren't too
concerned with that kind of thing. And then the pill
came along and I was like, we have no need
for condoms orsoever. But then and then condoms us had
(06:50):
started to go through the roof, which is good. Yeah, Um,
but apparently condoms are an extremely old idea. At the
at least, putting something on the over your penis, whether
for recreational purposes or whatever, is at least fifteen thousand
years old. Right, Yeah, I think Tracy of pop Stuff
(07:12):
wrote this article. We should point out she's responsible for
the most comprehensive podcasts we've done. Yeah. I never even
think twice when I look in and see her name
in the Byline'm like, oh, well, we should totally do this. Um. Yeah.
She points out that fifteen thousand years ago we have
found cave paintings that show images of a sheathed penis. Yes,
so it's unclear whether or not these garments and decorations
(07:37):
and sheaths on the penises of Egypt and Greece and
India and Japan were for uh, contraception, as a barrier
method or adornment. I guarantee they weren't probably thinking of
the woman's comfort, No, especially when all yeah, the Japanese
version of the penis sheath or condom was made of
(07:58):
horn or Tortoiseshell, they didn't care about the lady's pleasure.
That's just mind boggling, my painful sound me. I don know,
no kidding. Um, so we know people started using condoms
as a means to prevent pregnancy by the Roman era,
I think, of course. Yeah, anytime it's sexty times stuff.
(08:21):
They were leading the way totally. You know. Yeah, anybody's
see Caligula can tell you that. Um. But then by
the time Shakespeare rolls around, condoms are pretty common. Yeah
if you count you know, wrapping linen around the penis
and tying it in a little bow with a ribbon
(08:42):
at the bottom. That's a condom back then, or stuffing
something into the urethra and using a draw string, um, ribbon.
But it's another way that they did things. I should
post um photos of your facets of your face that
I'm taking like throughout this episode. Yeah. Um. And well
by the time Shakespeare's age, Uh, people are using condoms
(09:05):
pretty frequently. And one of the things they're using it,
probably the main thing they're using it for, is to
prevent syphilis, because just like in World War Two, sailors
to the New World came and contracted this new disease
that was found only in North America at the time. Um,
and or I should say the Western hemisphere. Uh. And uh,
(09:27):
they brought it back, and they figured out after a
little while like, oh wait a minute, I think it
has to do with sex. So they started using condoms
for a disease prevention through that. So this is a
pretty big point here, right, Like by the the age
of exploration, people understand that you can cover the penis
to prevent pregnancy and to prevent disease. Yeah, that's a
(09:47):
huge advancement in society. I guess totally. They were. They
were on it. They still like rolled in their own
feces and like she ever washed their hands or took
a bath, but they knew how to prevent syphilis with
a little something in the urethro the draw stream. That's right.
By the mid seventeen hundreds, Tracy points out, they were
starting to use um condoms made from animal membranes, animal
(10:10):
guts basically, which if you they still have these today,
if you use something called cheapskin, it is not cheap skin,
but it is you know, cheap guts and testine lining. Yeah,
and you can still buy those. I think they were
about what like one percent of the total sales these days.
And they recommend those only if you are like a
monogamous couple. That's disease free and you're just using it
(10:32):
to like not get pregnant because it's very thin. Yeah,
but it's not. It's it's porous, I believe enough for
pathogens to pass through. Yeah. Like you don't want to
use that if to prevent getting HIV? No, not smart? Um,
Well you want to use is a rubber condom. That's right.
Thank you Charles Goodyear, Yeah, who gave us not only
(10:55):
rubber condoms, but um tires, uh, ebber hoses, rubber belts,
pretty much anything that they made of rubber. You can
thank Charles Goodyear for it because of his process of vulcanization,
which is he added um sulfur and lead oxide to
rubber from the Heavia Braziliens tree. Yeah, which they had
(11:18):
been tapping that tree for a while to get this,
you know latex, this liquid rubber but um. Yeah. Volcanization
is where it became a thing that you could mask,
you know, produced and it was safe and it was
uh stronger and uh more elastic, so you know, less
likely to break, but it was also thicker and rougher.
(11:40):
You had to go to your doctor to be fitted
for one of these condoms. The good the good part
is you could wash and reuse it. It was basically
like your your your condom. You probably wrote your name
on it. I imagine if you got fitted though, in
the doctor's office, that would have to be with an erection, right, Yeah,
you remember the little reflex hammer? Yeah, I do. What
does that to do this? That's how they did it, alright.
(12:04):
So I guess back in the day, you would go
to your doctor and get an direction, and he would
fit you with a condom right made from vulcanized rubber,
probably a bit of a uh investment at this time
as a man, so I doubt if a lot of
people were wearing him. Still, so again, imagine this is
what I imagine. It basically probably looked a lot like um,
(12:26):
a the nipple of a baby bottle. Yeah, sure, you know.
I'll bet you there's somebody who collects old time e condoms,
some rich dude who has like an old time e
condom collection. Yeah, of course, Um, there's someone who collects
everything old you know. Uh. So by apparently people were
using this. This is eighty nine when charls could you
(12:48):
come with volcanization? So we're talking like the mid to
late nineteenth century. People are using these rubber condoms from
usible rubber condoms, and then everybody patted on the back
a guy named at Killian Killian's red beer inventor. Maybe no,
it's possible. Um. He's more famously known, however, for um
(13:10):
creating a process of making condoms directly from latex, which
again is the sap of the rubber tree found in Brazil,
West Africa, now Southeast Asia. Now UM. And he would
take these glass molds that where you could argue ballack
in nature, you know, uh, and that he would dip
(13:31):
it directly into latex. I think he did it with
his hand like that. I'm just just initially he did.
So he would dip these these molds or um forms
right what they're called formers, just into latex and uh
he would then vulcanize that, and what you had was
(13:53):
a thinner, stronger, UM better I guess condom. Yeah, thinner
and longer, which is like that's what you want out
of a condom because you want to have the sensation intact,
but you want to be safe and also had a
longer shelf life, and all of a sudden, latex was
the way to go. Yeah, No, it's all condoms worldwide
(14:16):
are latex. And that's a lot of condoms, as we'll see. Yeah,
it's some numbers. Should we should we talk about nicknames
or not? This seems a little silly to me. I
thought it was silly too. Let's skip it then, Okay,
maybe we should just drop them in occasionally. Okay, you know,
so people know because it's in here, so it's legit,
right instead of condoms, will say jimmy hat. Okay, further
(14:39):
chilly and came up with the latex Jimmy hat. Right. Uh,
I guess if you don't know what a condom is
at all, we should go ahead and say it is
h a tube. It's a bag like tube that the
male penis fits in, open on one end, obviously, and
closed on the other. There's a little reservoir tip to
(15:00):
collect the semen um supposedly, and um, it's got a
little uh ring around the open end, a thin rim
that you uh that you roll down upon the penis.
And that is a condom and it it basically it
(15:20):
blocks fluids from touching each other, which is how you
get pregnant and how you get disease. Keeps all those
fluids separate right the the form of this. The basic
concept of the condom hasn't changed much over the eons,
but just these little advances and technology like making them latex.
Late tex is not porous, yes, Um, the only way
something's going to get through is if there's some sort
(15:41):
of damage to it or something like that. Um, the
condoms the same what you just described as generally been
in use for hundreds or thousands of years. Right, yeah,
it's a barrier method. Um. These days there are I
don't think we should talk about all those standards because
my eyes started to water a little bit when I
was eating all those with the length, the width, and
the thickness. No, no no, we should talk about that. But
(16:03):
later on all the standards when it was just like
really international codes. There are international codes governing how they're made. Well,
which is good. I'm not knocking that, sure, it's just
not exciting. Um. So yeah, these days, the length they
are at least six point three inches hundred and sixty millimeters.
Well you did the conversion. Well I think you kind
(16:25):
of have to say an inches, don't you. But have
you noticed that how stuff works? Articles have gone metric? Yeah,
now it's metric. The meat one, the live ground meat
one both in in metric. All right, well, I don't
know what to say about that. What about the width?
What is the width of econom win lead flat fifty
two millimeters which I did not convert to inches. The
(16:46):
thickness is point zero seven millimeters. That's that's very thin, which,
like we said, that's what you want out of a condom.
You want something strong, but you don't want to ruin
the sexual experience by wearing a rubber glove of you
know what I'm saying, rubber glove to just and keep
(17:07):
the rubber gloves on your hands, that's right. They powder
these things with things like silica and corn starch and
magnesium carbonate to keep the latex from sticking to itself
in packaging, or they can come loobed up with either
regular lube or made from silicone, or spermocidal lube, which
(17:27):
this is good to know now that I'm married, but
I was shown it on this back then. Apparently the
spermocidal lubricants can make things worse, specifically non oxid all nine. Yeah.
It says that they found that when used with a condom,
it doesn't really do much to kill sperm, and even worse,
it can cause vaginal irritation, which can lead to easier
(17:50):
disease transmission. Yeah, so that's apparently not a good thing
to use non oxid all nine on your condoms. Very
good to know. And that's not knocking in nine because
think that's what's also you used outside of a condom, right,
as as supermocidal. Right, so it's more affective there, I guess.
How about manufacturing a condom, chuck it all. It all starts, um,
(18:14):
either in the forests of Brazil, Southeast Asia, or West Africa,
which is where you'll find the rubber tree, which is
still to this date where latex comes from, unless it's
synthetic latex of course. But let's say you're you're going
the natural route, and um, you go to Brazil and
get you some SAP, which again sap from uh latex
(18:35):
or rubber tree is latex. Okay, so you get that,
you take it back to your factory, right, that's right.
Maybe in Brazil, maybe in Thailand, who knows, is that
what they make these? Okay? I think they make them
pretty close to the rubber plantations. All the pictures in
this article are in like Thailand or Brazil or whatever.
And that's where you're gonna find rubber trees. Um, well
(18:59):
it doesn't only pane latex. You're gonna probably have some
other ingredients in your bucket there of of sap, well, yeah,
you added along the way. Yeah, antifungal and antibacterial compounds.
You want to keep the things clean. Zincos side, which
is accelerates the vulcanization process. Uh, stabilizers like potassium laurate, UM,
(19:20):
sulfur maybe which is another vulcanizing agent, ammonia antiquagulant. I
didn't know that. Yeah, it keeps things from coagulating really,
and uh, other pigments and preservatives too, you know, because
you wanted to have that lovely fleshy look in strawberry flavoring.
Well we'll get to that too. Um. So these add
(19:42):
to the shelf life. Um. They make it harder to
break down because rubbers biodegradable naturally, and you don't want
it to break down. That's what happened the old day's
when the easies lubes, the natural rubber would just break down.
Your kind of wasn't worth much for long, right, Um
and Tracy points that this is a good reason why
you never want to throw a condom used or otherwise
in a toilet. That's not how you throw a condom away,
(20:05):
because it doesn't break down. It's just gonna gum things up.
It's gonna catch all the hair and toilet paper and
all that stuff and grow bigger and bigger and just
basically become this big giant condom damn in your sewer pipe.
That's right. So what do you do? Uh? You um
wrap it in tissue paper. She suggests wrap that tissue
(20:27):
paper in foil, put the foil in a five millimeter
thick flat garbage bag, and bury it in your yard.
That's how you properly dispose of a used condom. That's
not true, but she does recommend the tissue and the
waste basket. Yeah, just not the toilet, or if you're
in New York City, just on the street or sidewalk,
just fine, in the back of your cab. Have you
(20:49):
ever noticed all the condoms one, there's a lot of
them out there. It's just it's a thing. It's definitely
a thing. If you live in New York you know
about it, or you point the tiles or something. I
just don't get it, Like, are these people having sex
in the street? Throw them out the apartment. Maybe maybe
that's what they're doing. That's gross, I know. Could you
imagine walking down the sidewalk after a nice dinner. Alright,
(21:13):
So you've got the liquid latex goes in the vats,
and then you've got the formers, which have been around
for a while, and they are glass or ceramic molds
of a penis, and they're on a conveyor belt. Dip
it into the bat, get it, turn it and circle
to get a nice even coating and dry it out,
and then maybe a second or third dip to make
(21:35):
sure it's sticking off right, and then it's into the
tunnel oven for vulcanization. It has all of those, um,
those the zinc oxide and the sulfur in it to
help it vulcanize, so when it's exposed to heat, it
becomes stronger, that's right, right, Um. And then after that
I found this a little unsettling, Yeah, because I just
always thought of tondos it's like untouched. It's like a
(21:56):
brand new newspaper, like you could deliver a baby with it,
you know. Um. But apparently after vulcanizing, the condoms are
taken off of the formers, right, Um, and they are washed. Yeah,
you're so the condom you're you're you're using has been
washed before. I just to find it odd. I guess
probably mechanically washed, right, Yeah, it says a washing machine
(22:18):
um and invest to remove odor, pathogens and allergen. So
it's good that they're doing this. But I agree with you.
I kind of thought it was just like you know,
it was made and packaged immediately and then it goes
on your body, right exactly, Not quite, so you you
wash it. And then there's quality testing, which is a
lot of pretty cool stuff. There's some there's some cool
(22:41):
quality tests. If you ask me, well, let's get into it, then, well,
there's a standard called zipping, popping, rolling, and other condom testing. Yeah,
what you're testing for is you want to prevent three
things that make a condom uh ineffective. Breaking the condom
not good, slipping off definitely not good. In leaking. None
(23:02):
of these are good because they are uh you know,
they're not preventing the one thing or two things that
you're trying to do, which is either pregnancy or some
sort of socially transmitted infection. Not you notice that she's
not STD anymore. It's s t I. I didn't know that.
When did that happen? Maybe she just made the change herself,
(23:25):
you think, No, I think I think it's I don't know,
because maybe disease doesn't quite scientifically capture all. I'm sure
that's so. Yeah, I don't know when that happened, but
I'll bet it is fairly recent. Um. So, one of
the two tests that they're really looking at is you
don't want it to break and you don't want it
to leak, right, Yeah, So they test the condom's tentile strength. Basically,
(23:49):
they just get a bunch of third graders in there
and blow the condoms up and see how much volume
it holds until it breaks. Right. Yeah, they're not third graders,
but that's pretty much the long and short of it.
They inflate them, they stretch them, um, they fill them
with water and hang them up. Yeah. I guess these
are the they're testing, um, either whole batches or selected
(24:09):
condoms from the batch. And yeah, they hold filliple water
and look at it. That's the that's the utter test.
Is that what it's called? Okay, I just made it up,
but I think it's good. I bet you that's what
they call it. On the line and they're literally look
at it or else, if they want to be slightly
more scientific, they'll roll it along like water absorbent paper
and see if there's any water um and there shouldn't
(24:31):
be remember again, late text condoms don't have any kind
of pores um. And then there's another leaked test, which
is a lot more scientific or at least it's probably
fun or to do. I wonder how many factories use
this method, if it's such a supermodern or or what
and it's suchis factories soon this there's also like third
party companies that like make their money by testing condoms
(24:54):
for factories or maybe as watch dog groups. That's true.
So how does the electricity work? So there's a couple
of different ones. There's one where they take condoms and
they they they put them atop metal rods that have
been dipped in conductive solution. Then they run a current
through these metal rods and the the condoms being rubber,
(25:17):
shouldn't be conductive. But if there's holes or tears or anything,
and I'm like, the current will run through the condom
and then they have a computer watch to see, you know,
if any had a current run through them. Then the
other one is where they turn the voltage up. Yeah,
this is a dry test, um, and they basically like
(25:37):
run a current again through a bunch of condoms and
if there's any holes or whatever, those condoms will like
burn or melt stinks. Yeah, burn rubbers doesn't smell good. Um.
So those are the main ways that they will test
condoms to make sure that you're all good to go
when it's go time. You know what I'm saying. Uh. Slippets, however,
(26:00):
something they cannot test for because slippage, my friend, is
up to you how you properly or improperly used the condom.
Slippage is user error. Yeah, and I'm ashamed to say that.
And we're about to go over the tin steps and
how to properly use a condom. I didn't know about
one of them, the circumcised step not well, I didn't
(26:22):
know about that. Well it is it, Well, we'll get
to it. Um. So Tracy says, a storage is where
it starts. You got up to store it properly. So, uh,
heat and light is not good. Wallets, pockets and glove compartments.
In other words, everywhere teenage boys forced to store their
condoms is not where you should store a condom. You
know it's all bad. You want to keep it in
(26:45):
a dry um just sort of room temperatures like atmosphere
and not at the roller rink. Look at number two.
You look at the package, make sure it's all you know, intact,
it's not opened and as the expiration date, you know
you're within that range. Yeah, and when you do open it,
you want to open it carefully. You want to tear
(27:06):
along the one side. Sometimes it was a notch. Tracy
points out that you don't want to open it with
your teeth or pointing fingernails. Yeah, you don't want open
your teeth for a couple of reasons, but one of
them is you don't want to break it right. Um,
you want to make sure the condom is right side up.
This is the one I didn't know. I didn't know
there was the right side sure, I didn't know that.
(27:27):
Oh well, Um, I just forty almost forty two years old.
I had no idea that there was an up. And
I know you're talking about but there is a way
to tell um what's up and what's down. And the
tip the reservoir should be pointing up unimpeded. I had
no idea. That's the that's the top right. I'm just
(27:48):
learning this. So you take that reservoir right and you
um squeeze the air out of it, hold it shut,
class bit shot with your fingers and put it over
the tip of the penis. We're doing this. You realize this.
We've suddenly become a sex side podcast. Yeah, you you
missed though. If you are uncircumcised, you want to gently
pull your foreskin back to relieve the glands, which is
(28:10):
the tip of the penis. So you put the tip
of the put the condom over the tip of the
penis with the reservoir squeezed shut, and then you start
to unroll it. Take a chuck, just number six. Um.
She also pointed out if you don't have it right
side up, it won't unroll correctly. That's why there is
a top side and the downside, which now explains a lot. Um.
(28:33):
Unroll the condom down the length of the penis all
the way to the base. You gotta take it to
the base. You want it. You want full protection here. Um. Otherwise,
because if you look, if you use a condom perfectly,
then we'll find out your chances of disease and pregnancy
are virtually nil. Yeah, problems arises when you you know,
you may be not roll it all the way down
or accidentally get a testicle caught in there. Um, if
(28:58):
you need lube, use a water based lube. You don't
want to make the mistake of using like vaseline. I
guess I should say petroleum jelly or baby oil or
lotions or anything like that, anything that could. Yeah, that's
all oil based, and that's gonna not do you any
favors in the reliability department. Right, you want it to
(29:19):
be water based lubricant, that's right. But she also points
out that you using extra lubricant is effective in preventing
breakage during um anal penetration, but in vaginal penetration it
can actually increase the likelihood of breakage of the condom.
I did not know that. I did not know that either.
(29:39):
So we're learning right along with you people. Yeah, I'm
so glad to want to you sees anymore? Being married
is great. Uh so after the male ejaculates, this is
post coital ejaculation, you hope. Yeah, that's true. Um, you
want to hold the rim of the condom to keep
it from slipping off when you um, exit the vagina
(30:03):
and withdraw the penis. Uh. And and before the erection
is lost. You don't want to have the condom on
lose your erection while you're still in mid penetration. Uh.
And then you want to run outdoors to begin the
disposal process, which as we sat into the yard, right,
(30:24):
that's right, remove the condom, wrap it in a tissue,
put it in a garbage can, and don't reuse it.
No matter what your friend says, don't reuse it, and
don't wear two of them. Yeah, a lot of people
have latex allergies. Late condoms are latex, So some people say, well,
late text works the best. I'll just use um a
(30:45):
sheep skin membrane condom over my penis and then put
a late text one over that. Apparently that is basically
just really upping the risk of breakage of both. Yeah.
Or if you think you know two is better than one,
I don't know where this person and has been. That's
just not smart. You should probably not be with that person.
If you're thinking about were two condoms, just walk away
(31:07):
from the bowling alley and go home or the roller
rink again. Uh. And Tracy also points out for our
younger listeners. Condoms break more often if they're blown up
or filled with water before use, So don't use it
as a toy and then use it as a you know,
disease preventer, right and if it breaks, stop what you're doing,
(31:30):
get a new one. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a
big one, because you don't want to be like, oh
well I went through the first couple of steps doing it,
it was fine. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, if you're
serious about this, then what you're trying to do is
prevent pregnancy or infection. You're gonna want to replace it
like it's worth if you used it in the first place,
(31:50):
then you might as well stop for a second and
another one. All right, Um, don't be a jerk. I
guess that's what you're saying. You're trying to prevent, like
you said, pregnancy, most people are when they use condoms
or um, more than thirty types of viruses or bacterial
infections or parasites. Right. Yeah, sex is dirty business. It
(32:11):
certainly can be. I think this proves that, um, there
is a god. All right, So you know, all those
diseases in bacteria for the most part, do we need
to go over those sure, chlamydia, uh, genital herpes, genital warts, gnarrhea,
hepatitis B, HIV of course, pubic lice, um, syphilis, trick omniasis. Yeah,
(32:37):
yeast infections, these and many more can all be yours
if you don't use a condom and you sleep with
somebody who has any of them. Yes, and genital warts
and herpes and pubic lice and a few other s.
T i s can still be yours even if you
do use a condom, because they are not passed through
the fluids. They are passed through skin and hair and
(32:58):
other stuff down there in that area. Yeah. Um, so chuck,
how effective our condoms, like you said, when when you
use them correctly, they work, like they've been proven to work.
Like we have come to the pinnacle of mail um
(33:19):
prophylaxis with the latex condom, Like it totally works. If
you use it correctly and you use it every time,
you're going to be fine. Uh. And they know this
by um by doing studies of specifically seroh discordant um couples,
which means one couple as HIV and one person in
(33:40):
the couple of HIV the other partner doesn't, And they
found that people who used the condom correctly every time
they had sex had pretty much a nil chance or
z chance of UM contracting HIV by the end of
this study. Yeah, that's a two year period of these couples,
so that there's you know, a lot of sex going on.
(34:00):
It wasn't just like, hey, you had sex one time
and you didn't get HIV. That's great, right, So good
good study from UNAIDS or un AIDS, which that makes sense, UNAIDS,
like they're fighting AIDS, they should be called UNAIDS. Is
this United Nation though? Um? And they found though that
couples that that didn't use them all the time, just
kind of here they're had a fourteen to twenty one
(34:23):
percent chance of UM contracting HIV during the study. Yeah,
and pregnancy prevention is pretty similar UM over the course
of the year. And of course I don't see any
ages or anything like that here. It just says a woman,
but a woman using a condom of the course of
the year, who uses it perfectly for every act of
sexual intercourse with a man has only a three percent
(34:43):
chance of becoming pregnant, So ninety seven effective. That's pretty good. Sure, Um,
if you use a condom typically which is apparently not
that great, not that well. Um, and you're a woman,
you have twelve percent chance of an unplanned pregnancy. But
both of those beat not using anything at all, which
(35:06):
leads to an eight percent chance of getting pregnant over
the course of a year just by having sex. And
it doesn't say how many men or anything like that
many trips to the roller rink this entails, so what
year is it? So there's st a lot of roller
rink sex going on. What got me started was the
idea of like a condom like in your pocket, remember
(35:28):
the condom ring in the genes or in your wallet
or whatever. Just associate that with the roller rink and
like kids with like half mustaches and like mullets and
stuff like that. So that's that's where the roller rink
reference came from. All right. So, um, some folks say that,
you know what, if you make condoms available to my teenager,
(35:49):
it's gonna encourage them to have sex. Um. Studies suggest
that is not the case. Um. This one study observed
over four thousand teenagers over an eight year period, which
is a pretty good study if you ask me. By
the end of the study, all of the participants were
sexually active, and the teenagers who use condoms during their
(36:10):
first sexual encounter were not more likely to have more
partners than those who did not, but the condom using
teams were less likely to have been diagnosed with connoete
or chlamydia. So this study at least points out that
it's not gonna encourage promiscuity, but it will keep you
from getting pregnant in disease. I think, um, being in
(36:32):
your teens encourages promiscuity. Yeah, you know, And that's kind
of the whole argument. It's like, are they going to
do it anyway? And if they are, then make sure
they have plenty of condoms. And other people say, well, no,
they're not gonna do it anyway, they just need to abstain,
and condoms are like the devil's temptation. I'm ready for
for humanity to evolve more in that realm. Like it
(36:54):
made sense for for eighteen year old males to be
at like their peak of sexual prowess and girls being
able to get pregnant when they were fourteen, you know,
three years ago, when we were living two thirty years old,
it made sense. These days, it's just like a cruel joke. Well,
you know. It's interesting is we're actually going the other direction,
like puberty coming younger and younger. A the average boy
(37:18):
enters puberty and I don't that this doesn't mean sexual maturation,
but begins puberty at like age seven or eight. Now
that's crazy. And see nowadays people are getting not everyone,
but people are waiting longer in general to get married
and have a family. And it's getting harder and harder,
uh for older people to get pregnant much less. The
man who was you know, starts to decline after eighteen
(37:42):
years old. You get married in your mid thirties, it's like, sorry,
you know, my best days were, We're wasted right well,
which is ironic because by that time you can grow
a decent mustache, I know, you know, all right, So, um,
there's this whole thing associated with condom. State are a
unique breed of product. You know, if you look at
(38:05):
them as a commodity, as a retail product, then they
should be the same as a candy or a toy
or you know, what have you. But something that these um,
these other products lack is what's called social marketing, which
is what makes condoms virtually unique. There is a there's
a great public interest in condoms being purchased and distributed
(38:28):
and easily gotten by everybody in the world, whether it's
for population control which is pretty sinister sounding, um or
through disease prevention. But governments around the world invest heavily
in condoms, and by doing that, they basically just buy
a bunch of condoms and turn around and selimented discount. Yeah,
(38:51):
it's called social marketing. And the ideas that if they
don't want to make them free, although you know, there
are plenty of places that give out condoms, um, but
they want to make them very cheap for those who
can't afford them, because the idea is that if you
pay for something, you're more likely to use it. Uh,
sort of like the co ed model. These kids who
pay for their textbooks instead of just giving them textbooks,
(39:13):
the more likely to use it. So, I don't know
what I've made that connection, but it's sort of the
same thing. Well it is, it's the exact same principle you, um,
you have some sort of ownership over something you've paid for. Yeah,
and Tracy said, the rule of thumb is that a
year supply of condoms should cast no more than one
percent of the target countries per capita gross national products.
And I don't think that's just Tracy saying that either. Well,
now she didn't make that up. So um, there's uh,
(39:37):
the other aspect of it. There's buy part of one
part of social marketing is buying condoms and distributing them
for cheap um. And this is like federal government, national
government level stuff. Uh. And then the other side of
it is educating the public. Yeah, you got to wear them, yeah,
and you have to know how to wear them. We
could probably get some federal funding for this episode if
(39:59):
you ask a little kickback. You have to know how
to wear them, you have to know what they do,
you have to know why to wear why you should
wear them. Um, you should be able to explain it
in plain simple terms to anybody who who who is
riding a bus that if they don't wear a condom,
they can die, or their junk can fall off, or
there's all sorts of terrible stuff that can happen to
you if you don't wear a condom. Right, Yeah, and uh,
(40:21):
it's been pretty successful in countries like Thailand where they
have a big commercial sex industry. Um. In nineteen eighty
nine they started a campaign for commercial sex workers to
use condoms at the time, always use them and pretty
amazing results. UM In nineteen eighty nine, before the campaign,
(40:42):
fourteen percent of the sex workers had consistently used condoms.
By just five years later used condoms and uh not. Coincidentally,
UM S t I cases diagnosed among sex workers fell
from four over four or a thousand per year to
just under thirty thousand per year. That's a huge, huge
(41:04):
drop off. Just use the condom, that's all you gotta do.
And the rest of the world watch Thailand. Their jaws
fell open, so they started buying condoms like crazy. So
like in two thousand, for example, UM South Africa bought
two hundred and fifty million condoms to million condoms. Botswana
(41:25):
purchased twelve million UM four hundred and fifty million condoms
in India And these are the places where you know
they need to use condoms, like you need to use
them everywhere, but places that are have places like Africa
and in India are like in Thailand. Obviously you need
to use the condoms. Why to prevent disease and to
(41:48):
prevent pregnancy, right, but what I mean you you would
want to do that anyway? Well, that's what I said.
But places that are overpopulated and people are dying because
they're starving, and where diseases ram in villages, it's a
little more important than other places that would say. I
think it's probably kind of a controversial statement though among
people who don't feel like you should be using condoms.
(42:11):
You know that that's government carrying out population control? H
Is it? I don't know, I don't know. I think
on its face, yeah, it definitely is. The government's very
interested in, like not having a starving population. In one
way to do it's a control population. But is that
(42:31):
a bad thing? Like? Do you if people are willing
to use condoms when they have them handy, um, then
you know, why wouldn't you want to provide that to them. Yeah,
it's not a bad thing. I'll go defend that until
my dying breath. Um. So this is um, this is
a ton of condoms we're talking about. That was just
two thousand, right, many tons of condoms. Right. Apparently the
(42:55):
condom industry, which is just loving this social marketing stuff, um,
is producing between eight and twelve billion condoms of a year. Right.
Apparently we would need fifteen billion to effectively cover everybody
for a year. Yeah, every everybody is sexually active, you
would need fifteen billion condoms, so they're close, but not
(43:18):
close enough. Right. That means everybody in the world does
it more than twice a year, because there's like six
billion people on the planet. Right. Uh well yeah, I
mean if you want to average out like that, right,
I think a lot of people aren't. A lot of
people are doing it more, right, but sure if you
want to throw an average on it. Um. The thing
(43:39):
is is that so we're we're short of condoms, which
is mind boggling. There's only sixty factories on the planet
making condoms for the whole world, So when you look
at it like that, it's pretty impressive. But apparently the
condom industry is stepping up the call and by is
projected to have to produce twenty five billion condoms. Uh. First,
(44:00):
that's a six billion dollar industry. That's good, But what's crazy,
that's a six billion dollar industry. Los Angeles County from
porn makes one six of the equivalent of the entire
condom industries. Money in porn in just porn, yea, in
just that one county. Yeah, see how everything is connected?
I do uh. So here in the United States, the
(44:23):
f d A controls something called good manufacturing practices UH
rules and standards for making drugs and things like condoms.
So the f d A is IS has standards. There
are also international standards. The International Organization for Standardization UM.
They have their own standards that cover these medical devices,
(44:46):
and they have silly numbers attached to them, but that
really means nothing to anyone, does it. Well? In case
you ever wanted to know, I s O four oh
seven four Colon two zero zero two is the international
standard for condom manufacture and distribution. That's right. And we're
talking about standards. We're talking about acceptable levels of condoms
(45:08):
that are defective per batch UM credit. I would imagine
the average consumers like zero. That'd be nice UM accreditation
for labs that test these procedures material shelf life stability,
they're just making sure all that is up to snuff UM.
And again, as we said there, the the standards are
(45:29):
in this manual called zapping, popping, rolling, and other condom
testing tools that very repeating UM condoms used to be.
They're a little more acceptable to buy these days. Shouldn't
be embarrassed to walk into your grocery store by condoms,
said the forty one year old. Exactly, But it's not
that way for everyone. It's not that way for every
(45:51):
group because they are taboo. UM. In some religions UM.
Catholicism UH famously does not allow the use of contraception.
Orthodox Judaism apparently Islam does allow it if you are
married heterosexuals, hed heterosexuals, and you have reason to prevent pregnancy,
(46:14):
and then UM. Conservative Christian groups have long promoted abstinence
rather than the use of condoms, and sometimes even fought
the education and distribution of condoms for reasons we said earlier,
like they think it makes their children promiscuous and they
will want to have sex because they now have this condom.
That is the key to them wanting to have sex.
(46:37):
And it's not to the government to carry out population
control exactly. UM. In Nevada has been mandatory to use
condoms if you are in a brothel, so highly regulated
UM sex industry there, Nevada, Nevada, Nevada. Excuse me, So
Josh who uses condoms? Uh, everybody who can get their
(47:01):
hands on them apparently uses condoms. UM. The u N
says that two thirds of the world has ready and
available access, ready and easy access to condoms. Right, and
they actually created a definition. I'd love the u N
You know, ready and easy access to condoms mean you
have to spend less than two hours a month buying condoms.
(47:24):
So I guess like taking a bus into town or
something like that. Yeah, if you live in the middle
of nowhere Africa, it might take a while to get
a condom. So this distribution net of condoms needs to
be pretty uh, pretty wide, pretty um woven, well woven. Yeah,
and then um, you also don't want to pay more
(47:45):
than one percent of a person's monthly take home pay
wherever they live. That's right. So when the un IS
in the world is trying to distribute these and make
them available, those are the criteria they look for as
far as like what they're going to charge people maybe
in one of these less developed countries, right, Um, and
they we found that because of efforts like this, condom
(48:07):
use around the world has increased. Apparently, prior to the eighties, Um,
evaluations of condom usage has just been like married couples.
I don't understand why. Um, apparently things were there was
maybe tawdry or something. Who knows, but UM. The Brits
went ahead and did a survey in nineteen fifty and
(48:29):
found that UM for their first sexual encounter of men
and women used a condom by about sixty did. Right,
so there's definite increasing condoms condom usage. UM. They found
that people who live with their partners typically use condoms less. UM,
(48:51):
people who makes the older you are, the less you
would be, the less likely you would be to use condoms,
probably again because you're in a long term monogamous for
like and ship right Uh and then um, people with
latex allergies tend to not use condoms. Yeah. And these
were studies from Europe mainly, but I imagine it's pretty
(49:11):
similar in other parts of the world. Yeah, but hearteningly
people UM in Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Britain. They found
that the more partners of person had, the more likely
they were to use condoms. To use a Jimmy hat
a French letter, French letter. I don't even know what
that one is, all right. There are female condoms UM
that are fairly new. Um. When when do they come
(49:37):
around Switzerland? Approved here in the United States? And and
uh it is a UM. Paul yourthane sheath sort of
like the male condom, except it's just it's got two rings,
one on either end, one a little smaller on one end,
and that it fits in the woman's vagina, and it's
(49:57):
sort of is just like a reverse of what the
male condom is. They some of the benefits as a
woman can put this in um beforehand, whereas a man
obviously has has to be go time, has to have
the erect penis right exactly like the woman can insert
this anytime anytime. UM. Well, I'm sure they are you know,
(50:18):
recommendations for how long that you use this thing as well. Um.
But it is another barrier method that protects against HIV
and pregnancy and uh yep. Because it's poly ethane, you
can use oil based lubricants y um. And also in
places where it's difficult or impossible because of social norms
(50:41):
for a woman to insist that the guy wear a condom. Um,
this is very useful because it's it's given control of
who uses the condom win to the woman. Um. It
is more expensive, which is one of the disadvantages and
um that could lead some people in developing nations to
(51:02):
wash it and reuse it, which is not recommended UM
and apparently in trials clinical trials it's slightly less effective
at preventing pregnancy and s t I S and male condoms,
but it's way, way, way better than nothing obviously. Um,
what else do we have? We have spray on condoms, Yeah,
(51:24):
sort of not yet there and they're still being toyed with. Apparently,
this guy named I can't remember his first name. His
last name is Krauss. He's a sex educator from Germany.
UM and he apparently had trouble finding condoms that fit
him when he was younger, a younger man. He's thirty. Now.
(51:45):
I get the idea that he was small. Oh, I
got the idea that the opposite idea. I don't know
because later in the article he talked about being small
and like I want to make condoms for smaller guys
because oh I missed that part. Yeah. Um, well, it's
funny new ideas to have a range of sizes, like
six sizes. The markets wide open for small conds apparently
(52:07):
tried and tried it a few years ago and like
this continued him almost immediately because they didn't sell any
condoms for the smaller man or something, right, Yeah, although
magnum condoms like have seventeen percent of the market share,
they're like fifteen percent bigger than normal condoms. Yeah and
and crosses. Uh. His theory is that guys that are
smaller don't want to walk into a store and buy
(52:29):
the small condoms, so he wants to I mean, he's
he's working on the spray on condom, but he's also
working on different sizes that I think are a little
more um. The packaging is a little less obvious, you know,
it's not like you don't walk up and by like
the teeny leaning. Well, he originally, you know, I think
he wants to make it a little more clandestine. He
(52:51):
originally set up this website, which is pretty cool, um,
where you can download this measuring tape that you print
out and use, and then you enter in your dimensions
in the website and it brings up all of the
condoms for sail in Germany that are likeliest to fit
you best. This is pretty cool. Yeah, but now he's
created the spray on condom. Yeah. Here's how this thing works.
(53:14):
You put your penis in a tube and it's sprays
from many different directions the condom latex onto your penis,
your erect penis and um, then it has to dry,
which is one of the problems that it this is
when it sprays, so some dudes are worried that that
might ruin the mood. Um, some guys were a little
(53:35):
worried about putting their penis in this tube period. And
then um liquid latex takes about two to three minutes
to vulcanize, and in order for people to buy these things,
he thinks it's gonna have to be ready in like
five to ten seconds. So because it's like you better
learn how to juggle or something to like keep the
interest going for those couple of minutes. Is that what
(53:58):
does it? Juggling? Juggling or I don't know, maybe making
an omelet. And then there are the anti rape condoms,
which are controversial to say the least. A South African
doctor came up with these and they are like the
female condom, but it's also like, um, I hate to
say it, but like the closest analogy is like a
Chinese finger trap. Yeah, like that, once the potie goes in,
(54:22):
there's these plastic teeth that hold it in place and
only a doctor can remove this basically giant female condom
that's now attached to your penis. And the reason she
came up with this was because rape in South Africa
is um out of control. Some survey from two thousand
nine found that one in four South African men admit
(54:44):
to raping a woman and that they think possibly one
point four million women are raped in South Africa every year.
That's the population of Phoenix. So this woman came up
with this. It's basically like the female condom that will
immediately inflict pain on the rapist. The woman can, I guess,
get away, but the man stuck with this on right
(55:07):
and he has to go to the emergency room where
hopefully the police will be there to arrest him. Well,
the woman doesn't necessarily get away, which is one of
the pitfalls that she admits to. It could encourage a
violence against the woman in the moment um, and another
person from the c d c UH says that it's
(55:27):
also a form of enslavement. It's um a constant reminder
of a woman's vulnerability um and it gives them also
a false sense of security. But the psychological trauma of
the rape is still there. But at least you're gonna
catch the guy, is the rationale. And um, when people
say that have told her this is a medieval thing
(55:49):
that you're coming up with, she says, so is rape.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it. Yeah,
and that thing is called the rape x are a
p hyphen a x e. And I believe it's raybacks
dot com maybe or something that takes you to the website.
But if you type in ray backs into your search browser,
that's gonna bring that up. What else, Chuck, I don't
(56:12):
have anything else. You don't want to talk about? The
goat condom. That's population control, man, all right, let's talk
about it like we are goats. To some people, there's
a something called an oh lore that um it's basically
this impediment that hangs from the abdomen of a male
goat that keeps him from Um, it's a barrier to
(56:33):
prevent him from penetrating the female during intercourse, right, And
they use this to control goat population so that they
don't starves. Familiar, And it's not a you know, it's
not something that goes on the penis. I think it's
just a physical barrier that just like a the male
(56:53):
goat chastity belt that the goat knocks into its Thanks
thank God for that. Yeah, just it's good though I'm
crack wise, but sure than starving goats. That is condoms.
Well done, Well done to YouTube, not much giggling. I
(57:13):
wonder how many times we said penis penis a bunch
more than we ever have in a conversation. I would say,
I would say that's probably fairly accurate. I wonder if
we topped that Sara Lives gets use of penis, remember
at the newdist camp. Oh yeah, with Kevin Nelon and
Mike Myers, And that's great. Uh, let's see. If you
(57:36):
want to know more about condoms, you can find this
very thorough comprehensive article on the subject. By typing condom
into the search part how stuff works dot com. You
can also type in sex and reproduction and it'll bring
up a lot of really good, well written, well researched
articles that will probably answer a lot of questions you
might have about that kind of thing. Yeah, I think
(57:57):
we should start peppering these throughout. Do a little more.
Set said here and there. Okay, that's good. Um, you well,
since we said sex said, since Chuck said sex said,
you know what that means? You know what that means.
It's time for listener mail. All right, UM, I'm gonna
call this music experiment. Um, you guys are awesome. Been
(58:19):
listening since about two thousand ten. Just listen to Why
does music provoke emotion? I thought I would share an
experiment that I did a few years ago. I came
up with the idea of listening to my music in
sequential order by year of release. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
I don't have his name now I feel awful. Um.
I started biting it up by five years, and each
five year period took about one and a half to
(58:40):
two weeks. So he's basically only listening to that era
in order, one at a time, So like the fifth
week of September ninety two, which never existed like that,
you well, just in order, like I'm listening to the
nineteen five these music for this week. So the whole thing,
(59:03):
uh ended up taking about three and a half months,
which is much longer than I planned. I'm a big
music guy and I started at around pre nineteen fifties.
I should note that while I did this, I did
my best to isolate myself musically. What did listening to
anything else that wasn't from that period that I was
in that week. That's kind of cool. I ended up
being one of the most rewarding experience I've had in
a long time. Aside from noticing many new things and
(59:25):
songs that I had listened to countless times before, I
feel like I began forming a connection with the time
period of the music I was listening to. Now. At times,
I could almost feel the angst or even excitement of
events long past, as if I had lived them, events
that weren't necessarily mentioned or addressed in the songs themselves.
(59:45):
For the time I was done, I felt like I
had traveled through time. I had a strange connection with
events I had never experienced except through the music that
was popular at the time of those events. Many things
that didn't make much sense to me musically, all of
a sudden had a different significance. So thanks for the
work guys. Definitely makes my drive to work a much
(01:00:06):
more enjoyable. Thanks again, And I wish I had your name. Well,
we'll read it if you send it in nice Okay, Yeah,
so sorry, Gary Urst, Billy or Johnny or Fred Cole
cole um. I see, we don't want people's condom stories
to Yeah, of course we do. It seems like a
bad idea. I think it's a great idea. Well, then
(01:00:26):
you ask for guys. We want your condom stories. Ladies,
we want your condom stories. Okay, if you live in
New York City and you can explain, that's a good
one of the condoms on the street inside. Although what's
there to explain really well, I mean where they come from.
Maybe they're coming up from the sewer when Oh, that's
a good idea. Maybe they are, or or maybe they're
being tossed out of cabs. Maybe they're from the roller rink. Anyway,
(01:00:51):
if you want to get in touch with us, you
can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast. You
can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff we
Should Know, and you can send us a good old
fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
(01:01:11):
how stuff works dot com. H
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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