10 Lessons about Condoms You Need Before Losing Your Virginity By CARLA M.

Some girls believe it is safe to have sex if the guy is using a condom. They think it will keep them from getting pregnant or catching sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhea, genital warts, or herpes.  If you are one of such girls, do you know the whole story? Do you know that the claim that a condom is safe and can protect you from getting pregnant or being infected with sexually transmitted diseases like HIV is false?

When doctors work on someone with HIV, they put on two pairs of gloves, a full gown over their clothes, a mask, and goggles. Even then, they don’t feel completely “safe”. How then do you think having sex with a guy, exchanging bodily fluids, sweat, saliva, and a whole lot of other stuff, will protect you? Here are 10 hard facts about condoms you need to ponder before using them.

1. Every latex condom has intrinsic holes of about 5 microns in diameter; these holes enable it to stretch when pulled on. The HIV virus is about 0.1 microns and can pass through condoms like a house cat passes through a garage door. Never mind when they say that condoms are “waterproof”. The human skin is also waterproof. Does it mean our skin has no pores? We’d all die if our skin didn’t have sweat pores. The skin is waterproof and helps to conserve the water content of the body, but it also allows sweat to pass through the pores when we are hot.
2. During manufacture, some condoms get infected with defective holes of 50 microns in as much as 2.5 percent of each batch passed.
3. While putting on condoms, fingernails and rings can snag it and make it leak without the knowledge of the user

5. During sex, 13% of the time, condoms bust or break in action. 21% of the time, condoms slip down or off the penis, spilling all the sperm.
6. Condoms break during sex because of the five sets of stress acting on them, expanding the holes and weakening their membrane. These five sets of stress are:

• Uniform lateral stress from stretching
• Pressure stress perpendicular to the lateral stress
• Twisting and angular stress
• Friction stress from rubbing
• Stress  from the mixture of bodily fluids and lubricant of the condom and repeated, simultaneous application of mechanical stress

7. Most guys don’t even use condoms.

A guy explained why he did not use condoms with his girl: “Well, I had to convince and convince, and when she finally said yes, I could not risk going outside to buy condoms since she might change her mind before I came back.”

“Surveys and other research have been conducted to find out how often and how well condoms are used. The results vary from study to study. Findings, however, generally suggest that:

• Only about half of sexually active guys report using a condom the last time they had sex.
• When given a basic list of procedures for correct condom use, less than half of sexually active guys report using condoms correctly.
• The more sexually experienced people are (in terms of the number of lifetime partners), the less likely they are to use condoms consistently.
• In a study of couples who knew their partner was HIV positive, only about half used condoms consistently.

8. A study shows that “latex breaks down in the heat, yet condoms are transported in trucks that get so hot you can fry an egg!” They are also kept in glove compartments of cars or inside wallets
9. Many women whose husbands use only condoms as their means of preventing conception become pregnant within 12 months (pregnancy is possible only on a few days in the month when the woman is fertile), whereas HIV infection is possible every time an infected person has sex, and the human sperm is 500 times bigger than the HIV virus. Note also that women catch HIV five times faster than men.
10. Thus, it is safe to conclude that condoms provide less protection than most people think. The U.S. surgeon general says, “When you have sex with someone, you are having sex with everyone they have had sex with for the last ten years, and everyone they and their partners have had sex with for the last ten years. If anyone has been exposed to HIV, it’s been nice knowing you.”

And lastly, neither do condoms provide protection for the heart, mind, or emotions. Maybe waiting for that special lifetime partner is worth the investment; it’s certainly safer.

Source: Family Planning Perspective