Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's S Y s K Select, I've chosen How Condoms Work, which we released back in December of two thousand twelve. Thrill to the number of times we use the word penis and squirm and titter at the number of innuendows that we unintentionally make and walk right past. It's a good episode all around. I think you'll enjoy it. So here we go. Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always a Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Uh, you put us together, rub Us and lube, you got yourself stuff you should know. You have a lawsuit on your hands from you right, yeah, yeah, I'm seeing 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 is now explained. No, we talked about regular stuff that didn't influence my my feelings about this. No, but you're still like you had to burn your bonnet well for that cop man. This state patrol, they don't mess 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 what anyone who refers to you and what the second person is citizen? 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, 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 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. 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 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 that stuff. Apparently there's a longstanding thing in the porn industry that's like, you just don't show condoms and 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. Yeah, so they're talking about, um about moving from Los Angeles, which is huge Los Angeles because apparently in just Los Angeles County porn it's a billion dollar industry. Oh yeah, dude, in the valley, just in one county. Can you imagine that. So there's a big kerfuffle going on right now over condom usage in the porn industry. Did ever tell you about the time I scouted the porn stage for a video shoot. No. Was this did key for Sutherlands Driver take you there? No, But I was working as a p A and we couldn't afford like a real stage, so they sent me out to the valley of this porn stage to go videotape it and see what it looked like. And uh, it's 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 was leaving, a bunch of big muscly men came in to get their shoot on. Is that right? Yeah? It was a gay porn I had that afternoon. It was Oh, so it's just like whatever it 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, but it was funny. In the conference room set there was a framed like Oland 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 God. Well, that's one thing about porn and stream moguls. They seemed to always have like a great sense of humor. I think this is before Boogie Nights, even because I didn't 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. I bet there's some mathematical formula in there. Serious. Maybe we'll see it one day. Alrighty, 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 forewarned. Go put your little pot uh player down glass, Mom and dad? Should I be listening to this. We're gonna be very clinical here, but it's about sex and reproduction, so you 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 this again. We're talking condom um and apparently they what we think of 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 using condoms like that, 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 shortly after the Great War, right, that's right. Uh. Venarial diseases were pretty easy to get if you were a sailor on leave in Europe, and so they encouraged troops to 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 and then picked back up again in the eighties because of HI be 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 whatsoever. But then AIDS hit and then condom usade started to go through the roof, which is good. Yeah, um, but apparently condoms are an extremely old idea. At the very 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 Tray Tracy of pop Stuff 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 biline, 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 sheath penis. Yes, so it's unclear whether or not these garments and decorations 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 with all the Yeah, the Japanese version of the penis sheath or condom was made of horn or tortoiseshell. They didn't care about the lady's pleasure. That's just mind bogglingly painful sounding, I 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 sexy time stuff. They were leading the way totally. You know, yeah, anybody seemed Calligula can tell you that. Um. But then by the time Shakespeare rolls round, 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 at the bottom. That's a condom back then, or stuffing something into the urethra and using a draw string um ribbon to jump it on. It's another way that they did things. I should post um photos of your face, patures of your face that I'm taking like throughout this episode. Um and well, by the time Shakespeare's age, Uh, people are using condoms 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, they brought it back and they figured out after a little while, like, well, wait a minute, I think it has to do with sex. So they started using condoms for disease prevention through that. So this is a pretty big point here, right, like by the the Age of Exploration. Yeah, people understand that you can cover the penis to prevent pregnancy and to prevent disease. Yeah, that's a huge advancement in society. I guess, oh totally. They were. They were on it. They still like rolled in their own feces and like you ever washed their hands or took a bath, but they knew how to prevent syphilis with a little something in the urethro with a draw stream attached to that's right by the mid seventeen hundreds, Tracy points out they were starting to use um condoms made from animal membranes, animal guts basically, which if you they still have these today, if you use something called cheap skin. It is not cheap skin, but it is you know, cheap guts and testine lining. Yeah, and you could 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 bowl that's disease free and you're just using it to like not get pregnant, right because it's very thin. Yeah, but it's not. It's it's porous, I believe enough for pathogens to pass through. Like, you don't want to use that if to prevent getting HIV? No, not smart? No, Um, well you want to use is a rubber condom? That's right. Thank you Charles Goodyear, Yeah, who gave us not only rubber condoms, but um tires, uh, rubber hoses, rubber belts, pretty much anything that they made of rubber. You can thank Charles Goodyear for because of his process of vulcanization, which is he added um sulfur and lead oxide to rubber from the Heavia braziliensis tree, yeah, which they had been tapping that tree for a while to get this. You know, latex is liquid rubber, but um, yeah, vulcanization is where it became a thing that you could mask, you know, produce 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. And 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 have 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 have to do this? That's how they did it, all right, 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 them still. So again, imagine this is what I imagine it basically probably looked a lot like um, 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. Uh. So by apparently people were using this. This is eighteen thirty nine when Charles could with volcanization. So we're talking like the mid to late nineteenth century. People are using these rubber condoms from usable robber condoms. And then everybody padded on the back a guy named Frederick Killian, Killian's Red Beer inventor. Maybe no, it's possible. Um. He's more famously known, however, for um 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 fallack in nature, you know, and that he would dip it directly into latex. I don't think he did it with his hand like that. I'm just just like maybe initially he did. So he would dip these these molds or um forms, right, what they're called formers? Yeah, just into latex and uh he would then vulcanize that, and what you had was a thinner, stronger um better I guess condom. Yeah, thinner and stronger, 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. Now it's all condoms worldwide are latex. Yes, and that's a lot of condoms as we'll see. Yeah, some numbers. Should we should we talk about nicknames or not? This seems all silly to me. I thought it was silly too. Well, let's skip it then, Okay, maybe we should just drop them indicasion lye. Okay, you know, so people know because it's in here, so it's legit, right, Instead of condoms, will say jimmy hat. Okay, Frederick Killian came up with the latext Jimmy hat. That's 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 collect the semen um, supposedly, and um, it's got a little 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 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 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 reading all those with the length of within the thickness. No, no, we should talk about that. But later on all those standards when it was just like really yeah, 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 millimeter. Uh well you did the conversion. Well I think you kind of have to say an inchest, don't you? But have you noticed that how stuff works? Articles have gone my trick. Yeah, now it's metric. The meat one, the lab 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 when lead flat fifty two millimeters which I did not convert to inches, the 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. You know what I'm saying, ubber glove to and keep 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 loubed up with either regular lube or made from silicone, or spermicidal lube, which this is good to note now that I'm married, but I was shown it on this back then. Apparently the spermocidal lubricants can make things worse, specifically non oxidal 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 disease transmission. Yeah, so that's apparently not a good thing to use non oxid A nine on your condoms. Very good to know. And that's not knocking in nine because I think that's what's also you use outside of a condom, right as as spermocidal right, so it's more effective there. I guess, how about manufacturing on them? Chuck about it all. It all starts um 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 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? Sure? 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. Okay. Um, well, it doesn't only contain latex. You're gonna probably have some other ingredients in your bucket there of sap, well, yeah, you added along the way. Yeah, antifungal and antibacterial compounds. You want to keep the things clean. Zinc oxide, which is accelerates the vulcanization process. UH, stabilizers like potassium laurate, UM sulfur maybe which is another vulcanizing agent, ammonia anti coagulant. 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 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 days, when the easiest lubes, the natural rubber, would just break down. Your condom 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, 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 paper in foil, put the foil in a five millimeter thick black garbage bag, and bury it in your yard. That's how you properly dispose of a used contom. 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 ever noticed all the condoms on this 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 can bet the tiles or something. I just don't get it, Like, are these people having sex in the street they throw them out of 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? Okay, alright, 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 sure it's thick enough 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 condoms is like untouched. It's like a 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 the odd I guess probably mechanically washed, right Yeah. It says a washing machine, 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 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, and leaking. None 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 right, I didn't know that. When did that happen? Maybe she just made the change herself, you think, No, I think I think it's I don't know because it maybe disease doesn't quite scientifically capture all. I'm sure that's it. So yeah, I don't know when that happened, but I'll bet it was 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 condoms tensile strength. Basically, 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 they're testing um, either whole bad ches or selected condoms from the batch. And yeah, they hold fill the 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 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 supermodern or or what and it's sartisfactories soon this there's also like third party companies that like make their money by testing condoms for factories or maybe as watched all 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 a top metal rods that have been dipped in conductive solution, and then they run a current through these metal rods and the the condoms being rubber, 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. Then the other one is where they turn the voltage up dry. Yeah, this is a dry test um and they basically like run a current again through a bunch of condoms and if there's any holes or whatever, those condoms will like burn or melt. It stinks, yeah, burn, Rubber 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. Slippage, however, something they cannot test for because slippage, my friend, is up to you. How you properly or improperly used the condom slippages 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 know about that. Well, what 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 condom. You know, it's all bad. You want to keep it in a dry um just sort of room temperature 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 it has 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 along the one side. Sometimes it's a notch. Tracy points out that you don't want to open it with your teeth or pointy fingernails. Yeah, you don't wanna 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. Oh well, Um, I saw almost forty two years old, and I had no idea that there was an up and a down. 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 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 miss though. If you are uncircumcised, you want to gently pull your foreskin back to really of the glands, right, okay, which is the tip of the penis. Right okay, 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. That's 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 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 will accidentally get a testicle caught in there. Um. If you need lube, UM, use a water based lube. You don't want to make the mistake of using like vassiline. I guess I should say petroleum jelly or baby oil or lotions or anything like that, anything that could have patrol. Yeah, that's all oil based and that's gonna not do you any favors in the reliability department. Right, you want it to 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. 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 and withdraw the penis. Uh And and before the erection is law Right, 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 said, ends in the yard. Right. 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, and of late condoms are latex. So some people say, well, late text works the best. I'll just use um a sheep skin membrane condom over my penis and then put a latex 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 has been. That's just not smart. You should probably not be with that person. If you're thinking about were two condoms, just block away 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, 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, 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, then you might as well stop for a second shot another one. All right, Um, don't be a jerk, I guess is what you're saying. Seriously, 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 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, 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 other stuff down there in that area. 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 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 sero discordant um couples, which means one couple as HIV and weren't one person in the couple as 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. 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, right, which that makes sense. UNAIDS, like they're fighting AIDS, they should be called un AIDS 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 at a fourteen to twenty one 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, yere, It just says a woman. But a woman using a condom over the course of a year, who uses it perfectly for every act of sexual intercourse with a man has only a three percent chance of becoming pregnant. So nine 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 leads to an eight percent chance of getting pregnant over the course of a year just by having sex. And you mean, it doesn't say how many men or anything like that, not many trips to the roller rink this entails, So what year is it? So there's a lot of roller rink sex going on. What got me started was the idea of like a condom like in your pocket, remember 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, it's going to encourage them to have sex. Um studies suggests that 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 teenager who use condoms during their first sexual encounter were not more likely to have more partners than those who did not. But the condom using teens were less likely to have been diagnosed with gnorette 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 your teens encourages promiscuity. Yeah, you know, yeah, 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, now 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 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 to thirty years old, it made sense. These days, it's just like a cruel joke. Well, you know what's interesting is we're actually going the other direction, like puberty coming younger and younger. The average boy 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 I'm 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 the decline after eighteen 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 condoms. They are a unique breed of product. You know, if you look at them as a commodity, as a retail product, uh, then they should be the same as 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 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, 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, they're more likely to ease it. So I don't know why I made that connection, but 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 cost no more than one percent of the target countries per capita gross national product. 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, 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 you ask about little kickback. You have to know how to wear them, You have to know what they do, you have to know why to wear it, 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 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 of the time, always use them and pretty amazing results. UM. In nineteen eighty nine, before the campaign, 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 hundred thousand per year to just under thirty thousand per year. That's a huge, huge drop off. Yeah, just use the condom. That's all you gotta do. And the rest of the world watched Thailand, their jaws fell open, so they started buying condoms like crazy. So like in two thousand, for example, UM, South Africa bought two d and fifty million condoms to million condoms Botswana perchas twelve million, UM four hundred and fifty million condoms in India. 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 condom industry, which is just love and this social marketing stuff UM, is producing between eight and twelve billion condoms a year, right, Apparently we would need fifteen billion to effectively cover everybody for a year. Yea, every everybody is sexually active, you would need fifteen billion condoms. So they're close but not 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 is is, 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. There you go. Uh, first, 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. Yeah, in just that one county. Yeah. See how everything is connected? I do. Uh. So here in the United States, Uh, the 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 covered these medical devices, 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 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, they're the the standards are in this manual called zapping, popping, rolling, and other condom testing tools that bear 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 in that way for everyone. It's not in that way for every group because they are taboo UM. In some religions UM. Catholicism uh fame Slee 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, 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. 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 hands on them apparently uses condoms. Um. The u N says that two thirds of the world has already and available access ready and easy access to condoms, right, and they actually created a definition. You have to 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. So I guess like taking a bus in a town or something like that. If you live in the middle of nowhere and 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 than one percent of a person's monthly take home pay wherever they live. That's right. So when the U n is in the world is trying to distribute these and make them available, those are the criteria they look for, or 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 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 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 people who makes sense. I guess the older you are, the less you would be, the less likely you would be to use condoms, probably because you're in a long term monogamous relationship, 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 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 if that one is all right. There are female condoms um that are fairly new, um when when they come 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 sort of is just like a reverse of what the male condom is. Um. 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, 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 they tend to be reusable yep. Because it's poly erethane, you can use oil based lubricants. Yep. Um. And also in places where it's difficult or impossible because of social norms 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 wash it and reuse it, which is not recommended. Um. And apparently in in trials clinical trials, it's slightly less effective at preventing pregnancy and s t i S than male condoms. But it's way way, way better than nothing obviously. Um. What else do we have? We have? Uh, spray on condoms? Yeah, sort of, not yet, they're in they're still being toyed with apparently. Yeah. This guy named I can't remember his first name. His last name is Kraus. 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, I get the idea that he was small. Oh, I got the idea 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 guy? Is 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 condoms. Apparently traj 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 seventent of the market share, they're like fifteen percent bigger than normal condoms. Yeah, and and Cross's uh, his theory is that guys that are smaller don't want to walk into a store and buy 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 leany Well, he originally, you know, I think he wants to make it a little more clandestine. He originally set up this website, which is pretty cool, um, where you can download this measuring tape that you print out news 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. You put your penis in a tube and its 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 hisses when it sprays, So some dudes are worried that might ruin the mood. Um. Some guys were a little 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 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 totalist goes in, 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 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, 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 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 going to catch the guy. Is just their rationale. And um, when people say that have told her this is a medieval thing 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 act. Are a p hyphen a x E. And I believe it's right backs dot com maybe or something that takes you to the website. But if you type in rate backs into your search browser. That's gonna bring that up. Great, what else, Chuck, I don't 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 prevent him from penetrating the female during intercourse, right, And they use this to control goat populations so that they don't starve. And it's not a you know, it's not something that goes on the penis. I think it's just a physical barrier, right that just like a male goat chastity belt that the goat knocks into called an olar. So thanks, thank God for that. Yeah, it's good though I'm crack wise, but better than starving goats. That is condoms. Well done, well done to YouTube, not much giggling. I wonder how many times we said penis paenis 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 Nudist Camp. Oh yeah, with Kevin Nelon and Mike Myers. And that's great. Uh, let's see. If you want to know more about condoms, you can find this very thorough comprehensive article on the subject. By typing condom into the search bar 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 we should start peppering these throughout. Do a little more sex ed here and there. Okay, it'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 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. Remember this guy, Yeah, it's pretty cool. I don't have his name now I feel awful. Um. I started dividing it up by five years, and each five year period took about one and a half to 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 fifties music for this week. So the whole thing, 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 is listening to anything else that wasn't from that period that I was in that week? It'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 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. Even when I was wearing right 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. By 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 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 or Billy or Johnny or fred cole cole Um. Let's see, we don't want people's condom stories too, Yeah do we? Of course we do. It seems like a bad idea. I think it's a great idea. Well then you guys 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 walk, 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, 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 you Should Know, and you can send us a good old fashioned email too. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. H