Stuff You Should Know - How Condoms Work

Episode Date: December 14, 2012

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You put us together, Rubbers and Lube. You got yourself Stuff You Should Know. You have a lawsuit on your hands.

From you, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm suing somebody. How you doing, man? Oh, I got a speeding ticket on the way here. I'm pissed off. Okay. Well, everything of the last 15 minutes before you started recording is now explained. No. We talked about regular stuff. That didn't influence my feelings about this. No, but you're still like, you had to burn your bonnet.

Well, for that cop, man, the state patrol, they don't mess around. No, they don't. There's no small talk. There's no nothing. It's give me your license and then here's your ticket. Right. I was like, but get what? And that was about all. Anyone who refers to you and what the second person is citizen, they're pretty serious people. Yeah, I'm going to go to court though. Why not? Good for you, man. 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? 24-7. You can't be too careful. How often do you change it? Oh, gross. May?

That is so gross. All right. Let's talk about Measure B. Have you heard of Measure B? Uh-uh. It is a referendum that Los Angeles County floated in this last election that passed 56% of the vote. 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, 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 they're actually talking about moving from Los Angeles, which is a big deal. People 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? No. Yeah. I guess so. I don't want to see any of that stuff. Well, apparently, there's a long-standing thing in the porn industry that's like you just don't show condoms.

Yeah. It reflects the unnaturalness, maybe, of what you're seeing. What you're like, well, wait a minute. That's probably not the pizza guy after all, you know? Sure. It blows the illusion that's real stuff. Yeah. So, they're talking about moving from Los Angeles, which is huge Los Angeles, because apparently, in just Los Angeles County, porn is 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 I ever tell you about the time I scouted the porn stage for a video shoot? No. Did Kiefer Sutherland's driver take you there? No, but I was working as a PA, and we couldn't afford 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 it was 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 as I was leaving, a bunch of big muscley men came in to get their shoot on.

Oh, is that right? Yeah. Was it gay porn? That afternoon it was. Oh, so it's just like whatever. It's a soundstage. 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. I got you. But it was funny, in the conference room set, there was a framed, like, Olin Mills,

or it was a painting of Burt Reynolds and Lonnie Anderson, like at the head of the conference room. No way. Yep, sort of got. Wow, that's one thing about porn industry moguls. They seem 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.

Huh. That was definitely before Boogie Nights. But I mean, think about Larry Flint. He has a great sense of humor. He does. Hugh Hefner, maybe. I think the less hardcore you get, the further away from hardcore you get, the less of a sense of humor the publisher has.

I bet there's some mathematical formula in there. There is. We'll see it one day. Alrighty. So condoms is what we're talking about. Yeah. 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 COA. 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 pod player down. Go ask mom and dad, should I be listening to this? Right. We're going to be very clinical here, but it's about sex and reproduction. So can't be too careful.

I wonder how many kids just like pulled the sheets over. What do you think? I don't know. Vast majority. Okay, so let's try this again. Okay. We're talking condoms. Yep. And apparently, 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 using condoms, like that's pretty recent. And from the 80s, it actually was HIV that kind of spurred this condom age that we live in now. But there had been like another golden age of condoms shortly after the Great War, right? That's right. Venereal diseases were pretty easy to get if you were a sailor on leave in Europe.

Yep. And so they encouraged troops to use condoms and distributed them in the ranks among the ranks. And when they came back home, they kept using them, I guess. They had a big boom here in the, in the 19, what, I guess, 40s. Yeah. Post-war era. Died down in the 60s because the pill. Exactly.

And then picked back up again in the 80s because of HIV. Yeah, because we figured out things to clever things like penicillin and all that stuff, that most of the STDs that condoms were preventing at the time, you could just treat with antibiotics. Yeah. So people weren't too concerned with that kind of thing. And then the pill came along and it was like, we have no need for condoms whatsoever. Right. But then AIDS hit.

That's right. And then condom usage started to go through the roof, which is good. Yeah. 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 15,000 years old, right? Yeah. I think Tracy of Pop Stuff wrote this article, we should point out. Yeah.

She's responsible for the most comprehensive podcasts we've done. Yeah. I never even think twice when I look at and see her name in the violin like, oh, well, we should totally do this. Yeah. Yeah. She points out that 15,000 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 and sheaths on the penises of Egypt and Greece and India and Japan were for contraception as a barrier method or adornment. I guarantee they weren't probably thinking of the woman's comfort. No, especially with the Kabuto Gata. Yeah. The Japanese version of the penis sheath or condom was made of horn or tortoise shell. They didn't care about the lady's pleasure.

That's just mind bogglingly painful sounding. I know. No kidding. So we know people started using condoms as a means to prevent pregnancy by the Roman era, I think. Of course. It's always the Romans. Yeah.

Any time it's sexy time stuff, they were leading the way. Totally. You know. Yeah. Anybody who's seen Caligula can tell you that. 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 at the bottom.

Yeah. That's condom back then. Or stuffing something into the urethra and using a drawstring ribbon to keep it on. That's another way that they did things. I should post photos of your face, pictures of your face that I'm taking throughout this episode. Yeah. And well, by the time Shakespeare's age, 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. Yeah. Because just like in World War II, sailors to the new world came and contracted this new disease that was found only in North America at the time. And or I should say the Western Hemisphere. Yeah. And 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 age of exploration, 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 on it.

They still like rolled in their own feces and like never washed their hands or took a bath, but they knew how to prevent syphilis with a little something in the urethra with a drawstring attached to it. That's right. By the mid 1700s, Tracy points out they were starting to use condoms made from animal membranes. Yeah. 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 test and lining. Yeah. And you could still buy those. I think they were about what, like 1% of the total sales these days. Yeah. And they recommend those only if you are like a monogamous couple 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 porous, I believe, enough for pathogens to pass through. Yeah. Like you don't want to use that to prevent getting HIV. No. Not smart. No. No. What you want to use is a rubber condom.

That's right. Thank you, Charles. Good year. Yeah. Who gave us not only rubber condoms, but tires, rubber hoses, rubber belts. Yeah. Prevent anything that they made of rubber. You can thank Charles.

Good year for it because of his process of vulcanization, which is he added sulfur and lead oxide to rubber from the Havia Braziliansis tree. Yeah, which they had been tapping that tree for a while to get this latex, this liquid rubber. Right. But yeah, vulcanization is where it became a thing that you could mass produce and it was safe and it was stronger and more elastic. Right.

So, you know, less likely to break. But it was also thicker and rougher. Yeah, true. And you had to go to your doctor to be fitted for one of these condoms. The good part is you could wash and reuse it. It was basically like 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 have to do with this? That's how they did it. Wow. All right.

So, I guess back in the day, you would go to your doctor and get an erection and he would fit you with a condom. Right. Made from vulcanized rubber. Probably a bit of an 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 the nipple of a baby bottle.

Yeah, sure. You know, I'll bet you there's somebody who collects old time condoms. Some rich dude who has like an old time condom collection. Yeah, of course. There's someone who collects everything old. Exactly. You know. So, apparently people were using this.

This was 1839 when Charles Goodyear came with vulcanization. So, we're talking like the mid to late 19th century. People are using these rubber condoms, reusable rubber condoms. And then everybody patted on the back a guy named Frederick Killian. Killian's red beer and venture? Maybe. No. It's possible.

He's more famously known, however, for creating a process of making condoms directly from latex. Right. Which, again, is the sap of the rubber tree found in Brazil, West Africa now, Southeast Asia now. And he would take these glass molds that were, you could argue, phallic in nature. Kind of has to be. Yeah, 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 gesturing like. Maybe initially he did. Right. So, he would dip these molds or forms, right? Or what they're called? Formers. Formers. Yeah.

Just into latex. And he would then vulcanize that. And what you had was a thinner, stronger, 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 it also had a longer shelf life. And all of a sudden, latex was the way to go.

Yeah. Now it's 99% of all condoms worldwide are latex. Yes. And that's a lot of condoms as we'll see. Yeah. We have some numbers. Yeah. Should we, should we talk about nicknames or not?

This seems a little silly to me. I thought it was silly too. Well, 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, we'll say Jimmy hat. Yeah. Okay. Frederick Killian in 1919 came up with the latex Jimmy hat. That's right. I guess if you don't know what a condom is at all, we should go ahead and say it is a tube. It's a bag like tube that the male penis fits in. It's open on one end, obviously.

Right. And closed on the other. There's a little reservoir tip to collect the semen supposedly. And it's got a little ring around the open end, a thin rim that you roll down upon the penis. Right. And that is a condom. And 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 form of this, the basic concept of the condom hasn't changed much over the eons, but just these little advances in technology like making them latex. Latex is not porous. Yes. The only way something's going to get through is if there's some sort of damage to it or something like that. The condom's the same.

What you just described has generally been in use for hundreds or thousands of years, right? Yeah. It's a barrier method. 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, the width, and the thickness? No, 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 carbon is made. Well, which is good. I'm not knocking that. Sure. It's just not exciting.

So yeah, these days, the length, they are at least 6.3 inches, 160 millimeters. Oh, nice. Well, you did the conversion. Well, I think you kind of have to say it in inches, don't you? But have you noticed that House of Works articles have gone metric? Yeah, now it's metric first. The meat one, the lab-grown meat one, both in metric. All right, well, I don't know what to say about that.

What about the width? What is the width of a condom when laid flat? 52 millimeters, which I did not convert to inches. The thickness is 0.07 millimeters. That's thin. 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?

You can wear a rubber glove, too, just for a condom as well. And keep the rubber gloves on your hands. That's right. They powder these things with things like silica and cornstarch and magnesium carbonate to keep the latex from sticking to itself and packaging, or they can come lubed up with either regular lube or made from silicone or a spermicidal lube, which this is good to know now that I'm married, but I was shown it on this back then. Apparently, the spermicidal lubricants can make things worse.

Specifically, nonoxynol nine. Yeah. It says that they found that when used with a condom, it doesn't really do much to kill sperm. Yeah. 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 nonoxynol nine on your condoms. Very good to know.

And that's not knocking in nine, because I think that's what's also used outside of a condom, right, as a spermicidal. Right. So it's more effective there, I guess. How about manufacturing a condom, Chuck? How about it? It all starts. It looks good to me.

It all starts 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. Sure. But let's say you're going the natural route and you go to Brazil and get you some sap, which again, sap from a rubber tree is latex. Yeah. 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. Oh, yeah. All the pictures in this article are in Thailand or Brazil or whatever, and that's where you're going to find rubber trees. Okay. Well, it doesn't only contain latex. You're going to probably have some other ingredients in your bucket there of sap. Well, yeah.

You add it along the way. Yeah. Antifungal and antibacterial compounds. You want to keep things clean. Zinc oxide, which accelerates the vulcanization process. Yep. Stabilizers like potassium laurate. Sulphur maybe, which is another vulcanizing agent.

Ammonia. Anticoagulant. I didn't know that. Yeah. It keeps things from coagulating. Really? Yeah. And other pigments and preservatives because you want it to have that lovely, fleshy look.

Right. And strawberry flavoring. Well, we'll get to that too. So these add to the shelf life. They make it harder to break down because rubber is biodegradable naturally. Right. And you don't want it to break down. That's what happened in the old days when these these lubes,

the natural rubber would just break down. Your condom wasn't worth much for long. Right. And Tracy points out this is a good reason why you'd 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 going to gum things up. It's going to catch all the hair and toilet paper and all that stuff and grow bigger and bigger and just basically become this big giant condom dam in your sewer pipe.

That's right. So what do you do? You 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. No. That's how you properly dispose of or use condom. That's not true.

But she does recommend the tissue and the waste basket. Yeah. Just not the toilet. No. Or if you're in New York City, just on the street or sidewalk. We'll do just fine. In the back of your cab. Have you ever noticed all the condoms on the street?

Yeah. There's a lot of them out there. It's a thing. It's definitely a thing. If you live in New York, you know about it. It's like the Toynbee tiles or something. I just don't get it. Like are these people having sex in the street?

Are they throwing 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? I don't know. Okay.

All right. 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 vat, turn it in 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. Yeah, the tunnel of love. It has all of those zinc oxide and sulfur in it to help it vulcanize. So when it's exposed to heat, it becomes stronger. That's right. Right. And then after that, I found this a little unsettling. Yeah.

Because I just always thought of condoms as like untouched. It's like a brand new newspaper. Like you could deliver a baby with it. Yeah. But apparently after vulcanizing, the condoms are taken off of the formers. Right. And they are washed. Yeah.

So the condom you're using has been washed before. I just find it odd. I guess probably mechanically washed, right? Yeah. It says a washing machine, and that's to remove odor, pathogens, and allergens. So it's good that they're doing this. Yeah. 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 wash it, and then there's quality testing, which is a lot of pretty cool stuff. 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 ineffective. Breaking, a condom, not good. No. Slipping off, definitely not good, and leaking. None of these are good because they are, 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. Right. Not disease. You notice that? It's not STD anymore, it's STI. Right. I didn't know that. What did that happen?

Maybe she just made the change herself. Oh, you think? No, I think, I think it's, I don't know, because maybe disease doesn't quite scientifically capture all of them. I'm sure that's it. So, yeah, I don't know when that happened, but I'll bet it was fairly recent. Yeah, but you're right. 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 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, they fill them with water and hang them up. Yeah.

I guess these are, they're testing either whole batches or selected condoms from the batch. Right. And yeah, they fill full water and look at it. That's the utter test. Is that what it's called? No. 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. Yeah. And there shouldn't be. Remember again, latex condoms don't have any kind of pores. No. Um, and then there's another leak 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 super modern or, or what? And it's not just factories doing this. There's also like third party companies that like make their money by testing condoms for factories or maybe as watchdog 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, um, they, they put them atop metal rods that have been dipped in conductive solution. Yeah. And then they run a current over through these metal rods and the condoms being rubber shouldn't be conductive. Right. But if there's holes or tears or anything in them, like the current will run through

the condom and then they have a computer watch to see, you know, if any kind of had a current run through them. Right. Then the other one is where they turn the voltage up. Yes. 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. Yeah. I bet it stinks. Yeah. Burn rubber doesn't smell good. No. Um, so those are the main ways that they will test, uh, condoms to make sure that you're

all good to go when it's go time. Right. You know what I'm saying? Uh, slippage, however, is something they cannot test for because slippage, my friend, is up to you and how you properly or improperly used the condom. Slippage is user error. Yeah. And I'm ashamed to say that in, we're about to go over the 10 steps and how to properly

use a condom. I didn't know about one of them. The circumcised step. Well, I didn't know about that. What is it? Well, we'll get to it. Um, so Tracy says, uh, storage is where it starts. You got to store it properly.

So, uh, heat and light is not good. Yeah. Uh, wallets, pockets and glove compartments. Right. In other words, everywhere a teenage boy is forced to store their condoms is not where you should store a condom. Yeah. You know, it's all bad.

Yep. You want to keep it in a dry, um, to sort of room temperature like atmosphere. Yes. 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. Right.

Yeah. And when you do open it, you want to open it carefully. Uh, you want to tear along the, uh, one side, sometimes there's a notch. Tracy points out that you don't want to open it with your teeth or pointing finger nails. Yeah. You don't want to 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 those the right side. Sure. I didn't know that. Oh, well, um, I'm 40, almost 42 years old and I had no idea that there was an up and a down. I know what you're talking about.

Okay. The, 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, clasp it shut with your fingers,

put it over the tip of the penis. We're doing this. You realize this. We've suddenly become a sex ed podcast yet. Uh, you, you miss though, if you are in circumcised, you want to gently pull your foreskin back to relieve 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, squeeze, shut, and then you start to enroll it. Take it 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's a top side and a downside, which now explains a lot.

Um, unroll the condom down the length of the penis all the way to the base. You got to take it to the base. Sure. You want it, you want full protection here. Um, otherwise, because if you lose, if you use a condom perfectly, then we'll find out your chances of disease and pregnancy are virtually nil. Yeah. Problems arise is when you, you know, you maybe not roll it all the way down or whatever.

You 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 Vaseline, uh, I guess I should say petroleum jelly. Right. Or baby oil or lotions or anything like that. Anything that could have petroleum. Yeah.

That's all oil base and that's going to not do you any favors in the, uh, reliability department. Right. You want it to be water-based lubricant. That's right. But, um, she also points out that you, using extra lubricant, uh, 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 the way. We're learning right along with you people. Yeah. I'm so glad I want to use these anymore. Yeah. Being married is great.

Yeah. Uh, so after, uh, the male ejaculates, this is post-coital ejaculation. You hope. You hope. Yeah, that's true. Um, you want to hold the, 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 lost. Right.

You don't want to have the condom on, lose your erection while you're still, uh, in mid penetration. Sure. 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 the 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, um, have latex allergies and 99% of late condoms are latex. So some people say, well, latex works the best. I'll just use, um, a sheepskin 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 wearing two condoms. Yeah. Just walk away from the bowling alley and go home. Or the roller rink again. Yeah. And Tracy also points out for our, uh, younger listeners, condoms break more often if they're blown up or filled with water before use.

Yeah. 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, 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 going to 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 and get another one. Sure.

Right. All right. Um, don't be a jerk, I guess is what you're saying. Seriously. I won't, you're trying to prevent, like you said, pregnancy. Most people are when they use condoms or, um, more than 30 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. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute a 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove, or being robbed.

They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Megan Devine, host of Here After with me, Megan Devine on the Amy Brown podcast network. There's a lot going on lately, which is a massive understatement, from personal losses to bigger, collective sweeps of a lot of awful things. Everything is a lot. We have to start telling the truth about how hard it is to be here sometimes,

how absolutely sideways life can go. In a culture that's often afraid of big emotions, it's a radical act just to let things hurt. Hereafter with Megan Devine is the show where everyone's allowed to talk about what's real, in the service of a more connected and supportive world. It is also the place where I get to have conversations with interesting people about difficult things, with bestselling authors and a collection of artists and actors and activists. It's how you'd imagine the coolest dinner party ever might be.

Listen to new episodes of Here After with Megan Devine every Monday on the Amy Brown podcast network, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so you know all those diseases and bacteria for the most part. Do we need to go over those? Sure, chlamydia, genital herpes, genital warts, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, HIV, of course, pubic lice, syphilis, trichomoniasis, 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 STIs 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. Yeah, so Chuck, how effective are condoms? Like you said, when you use them correctly, they work. They've been proven to work. Like we have come to the pinnacle of male 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.

They know this by doing studies of specifically serodiscordant couples, which means one person in the couple has HIV and the other partner doesn't. They found that people who use the condom correctly every time they had sex had pretty much a nil chance or Zed chance of contracting HIV by the end of this study. Yeah, that's a two-year period of these couples. So there's 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. So a good study from UnAIDS or UNAIDS. Which that makes sense. UnAIDS, like they're fighting AIDS, they should be called UnAIDS.

Is this United Nation though? Yeah. They found though that couples that didn't use them all the time, just kind of here or there, had a 14 to 21 percent chance of contracting HIV during this study. Yeah, and pregnancy prevention is pretty similar 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 over the course of a year who uses it perfectly for every act of sexual intercourse of the man has only a 3 percent chance of becoming pregnant. So 97 percent effective. That's pretty good.

Sure. If you use a condom typically, which is apparently not that great, not that well, and you're a woman, you have a 12 percent chance of an unplanned pregnancy. But both of those be not using anything at all. Which leads to an 85 percent chance of getting pregnant over the course of a year. Just by having sex. And yeah, it doesn't say how many men or anything like that. How many trips to the roller rink this entails. So what year is it? So there's still a lot of roller rink sex going on. What got me started was the idea of like a condom like in your pocket.

Sure. Remember the condom ring in the jeans or in your wallet or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Just associate that with the roller rink. Yeah. And like kids with like half mustaches and like mullets and stuff like that. So that's where the roller rink reference came from. All right. So some folks say that, you know what? If you make condoms available to my teenager, it's going to encourage them to have sex.

Studies suggest that that is not the case. This one study observed over 4,000 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 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 gonorrhea or chlamydia. Yeah.

So this study at least points out that it's not going to encourage promiscuity, but it will keep you from getting pregnant and disease. Yeah. I think being in your teens encourages promiscuity. 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, no, we're not going to do it anyway. They just need to abstain. And condoms are like the devil's temptation. I'm ready for humanity to evolve more in that realm. It made sense for 18-year-old males to be at their peak of sexual prowess and girls being able to get pregnant when they were 14. 300 years ago when we were living to 30 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 is coming younger and younger. It's the average boy enters puberty. And that doesn't mean sexual maturation, but begins puberty at like age seven or eight now. That's crazy. And see, nowadays people are getting, well, not everyone, but people are waiting longer in general to get married and have a family. And it's getting harder and harder for older people to get pregnant,

much less the man who's, you know, starts the decline after 18 years old. You get married in your mid-30s. It's like, sorry, you know, my best days were wasted. Right. Well, which is ironic because by that time you can grow a decent mustache. I know. All right. So there's this whole thing associated with condoms. They are a unique breed of product, you know?

Yeah. If you look at them as a commodity, as a retail product, then they should be the same as candy or a toy or, you know, what have you. But something that these other products lack is what's called social marketing, which is what makes condoms virtually unique. There is a great public interest in condoms being purchased and distributed and easily gotten by everybody in the world. True.

Whether it's for population control, which is pretty sinister sounding, 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 sell them at a discount. Yeah, it's called social marketing. And the idea is that if they don't want to make them free, although, you know, there are plenty of places that give out condoms,

sure, 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. Right. 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 use it. So I don't know why I made that connection, but it's the same thing. Well, it is. It's the exact same principle.

You have some sort of ownership over something you've paid for. Yeah. And Tracy said the rule of thumb is that a year's supply of condoms should cost no more than 1% 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 there's the other aspect of it. There's one part of social marketing is buying condoms and distributing them for cheap.

Yeah. And this is like federal government, national government level stuff. 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 me. Yeah.

How about a little kickback? You have to know how to wear them. You have to know what they do. You have to know why you should wear them. You should be able to explain it in plain simple terms to anybody 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. In 1989, they started a campaign for commercial sex workers to use condoms 100% of the time. Always use them. And pretty amazing results. In 1989, before the campaign, 14% of the sex workers had consistently used condoms. By 1994, just five years later, 94% used condoms and not coincidentally,

STI cases diagnosed among sex workers fell from over 400,000 per year to just under 30,000 per year. Right. That's a huge, huge drop off. Yeah. Just use the condom. That's all you got to do. And the rest of the world watched Thailand.

Their jaws fell open. So they started buying condoms like crazy. So like in 2000, for example, South Africa bought 250 million condoms. 290. 290. 290 million condoms. Botswana purchased 12 million. 450 million condoms in India.

And these are the places where they need to use condoms. Like you need to use them everywhere, but places like Africa and India are like in Thailand, obviously you need to use the condoms. Why? To prevent disease and to prevent pregnancy. Right. But why? I mean, you'd want to do that anyway.

Well, that's what I said, but places that are overpopulated and people are dying because they're starving. Oh, yeah. And where disease is rampant in villages, it's a little more important than other places, I would say. I think that's probably kind of a controversial statement, though, among people who don't feel like you should be using condoms, that's government carrying out population control. 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 not having a starving population in one way to do it. It's a control population. But is that a bad thing? If people are willing to use condoms when they have them handy, then why wouldn't you want to provide that to them?

Yeah, it's not a bad thing. I'll go up to find that till my dying breath. Good for you, man. So this is a ton of condoms we're talking about. That was just 2000, right? Many tons of condoms. Right. Apparently, the condom industry, which is just loving this social marketing stuff,

is producing between 8 and 12 billion condoms a year. Apparently, we would need 15 billion to effectively cover everybody for a year. Everybody is sexually active. You would need 15 billion condoms. So they're close, but not close enough. That means everybody in the world does it more than twice a year. Because there's like 6 billion people on the planet, right? Well, yeah, I mean, if you want to average it out like that.

I think a lot of people aren't. A lot of people are doing it more, but sure, if you want to throw an average on it. The thing is, so we're short of condoms, which is mind-boggling. There's only 60 factories on the planet making condoms for the whole world. Yeah. So when you look at it like that, it's pretty impressive. But apparently, the condom industry is stepping up the call and by 2015 is projected to have to produce 25 billion condoms.

There you go. That's a $6 billion industry. That's good. But what's crazy is that's a $6 billion industry. Los Angeles County from porn makes one-sixth of the equivalent of the entire condom industry's money. In porn. In just porn. Yeah.

In just that one county. Yeah. See how everything's connected? Yeah, I do. So here in the United States, the FDA controls something called good manufacturing practices. Rules and standards for making drugs and things like condoms. So the FDA has standards. There are also international standards, the international organization for standardization.

They have their own standards that cover 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, ISO 4074 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.

Accredits. I would imagine the average consumers like zero. Yeah, that'd be nice. Accreditation for labs that test these procedures, materials, shelf life stability. They're just making sure all that is up to snuff. Yep. And again, as we said there, the standards are in this manual called zapping, popping, rolling and other condom testing tools.

Is that very repeating? Yeah. Condoms used to be, they're a little more acceptable to buy these days. Shouldn't be embarrassed to walk into your grocery store and buy condoms. Said the 41 year old. Exactly. But it's not that way for everyone. It's not that way for every group because they are taboo in some religions.

Catholicism famously does not allow the use of contraception, orthodox Judaism. Apparently Islam does allow it if you are married, heterosexuals, heterosexuals, and you have reason to prevent pregnancy. And then 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.

Right. And it's not up to the government to carry out population control. Exactly. 1988 in Nevada it has been mandatory to use condoms if you are in a brothel. Yep. So highly regulated sex industry there in Nevada. Nevada. Nevada.

Excuse me. So Josh, who uses condoms? Everybody who can get their hands on them apparently uses condoms. The UN says that two thirds of the world has ready and available access, ready and easy access. The world has ready and available access, ready and easy access to condoms, right? And they actually created a definition. You have to. I love the UN.

Ready and easy access to condoms means you have to spend less than two hours a month buying condoms. So I guess like taking a bus into town or something like that. Yeah. If you live in the middle of nowhere in Africa it might take a while to get a condom. So this distribution net of condoms needs to be pretty wide, pretty woven, well-woven. Yeah. And then 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 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. And we found that because of efforts like this, condom use around the world has increased. Apparently prior to the 80s, evaluations of condom usage has just been like married couples.

I don't understand why. I don't know. Apparently things were, it was maybe tawdry or something, who knows. The Brits went ahead and did a survey in 1950 and found that for their first sexual encounter, 30 percent of men and women used a condom. By 1990, about 60 percent did. So there was definite increase in condoms, condom usage. They found that people who live with their partners typically use condoms less.

Yeah. Kind of makes sense, I guess. The less likely you would be to use condoms. Probably again because you're in a long-term monogamous relationship, right? And then 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 hardeningly, people in Netherlands, France, Belgium and Britain, the more partners a 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 that are fairly new. When did they come around? 1992. Yeah, 1992 in Switzerland, approved here in the United States in 93. It is a polyurethane sheath, sort of like the male condom, except it's got two rings,

one on either end, one a little smaller on one end, and that fits in the woman's vagina and it sort of is just like a reverse of what the male condom is. Right. Some of the benefits is a woman can put this in beforehand, whereas a man obviously has to be go time, has to have the erect penis. Exactly, like the woman can insert this anytime. Anytime. Well, I'm sure there are recommendations for how long you use this thing as well.

But it is another barrier method that protects against HIV and pregnancy. They tend to be reusable. Yep, because it's polyurethane, you can use oil-based lubricants. 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, this is very useful because it's given control of who uses the condom when to the woman. True. It is more expensive, which is one of the disadvantages, and that could lead some people in developing nations to wash it and reuse it, which is not recommended.

And apparently in trials, clinical trials, it's slightly less effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs than male condoms, but it's way, way, way better than nothing, obviously. Sure. What else do we have? We have spray-on condoms. Yeah, sort of, not yet. They're still being toyed with, apparently. Yeah, this guy named, I can't remember his first name, his last name is Krauss. He's a sex educator from Germany, and he apparently had trouble finding condoms that fit him when he was younger, a younger man.

He's 30 now. I get the idea that he was small. Oh, I got 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. Well, it's funny. It's new ideas to have a range of sizes, like six sizes.

The market's wide open for small condoms. Apparently, Trigin 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. So, I mean, the medium condoms, like, have 17% of the market share. They're like 15% bigger than normal condoms. Yeah, and Krauss' theory is that guys that are smaller don't want to walk into a store and buy the small condoms. Right. So, he wants to... I mean, he's working on the spray on condoms, but he's also working on different sizes that I think are a little more... The packaging is a little less obvious, you know?

Like, you know, walk up and buy, like, the teeny weeny. 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, 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 sale in Germany that are likely as to fit you best. This is pretty cool. Yeah. So, he's created the spray on condom.

Yeah, here's how this thing works. You put your penis in a tube, and it sprays from many different directions the condom, latex, onto your penis, your erect penis. Right. And then it has to dry, which is one of the problems. It hisses when it sprays, so some dudes are worried that that might ruin the mood. Some guys were a little worried about putting their penis in this tube, period. Sure. And then liquid latex takes about two to three minutes to vulcanize. And in order for people to buy these things, he thinks it's going to have to be ready in like five to ten seconds. Sure.

Because it's like you better learn how to juggle or something. They keep the interest going for those couple minutes. Is that what does it, juggling? Juggling, or 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, I hate to say it, but like the closest analogy is like a Chinese finger trap. Yeah.

Like once the twist 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. Yep. And the reason she came up with this was because rape in South Africa is out of control. Some survey from 2009 found that one in four South African men admit to raping a woman. And that they think possibly 1.4 million women are raped in South Africa every year. It's the population of Phoenix. Unbelievable.

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's 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 violence against the woman in the moment. And another person from the CDC says that it's also a form of enslavement.

It's a constant reminder of a woman's vulnerability. 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 their rationale. And 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's called the rape ax, R-A-P-A-X-E.

And I believe it's rapeax.com, maybe, or something that takes you to the website. But if you type in rapeax into your search browser, that's going to 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 something called an olor that it's basically this impediment that hangs from the abdomen of a male goat that keeps him from, it's a barrier to prevent him from penetrating the female during intercourse, right? Yep. And they use this to control goat populations so that they don't starve. It's unfamiliar? And it's not something that goes on the penis. I think it's just a physical barrier.

Right. Just like a male goat chastity belt. That the goat knocks into. Called an olor. Yep. So thank God for that. Yeah. It's good, though.

Crack-wise, but sure. Better than starving goats. That is condoms. Well done. Well done to you, too. Not much giggling. I 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 top that Serenite Lives gets use of penis. Remember at the nudist camp? Oh, yeah. With Kevin Neal and Mike Myers. Hey, nice penis. That was great.

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 at HowStuffWorks.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.

That's good. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops.

Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Megan Devine, host of Here After with me, Megan Devine, on the Amy Brown Podcast Network. There's a lot going on lately, which is a massive understatement, from personal losses to bigger,

collective sweeps of a lot of awful things. Everything is a lot. We have to start telling the truth about how hard it is to be here sometimes. How absolutely sideways life can go. In a culture that's often afraid of big emotions, it's a radical act just to let things hurt. Hereafter with Megan Devine is the show where everyone's allowed to talk about what's real, in the service of a more connected and supportive world. It is also the place where I get to have conversations with interesting people about difficult things,

with bestselling authors and a collection of artists and actors and activists. It's how you'd imagine the coolest dinner party ever might be. Listen to new episodes of Here After with Megan Devine every Monday on the Amy Brown Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Well, since we said sex ed, since Chuck said sex ed, you know what that means. You know what that means. It's time for listener mail. Alright, I'm going to call this a music experiment.

You guys are awesome. Been listening since about 2010. 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. Oh, I remember this time. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I don't have his name now.

I feel awful. 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. Right. So, like, the fifth week of September, 1962, which never existed. Like that? Well, just in order. Like, I'm listening to the 1950s music for this week.

So, the whole thing ended up taking about three and a half months, which is much longer than I plan. I'm a big music guy, and I started at around pre-1950s. I should note that while I did this, I did my best to isolate myself musically. I wouldn't listen to anything else that wasn't from that period that I was in that week. It's kind of cool. It ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in a long time, aside from noticing many new things and songs that I'd listened to countless times before. I feel like I began forming a connection with the time period of the music I was listening to.

Long story short, I'm wearing a poodle skirt 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. At the time I was done, it felt like I had traveled through time. I had a strange connection with events I'd 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. Oh, that's cool. My work, guys, definitely makes my drive to work much more enjoyable.

Thanks again, and I wish I had your name. We'll read it if you send it in. Nice, okay. Yeah. So sorry, Gary, or Billy, or Johnny, or Fred. Cole. Cole. I see we don't want people's condom stories, do we?

Yeah, we do. Do we? Of course we do. It seems like a bad idea. I think it's a great idea. Well, then you ask for it. Guys, we want your condom stories. Ladies, we want your condom stories.

Okay. So you live in New York City, and you can explain. That's a good one. The condoms on the street inside the walk. That is a great one. Although, what's there to explain, really? Well, I mean, where do they come from? Maybe they're coming up from the sewer.

Oh, that's a good idea. Maybe they are. 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 SYSKpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com, stuff you should know. And you can send us a good old-fashioned email, too. You can find us on SYSKpodcast at discovery.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Looking to continue the story? Make sure to stream our new documentary, The Big Payback, co-directed by me and Whitney Dow. As we examine the attempt to make reparations for African Americans, a reality available now on the PBS app or wherever you get your films.