Since the dawn of time Human beings have tried to find the best way to have sex without the consequences of a baby being produced. There are countless reasons for this, and I am certainly not going to get into them, but one of the most direct and popular ways to stop it is to use a condom. The condom is a barrier method as it stops the sperm from entering the womb and vagina where it can look to fertilise an egg. It is the safest form of protection for both parties from Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, chlamydia and HIV/AIDs plus it does not involve the use of oral contraceptives and relying on hormones. You may want to go further and have Home StI kits such as the ones available from https://www.greenwichsexualhealth.org/home_sti_kits/ for example before you consider a new sexual partner. How is a Condom tested and what is it made from?
One thing that you can be relieved about is that most condoms’ if not all are electronically tested before they are put in the market. Before that and you would have had to rely on the Casanova method of blowing it up first to see if there are any holes in it as the first ones were pretty much like a balloon. The electronic process involves the condom placed over a phallic shape which scans it for holes. Even then the Condom is not 100% effective in preventing childbirth, for that matter no contraceptive is (with the exception of not doing it) as Ross Geller and Rachel Green discovered in Friends with Ross famously saying that he was “indignant as a consumer” that it hadn’t worked and that “they should put that on the box” (which they do quite clearly) when Rachel tells him they don’t work all the time.
Late eighteenth/early twentieth century Condoms were made from vulcanised rubber and were the same thickness of a bike tyre inner tube, which wasn’t popular with anyone concerned. Others only covered the head and were named capote as they looked like a popular French women’s bonnet. They could easily fall off and were not popular. These Condoms were handmade wrapping rubber strips around a phallus shape but it was Julius Fromm who hit on the idea of dipping glass moulds into raw rubber and peeling off the result. Mass condom production was born!
The only trouble was that gasoline or benzene was added for it to set. This smell was a bit of passion killer and also fires in Condom factories were very common. The discovery of latex meant that Condoms were safer, thinner yet as strong and lasted for ages. They still account for the most used material today.
One last thing, they is a spray on Condom being developed but it’s unlikely to make it till market as it takes 2-3 minutes to set!
