Graphene condoms: super slim and tough, it is that enough to make people have safer intercourse?

Senior Research Fellow , Glasgow Caledonian University

Doctoral Researcher, Class of Health Insurance And Lifetime Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University

Disclosure statement

Karen Lorimer gets funding that is grant the main Scientist workplace, Scottish Government.

Jen MacDonald is funded by a Glasgow Caledonian University PhD stipend.

Glasgow Caledonian University provides capital as a founding partner associated with the discussion British.

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The proposition of a ultra-thin condom made of graphene and latex brings design for the contraceptive to the century that is 21st. We now have yet to notice a model, however the designers during the University of Manchester stated the thinnest and condom that is strongest ever made would enhance feeling during intercourse, that they wish will encourage more condom usage.

Graphene is a kind of carbon that’s been touted a “miracle material”, may be one-atom dense the strongest ever calculated and an upgraded for silicone. James Hone, an engineering teacher from Columbia University, stated it abthereforelutely was so strong that “it would just just just take an elephant, balanced for a pencil, to split through a sheet of graphene the depth of Saran Wrap cling movie”|film” that is cling.

The program at Manchester is always to combine graphene with latex, presently the material that is main in making condoms, to produce their particular. But will enhancing sensation really cause visitors to utilize condoms more?

Locating the right fit

Despite condoms being one of the best techniques to avoid maternity and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as for instance chlamydia and HIV, they’re still unpopular for a number of reasons.

There is a complete lot of research performed into focusing on how frequently condoms are now being utilized, exactly what dilemmas are related to with them and people’s attitudes towards them. A range of social and mental factors influence exactly how much we utilize condoms, such as for example lack of pleasure, the smell (commonly from latex) and arguments which they result some males to reduce their erection.

Individuals have a tendency to think about the recognized advantages and disadvantages of condoms and safer intercourse. There clearly was a spectrum of condom usage from individuals staying away from them after all, to with them inconsistently or trying to utilize them and failing. And an ever growing human body of scientific studies are telling us more about the mistakes and dilemmas men and women have when working with condoms – including fit, breakages and spillages.

Cops and rubbers

There has been attempts that are many market condom usage throughout the world. In Thailand for instance, efforts had been made through the entire 1980s to boost condom used to reduce the country’s high birth prices and also as section of an HIV prevention programme within the 1990s. The us government caused brothel owners to enforce condom usage, there is a media campaign and police distributed condoms through something called the “cops and rubbers” initiative.

Thailand’s ‘Mr Condom’ at TEDx.

Despite some success, dilemmas stay with condom usage nevertheless reduced in rural areas specially. This points to deficiencies in understanding and option of condoms being basis for low use. But even yet in the western where condoms are widely accessible and sexual training programmes raise understanding, high prices of STIs persist. Therefore can it be actually constantly about deficiencies in supply?

Condoms for the unclean?

Overview of 268 qualitative studies in The Lancet discovered seven key themes reported by young adults about non-safe sex, including which they had been stigmatising or suggested deficiencies in trust. Another was at the perception of prospective intimate partners as “clean” or “unclean” – therefore if someone had been considered the previous it had been okay to not ever work with a condom. Other expectations that are social including the concern with appearing “easy” or otherwise not additionally arrived into play.

Provided social reasons influence sexual behaviour, brand brand new technology like the graphene condom (and another idea checking out “shape memory”) won’t always improve attitudes toward utilizing condoms. It’s clear there’s still some approach to take here.

But pleasure that is emphasising be a unique narrative that encourages some to think about the pros and cons a little differently. When it comes to many part, tries to encourage teenagers to make use of condoms employ scare strategies that emphasise the effects of staying away from them. Many of y our studies indian dating have unearthed that teenage boys really reject these fear narratives and would like a different tone in wellness communications. Therefore a condom that emphasises “enhanced pleasure” might be effective for those teams. We have been additionally looking at the attitudes of older adults towards condom usage, while they stay intimately active.

The social and social forces at play that influence exactly just how teenagers function into the bed room means simply supplying information and condoms is not sufficient to result in alterations in intimate behavior. While medical improvements in intimate wellness such as for example graphene condoms might be extremely important, getting individuals to put them on within the place that is first a much deeper comprehension of the social and social forces at your workplace.