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BY yvonne jones
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MORE ON TRIPOD
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Contraceptive Concentration:
Match condom to condom and rack up safe sex points. Now where'd I see that IUD...?
Contraceptive Contemplation:
A prostitute, a gay editor, a gynocologist, and a very active straight male discuss (better) safe sex.
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WEB RESOURCES
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The Safer Sex Pages
Ann Rose's
Ultimate Birth Control Links
Too shy to buy? Order Reality condoms from the Condomania online catalog.
And just to prove we're not being bribed by anyone (not even Reality, honest!) there's also Condom Country, which sells all sorts of condoms, plus "other below-the-belt-buck'l items."
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RELATED POD
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Women's Issues
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Meet the women, surf the pages, and join the conversation, in the X-Squared Pod.
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As a freelance writer whose paychecks are always "in the mail," I await my mailman more eagerly than any lover I've ever had. Oddly enough, my checks have recently been arriving like clockwork. It's my condom that has yet to pass through my mail slot.
Yeah, my condom. Normally, I go to the drugstore like everyone else. But I'm not on the lookout for just any condom. I'm waiting for Reality.
The Reality Female Condom has been available in the U.S. since 1994, after
some tussling with the Food and Drug Administration. But it is only in the
last year or so that the manufacturer, the Female Health Company, has been
giving the condom a major push with gynecologists, public health, family
planning and AIDS clinics, drugstore chains, and of course, Jane Q. Public.
The Female Health Company is trying to reach "Jane" through advertising. If you read any print magazine with a) glossy paper; b) a national circulation above 50,000; and c) whose targeted audience includes women between the ages of 18 and 40, you've probably seen the ad.
The Ad
"Exactly how FANTASTIC was it?" inquires the type laid over the heads of a photogenic, postcoital, opposite sex couple who only have goo- goo eyes for each other. Apparently it wasn't FANTASTIC enough for the woman to
remove her lacy but chaste nightgown or turn down her bedspread any lower
than her bra line. She has that naturally curly Lisa Bonet mulatto girl-child
hair I would kill for. He is, as Western standards dictate, a few manly
shades darker than she and appears to be shirtless. One can only guess where
his hands might be, other than lost in the ad's shadows. Any further
speculation as to his state of undress is cut off, literally, by the
informative text describing Reality.
The Temptation
"Fantastic enough ONCE wasn't enough." Do tell. It's the woman who sells the ad. She looks so....sated, mildly amazed, and grateful all at the same time. For her, Reality didn't bite, it purred. Curiosity about what using a female condom might be like made me think about it, but it was that LOOK that made me dial the 800 number for my free sample. I
wanted it to "Feel so GOOD, you won't believe it's SAFER SEX."
The Hunt
So someday my Reality Female Condom will come in the mail. In the meantime I decided to go condom shopping with my friend Amadee. She's a sex ed counselor for "troubled" teenaged girls in Philadelphia. I knew she'd have to
get around to Reality one day, if only to be able to talk about it with her girls.
It is perhaps one of those weird hallmarks of democracy that I live a mere four blocks from a store called Condom Kingdom. Amadee and I surrendered to the obvious after hitting four pharmacies that were all sold out of Reality. Condom Kingdom, like its retail cousin Condom Nation, should rename itself the House of Giggles, because that's all you hear when you
stroll into the store on a Saturday night like we did. They had plenty of
female condoms in stock. I shrieked a little at the price — I'd forgotten
that at $6.99 per three-pack, they're almost twice as expensive as regular
condoms. The Female Health Company wisely neglects to mention this in their
ads. I began to put the box back, but Amadee grabbed my hand and said, "Hey,
it's for research." So I bought two from the Condom Kingdom cashier, for
whom the titillation of working there was long gone.
The Inspection
We returned to my house to inspect our first "femidom." It's made of clear, strong, and eerily soft plastic, but it's longer and wider than any male condom I've ever used. If I were to meet a man who could actually "fit" a Reality condom, we'd have to remain good friends. It has circular rings at both the closed (internal) and open (external) ends of the condom. The internal ring is flexible: proof, Amadee said, "that a woman had some input on its design."
I read the small print and noted that the female condom is made of polyurethane, which is a very good sign. I've read that even male condom makers are choosing polyurethane over latex because its stops the
transmission of STDs even better than latex. And it seemed easy enough to
use. "To insert Reality, squeeze the inner ring and push into the vagina as
far as possible. This ring helps to hold the female condom in place inside,
while the outer rim stays outside the body and helps to protect. When both
partners are ready, the penis is simply guided into the female condom. Extra
lubricant is added for extra pleasure and ease of movement." And, what do you
know, they'd thoughtfully included a small tube of lubricant with my purchase.
The Test
I gave Amadee one pack and told her to go forth and research with her honey, Bob, and to call me with a Reality check in the next few days. She called me the next day. Bob had just returned from a camping trip with his brothers and had apparently been hot for some male to female bonding.
"Where to begin?" Amadee asked.
"At the beginning," I urged.
"Well, I can see right away that it's going to turn off a certain kind of
woman."
"What?"
"I mean, I know a lot of grown women who can barely deal with having to use a tampon for a few days a month. You've really got to be comfortable touching yourself if you're going to insert it and use it correctly. I, as you know, have no problem in that area..."
"Spare me!" We both laughed.
"Now let me tell you about the sound effects, girl..."
Amadee told me, but I found out for myself a few days later. Reality in action produced such hilarious, grotesque sound effects as to render
intercourse nearly impossible. We were laughing too hard. Imagine the
squishiest, squeakiest Baggie on earth and you're close. My beau now refers
to it as "the whoopee condom." However, I can now say with a bit more
experience that the mood deflating sound effects do go away with, um,
practice and a bit of lubricant.
I've since discovered that one friend in Virginia has been using Reality for several months. I also convinced another friend to try it, and discovered that the University of Pennsylvania's Women's Health Center has been giving them away for free. The staffers there are so sold on Reality that I jokingly accused them of taking kickbacks from the Female Health Company. (Has an organization ever sounded more Orwellian?)
So what's the anecdotal evidence thus far? It's made of polyurethane, not latex, it makes strange noises the first few times you use it, it's more than wide enough to accommodate the average penis....
Serendipity!
Well, here's an extra benefit not mentioned in the advertisements, though your straight and bi gal pals will tell you in a second....The Reality Female Condom's outer base ring is a girl's best friend. It gives a surprising amount of clitoral stimulation because it hangs
externally. I now call it "the whoopee condom" too, but for entirely
different reasons. Top that, Trojans!
But the absolute most important reason to give Reality a try is that MEN LOVE IT! There is none of the restriction or lack of comfort that men complain about with regular condoms, and the polyurethane conducts heat
better than latex. And he doesn't have to be cajoled into wearing the condom
because it's on you girlfriend!
The Case Against Reality
Sound too good to be true? Well, the label on the Reality box emphasizes that "the male latex condom remains the best protection against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases." I was confused. Were women being sold some inferior condom substitute?
I went back and did some research on the product, and found that the Food and Drug Administration approved the female condom even though they felt it was inferior to the male condom in preventing pregnancy. How inferior is inferior? In FDA tests, subjects had a 26 percent failure rate while using the female condom, compared to the male condom's 15 percent failure rate. I'm not excited about either of those percentages. But further research reveals that the FDA admitted that with perfect use — with each act of intercourse — the female condom has a failure rate of only 5 percent, compared to 3 percent for the male condom.
The Conclusion
So it's eleven percent easier to get pregnant when using the Reality Female Condom improperly than it is when using the male condom improperly. Got that? I shared this info with Amadee and she said drily that in her work she always encourages women to use contraceptives the right way so they'll actually do what they're supposed to do: "I've been talking to my
counterparts at Planned Parenthood and Elizabeth Blackwell Center and we
can't really ignore a relatively safe method — 95 percent safe anyway — that prevents pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and is under the control of the woman. With a male condom, a man has to agree to wear it and sometimes that just doesn't happen. I can tell my girls not to have sex with a man who
won't use a condom, and I do, but I see the fallout from that every other
day. Female control is a major plus. Also, I notice that the FDA isn't
circulating the fact that the rip and tear number for male condoms is as
high as 14 percent and Reality's is only 0.2 percent."
I must say, when I first heard about the "femidom" a few years ago, I was underwhelmed. Just what the women of the world were waiting for —
another contraceptive/disease prevention method they'd bear all the
responsibility for. But as my mother once said to me, "Honey, I let your
father handle the birth control once and here you are." I can't say I'd
trust any partner, past, present, or future to take his Sperm Away pill every day.
I'm still high on Reality. It's a sorry statement to make, but I value a contraceptive/STD preventative that allows me to protect myself without being dependent on the cooperation of a partner, no matter how nice. Other women will have to decide for themselves if they want to
come to terms with Reality.
The End
Yvonne Jones (Tripod member YJones) is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She also works for the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, the Neighborhood Film Video Project, and the Philadelphia Independent Film Video Association.
© 1997 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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