We love condoms. If you use a condom, you decrease your chance of getting a sexually transmitted disease. However, many people think condoms are 100 per cent effective and that they simply cannot get a sexually transmitted disease while wearing a condom. Unfortunately, that’s just not true.
Now, this should never be a reason not to use a condom. They are very effective in preventing the transmission of certain diseases. For instance, a review of studies done on condom use to prevent gonorrhoea found that using condoms reduced the risk of getting gonorrhoea somewhere between 30 per cent and 100 per cent for males and between 13 per cent and 100 per cent for females. This is great! Similar studies looking at protection against chlamydia found that condom use reduced the risk of getting chlamydia somewhere between 15 per cent and 100 per cent for males and 10 per cent and 100 per cent for females. Again, hooray for condoms! Perhaps the most concerning sexually transmitted disease is HIV. There is no doubt that the use of condoms also reduces your chance of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Much of Rachel’s research work involves HIV, and preventing HIV is the best reason she can think of to use a condom.
Condoms are great, but in many cases they are not perfect. A 2005 study examined how well condoms could prevent the transmission of herpes simplex virus. Of the 1,843 participants in the study, just over 6 per cent became infected. Those using condoms were less likely to become infected with one type of herpes, but condoms provided no protection against becoming infected with a different type of herpes. And, if the herpes is in a spot that is not covered by a condom, the condom helps you even less.
And there are other sexually transmitted diseases that might be harboured in areas not covered by condoms: such as human papillomavirus (which causes genital warts), crabs (which scurry all around), and genital ulcers (if these lesions are not covered by the condom, then ulcers can definitely be transmitted.
In the lab, condoms are almost 100 per cent effective in blocking the nasty bugs that cause sexually transmitted diseases. However, real life is not a lab. Condoms don’t cover the entire genital area. Moreover, condoms can break, and if they do, you can pass on a disease. Plus we have yet to meet the mythical person who never, ever fails to use a condom – and unless you use a condom every single time you have sex, you’re not fully protected from disease. Of course, if you are really and truly only going to have sex with one person (and only one person) in a completely monogamous relationship, and are disease free, you may not need a condom. In summary, condoms are not perfect, but there are many good reasons to use them and we recommend them despite their flaws.