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Bill Gates Will Give You $100,000 to Build a Better Condom
- ditojim 14y agoperhaps some kind of spray-on film that peels off easy when finished but won't break and is hella flexible.
- hooo 14y agoNot sure how that would be better. Now you'd get condom spray all over the place.
- ufo 14y agoA big problem with sprays is that they are cold.
- Evbn 14y agoChemistry can create heat.
- TheSilentMan 14y agoIn addition to the other issues brought up, there's the problem of pubic hair getting stuck in the film reducing it's effectiveness and making removal painful.
- Evbn 14y agoMake it soluble in a complementary gel.
- Lockyy 14y agoI was reading recently about the origami condom.[1] It certainly seems to fix the problem mentioned about male condoms, i.e. reduced pleasure. Plus other benefits like speed etc. I'm not sure whether the female condom in their range would fit the "easier to put on" requirement however. [1]http://www.origamicondoms.com/ http://www.origamicondoms.com/
- raverbashing 14y agoWow, just wow. The video for the male condom is very illustrative. Hopefully they will have success with it.
- Trufa 14y agoBut an absolutely unfair demo of the traditional condom, it's just ridiculous, you can have trouble sometimes but the comparison is just wrong. Don't get me wrong I love the idea.
- raverbashing 14y agoYes, these demos are always like "as seen on TV" stuff, where people always have problems with the competitor's product.
- Trufa 14y agoExactly my feeling, I remember a reddit post for a pen that showed a woman not being able to sharpen a pencil in a very clumsy manner just like this one.
- konstruktor 14y agoYeah, using a condom that's too small for the girth of the dildo (which looks more rigid than a penis) seems very dishonest.
- wilfra 14y agoAppears to pass the 'would I ever want to wear one of these while having a one-some' litmus test.
- sharkweek 14y agoMelinda Gates wrote a great piece for Foreign Policy discussing the importance of pivoting away from focus on male contraceptive to female versions -- http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/why_birth_control_is_still_a_big_idea http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/why_birth_c...
- raverbashing 14y ago"The primary drawback from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure as compared to no condom," Hummm really? Condoms are a usability nightmare: - Fragile - Comes in few sizes, beyond that, you're in 'specialty shops' territory. (Really, I don't care about shapes, flavours, bells and whistles, I care that it fits!) - It's lubricated on the outside. Good for when you're using it, AWFUL when it comes to applying it. That "teaching kids how to put on a condom using a banana" thing? It's good intention, but someone needs to come with a realistic model. Maybe put a condom on a banana then try putting another over it: closer to the real thing.
- seivan 14y agoIn Sweden you get to put a condom on a realistic dildo. I was 12.
- raverbashing 14y agoWell, that's the way it should be, sexual intercourse is a fact of life. But it's not so much about the shape, it's about the consistency, sensibility of the surface and the fact that the outer skin is not simulated in those models and it makes it harder to apply the condom.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- SwellJoe 14y ago- Fragile I've never had a condom break or leak in 20 years of sexual activity. I tend to think of them as pretty much unbreakable. Maybe I've luckily chosen only good quality condoms in all that time? (Mostly Durex Extra Sensitive, but I try new ones all the time, in hopes of finding something better.) - Comes in few sizes, beyond that, you're in 'specialty shops' territory. (Really, I don't care about shapes, flavours, bells and whistles, I care that it fits!) This is absolutely valid criticism. Fit makes a big difference in how pleasurable their use is, and also whether there is risk of the condom slipping off (and probably poor fit increases risk of breakage).
- aashaykumar92 14y agoIn light of the instant stop-bleeding gel[1], I started thinking about the concept of a gel that could serve as an even better form of protection than condoms. I wish I knew my chemistry better but I am sure that scientists can determine a way that this can be done. [1]http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11409/the-gel-that-stops-bleeding-instantly/ http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11409/the-gel-that-stops-blee...
- PakG1 14y agoNot the first time a gel has been tried, but admittedly what you're thinking of is a different concept. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/us-hiv-gel-study-idUSBRE9230UI20130304 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/us-hiv-gel-study-i... edit: meaning that with gel, maybe the problem is actually a UI problem. :)
- shurcooL 14y agoOne strategy to get people to use stronger passwords is a "that password can be cracked in <time>." meter. Apply similar strategy to get ppl to wear condoms. Focus on chance of having a kid, STDs, etc.
- nicholassmith 14y agoThat metaphor applies to people who care, there's still a lot of people using incredibly weak passwords.
- shurcooL 14y agoDo you think not even seeing "that password can be cracked in 5 minutes" won't get them to add a few more characters?
- nicholassmith 14y agoNope, people have been told not to use weak passwords for years and I still know a few who use dictionary passwords with maybe a number at the end, or two. They care, but not enough to change.
- shurcooL 14y agoIt's one thing to be told not to use weak passwords in theory, but another seeing how many seconds/minutes/hours/years it would take to crack your password and have that number change with each extra letter you type. Or so I would imagine.
- nicholassmith 14y agoA lot of sites use 'your password is weak/strong/very strong' indicators, there's still a lot of weak passwords used for them.
- Evbn 14y ago
- Gravityloss 14y agoSuper-thin almost invisible graphene condom. After ten years on the market, it's noticed that it causes cancer in users and in nature after disposal...
- voidlogic 14y agoGraphene superconductors are compost-able.... we will know more in time, but as a sheet of pure carbon graphene has an intuitively low risk of being carcinogenic. Graphene is also produced every time you write with a traditional pencil, so tons of graphene exposure starting at a very early age has occurred, with no known side affects.
- dougk16 14y agoHmm, cool problem...maybe a small circular patch, kind of like a band-aid, and you stick it right over the meatus (the "eye" if you will). The band-aid itself has an elastic reservoir in the center that fills up just like a condom's. That way you'd have pretty much all your sensitive parts still directly exposed. The main challenge would be a user-friendly way of cementing that sucker to the head of the penis though. Bioré pore strips are ridiculously clingy to skin (don't ask how I know), but take a while to apply. Maybe something in that vein? Would probably need something that chemically reacts/bonds to skin (a band-aid's level of stickiness just wouldn't be enough), but is soluble in some other gentle chemical.
- k-mcgrady 14y agoThat would provide no protection from STI's.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- dougk16 14y agoI don't know about no protection. It would prevent most transmission from male to female, as I understand STI's (it's been a while since sex ed class). True that it wouldn't help when there's open sores and such on the penis though.
- argonaut 14y agoYou forget that the entire head of the penis is basically a mucous membrane through which STIs can be passed (i.e. one big open sore). So you would have to cover the entire head, at which we run into the problem of sensitivity again.
- wilfra 14y agoYa I like this - 'catching' the ejaculate would still present risks but it should all-but eliminate unwanted pregnancies and greatly reduce STD's which are passed by fluid exchange. You still have to worry about things like Herpes and HPV but this would be vastly better than no condom. Maybe something that just partially covers the head of the penis?
- gee_totes 14y agoI would much rather see Bill Gates offer $100,000 to developing a cheap and easily reversible vasectomy, and disrupt the condom market.
- raverbashing 14y agoVasectomy does nothing for venereal diseases. Ok, it may reduce the transmission of some diseases, but not to a safe level. But I remember there was something like 'easy and cheap' vasectomy (still in research) being done by injecting polymers in the Vas Deferens Ok, found the wikipedia for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_...
- gee_totes 14y agoAgreed, but I think the main reason for people using condoms is to reduce pregnancy. The STD prevention is just a value-add (or at least that's what the Neurosyphilis voices in my head are telling me)
- nilkn 14y agoOnce you have a steady, trustworthy partner, condoms are mostly used just to prevent pregnancy. So a cheap and easily reversible vasectomy wouldn't eliminate the condom market, but it would certainly disrupt it I would think.
- nicholassmith 14y agoI would assume they're focused on STIs, HIV and AIDS rather than decreasing pregnancy rates. Whilst vasectomy reversal would disrupt condoms, male anti-birth pills (getting ever closer to production) are more likely to achieve what you're thinking.
- pervycreeper 14y agoI think that was a joke
- deleted 14y ago
- WA 14y agoLet's look at that problem from a few different perspectives. I claim that it's impossible to design a better condom while still being a condom. If you want to avoid STDs, you need some sort of protective material that keeps all fluids at their place. So, there's no other way than having this sort of material. Exception would be to have some sort of material or liquid that: - kills all bacteria and viruses - thus prevents STDs - has no health side effects - avoids pregnancy But then it's not a condom anymore, but a STD-reducing liquid. To make a condom more pleasurable, you need to make it thinner or to "enhance" it by adding some sort of chemical that emulates a vagina to a certain degree and heightens the sensual experience. Thing is, while it seems possible to increase the sensitivity of a penis with certain chemicals, you cannot design a condom that increases the PSYCHOLOGICAL sensitivity. There's a difference in having sex with a condom and without a condom. And the problem of that is the condom itself, no matter how pleasurable it is. So, the ideal condom is probably not much different from the current condom, material-wise. Maybe the ideal condom is the same product but with an entirely different marketing strategy to get the psychological factor right. Or something along the lines where people get educated on how to train their mind sexually to increase their pleasure despite using a condom. Though I don't believe that this is possible on a broad scale.
- bradleyjg 14y agoIt's not fluids per se that are the problem. You want to block cells (sperm & bacteria) and viruses. So roughly 50nm. Everything smaller should be okay.
- s0rce 14y agoAlthough you could use a membrane with tiny pores you would tremendously slow down the rate of flow of the smaller molecules too even though they theoretically can travel across the membrane.
- Peaker 14y agoThis kind of proof is often named "proof by lack of imagination". You're reiterating the design ideas of the condom with a bit of expansion, asserting that it must be this way. But you really don't know if you've explored the entire design-space.
- drucken 14y agoHere's one idea, enough for at least $100k? Condoms treated with silver nanoparticles could ‘completely inactivate’ HIV, other STDs: researchers http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/03/condoms-treated-with-silver-nanoparticles-could-completely-inactivate-hiv-other-stds-researchers/ http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/03/condoms-treated-with...
- mrwhy2k 14y agoPerhaps this is obvious, but how do you perform "testing" for prototypes?
- tempestn 14y agoFor prototype condoms, or in general? Presumably they would stress test in a simulated environment, as well as perform human tests with participants who do not require them to be effective. (IE using alternate methods of birth control and having been screened for STIs.) I would imagine they would use volunteers in committed relationships. Or are you asking specifically how one would go about testing a condom's effectiveness?
- piokoch 14y agoBetter condom - the greatest challange Western Civilization is facing right now.
- VMG 14y agowhere did you get that from?
- tempestn 14y agoI assume it was intended to be sarcastic. If so, I would point out that better condoms -> more people wearing condoms -> less spread of disease and fewer unwanted pregnancies. Good things in Western Civilization, but even more important in developing countries.
- chuachua 14y agolike,,
- hello_newman 14y agoI am going to be honest....condoms suck. Pure and simple. Trojan ultra-thins are the best, but still not the same. Although not getting an STD makes wearing one worth it. I am still waiting for some type of spray. A spray that could be applied before intercourse that essentially protects your "sheath" and provides a barrier. It would allow you to have condom-less sex with out the worry of STD's. It would not help with contraception, but with the vast amount of females on the pill they have that taken care of for the most part. Maybe one day, but until then I'll take a condom over an STD or pregnancy any day of the week.
- mattsah 14y agoI couldn't get the article to load, but given that it's Bill Gates, I assume this has something to do with the spread of HIV/AIDS. From the commments I can discern that one concern is reducing pleasure. I'd imagine the condoms used in third-world country are not high-end super thin condoms which make the experience a bit better, but the really rubbery thick ones you can get for free at a high school sex class. That said, is this really about building a better condom? Or just building a better condom, cheaper? Also, I'm not sure this is the primary problem. You'd probably be better of spending $100,000 on fighting the catholic church to make sure condoms, even the cheap kind, are widely available.
- pshin45 14y agoThis Gates Foundation challenge focuses on making a more pleasurable condom, but what about just good old-fashioned scare tactics like we see for cigarettes (blackened lungs, people breathing through a tube in their neck, etc.)? Include (extreme) imagery in condom ads to remind potential customers of the costs of unprotected sex - nauseating pictures of STD-infected genitalia, stories of men who have to pay $xxx in child support every month, men who were "forced" to get married due to pregnancy and miss out on their youth, etc. Wouldn't this be just as effective, while requiring much less effort and ingenuity?
- Sunlis 14y agoPutting scare-tactics on cigarette packaging works because the person buying them is "in the wrong" and needs to be "scared away". Negative reinforcement to make an action or habit less desirable. I'm no psychologist, but I would guess that associating the scary images of STDs and the like directly with condoms and contraceptives in general would be more likely to cause people to form a negative opinion of condoms. What you want to do is advertise sex and condoms side-by-side, so that thoughts of sex trigger thoughts of condoms, rather than thoughts of condoms triggering thoughts of STDs and child-support. Positive reinforcement rewarding positive behaviour.
- blt 14y agoThe primary drawback from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure as compared to no condom. Um, pretty sure they decrease pleasure from the female perspective too.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- newsign 14y agoI think RISUG (Vasalgel) is the most promising male contraceptive ... its waiting for FDA appoval and is being used in India for more than a decade, it looks like it will change the world :) , ofcourse we need more data before we can really say RISUG will be effective against HIV transmission ... but nevertheless its very promising amongst all other options ... http://www.gizmag.com/risug-male-contraception/18824/ http://www.gizmag.com/risug-male-contraception/18824/