You tend to hear a lot of things about how condoms are porus and let through sperm, STD's, and HIV in the USA.

Condoms DO help prevent pregnancies, STD's, and HIV. How do we know they prevent HIV? Why, because sometimes a person gets HIV and their partner doesn't. If they use condoms EVERY TIME they have sexual contact then their partner doesn't get HIV the way that unprotected partners do. Same for pregnancy and same for STD's.

The stuff on the 'HIV is smaller than holes in latex' nonsense was based on the average size hole in a LATEX GLOVE. Latex gloves are NOT manufacturered to the standard that condoms are. In particular they are coated ONCE in latex whereas condoms are coated TWICE.

WATER AND AIR are bigger molecules than HIV. Some condoms from EVERY BATCH are tested to check they pop from being filled with air, and that they don't leak when filled with water. They are tested with a laser too, to see if a beam of light can pass through porous holes. I assure you that this kind of testing doesn't happen to quality control latex gloves.

HIV is mostly not a free riding virus anyway. That means that mostly people get HIV when they have contact with sperm or blood or whatever. Those molecules are EVEN BIGGER than HIV molecules so it is EVEN LESS LIKELY that HIV is going to be better through holes that don't let either water, air, or light through them.

> alexandra - then my high school health teacher was lying to me.

Not necessarily. She might have very genuinely believed it. Places where teachers say this to their students... Well... Rates of STD's soar.

How come? Because if people have unprotected sex and get HIV then that is pretty sucky, huh. All because of a confusion with latex gloves and latex in condoms.

NOTE: NOt all condoms are created equally. But since we are in developed countries the quality of ours are fine.

> im not going to use condoms. this isnt about convincing me to use them because we just dont like them. period.

Okay. So long as you know that they ARE effective in preventing STD's, pregnancy, HIV. A lot of people 'just don't like them'. But then... How would one feel about having an STD, getting pregnant, or getting HIV.. I don't expect I'd like that much either..