Few perishable items have had as unlikely a second act as the humble condom. For decades, it lurked in the shadows with girlie magazines, aphrodisiac powders, and oddball sex devices. Then in the 1980s, AIDS hit and condoms suddenly entered the fast lane. In 1987 alone, right after Surgeon General C. Everett Koop started the pitch for condom use, sales rose 20 percent nationwide and have increased steadily ever since. The key to our HIV global control strategy rests not on vaccines, pills, or saltpeter but rather on the surprisingly broad shoulders of our old friend the rubber.
Indeed, so central is its perceived public health role that recently a serious debate has emerged in California over whether to dispatch the condom into a previously latex-free zone: hard-core pornography. Twenty-two cases of HIV in porn actors have been discovered in the last six years; that, plus a high-profile, though limited outbreak in 2004, piqued such concern that California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a branch of the Department of Labor, is now formally hearing a request from an AIDS advocacy group to require porn actors to suit up before copulating. The concern is that the absence of condoms places porn workers at undo risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The activists propose government-mandated protection (e.g., condoms) just as safety regulations were enacted in previous generations for those workers stationed at assembly lines or picking grapes.
via The case for bringing condoms to adult films. – By Kent Sepkowitz – Slate Magazine.
![long pleasure condoms ad 18930 1238973893 10 Clever Condoms Ad [PIC]](http://mrpinup.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/long-pleasure-condoms-ad-18930-1238973893-10.jpg "Hansalast long pleasure condoms ad")
Hansaplast long pleasure condoms ad
Business Buzz
Hansaplast’s new long pleasure condom ads are pretty clever. I get it.
via Clever Condoms Ad [PIC].
- WASHINGTON – DECEMBER 01: Demonstrator Elizabeth Seidman of the Student Global AIDS Campaign wears a condom attached to her earring while demanding needle exchange programs
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
BARCELONA — Spanish all-male production house Jalifstudio has launched a safer sex campaign in conjunction with Stop SIDA, a local nonprofit with a focus on HIV/AIDS prevention.
The yearlong campaign will include a safer sex kit to be packaged with all Jalifstudio DVDs that includes a condom and lubricant, as well as a brochure printed with relevant details regarding the prevention of HIV and AIDS.
In addition, “the Stop SIDA logo will appear on the cover of every DVD and a safer sex public service video will appear before every Jalifstudio feature,” the company said.
via Jalifstudio Launches Safer Sex Campaign – XBIZ.com.
You’ll remember a while back I tested out LifeStyles’ SKYN (non-latex) condoms, and really liked them. Good times. Yesterday I got a press release about their new video campaign — and the video for SKYN condoms makes me want to do a test bunny re-enactment, and more. It’s red-hot, packed with sex, and you can bet it won’t ever be on YouTube. You can see it full-res and clear at the Flash-drenched SKYN page, or in this less-Flash-heavy Fleshbot post.
via violet blue ® :: open source sex | LifeStyles SKYN: the *hot* safer sex video.
This weekend saw not one but two stories on woman-centered sex clubs, one focused on the meditative achievement of the female orgasm and the other on wearing cat ears and boning on leather beds.
One Taste, profiled by Patricia Leigh Brown and Carol Pogash in the New York Times, is a San Francisco residential center where 38 men and women learn to create “the orgasm that exists between them.” They do this through what they call “morning practice,” a 7 a.m. ritual in which couples gather in a room, the women strip to the waist, and the men “stroke” them until they orgasm. The couples don’t have to be dating — they call each other “research partners.” Participants call the practice “orgasmic meditation,” and say it’s more about “the ‘hydration’ of the self” than about sex. The bulk of the article, though, actually discusses whether or not founder Nicole Daedone has a Svengali-like hold on her students.
Killing Kittens, covered by Charlotte Hunt-Grubbe in the Times of London, sounds a little racier. This London sex club is also female-focused — a man can’t get in without a woman. But the women in attendance have to be “conventionally good-looking” and one in three applicants is turned away. Once they’re admitted, they can attend the club’s high-class parties, frequently held at members’ homes, where they can drink champagne, have sex with their partners or with new men or women, or just watch activities like an amateur porn director “buffing his bits” against porn stars in the shower. Drugs and cameras are strictly forbidden, but Hunt-Grubbe and a friend found both on their respective visits. And although condoms are provided, the screening process checks for hotness but not for STDs. Founder Emma Sayle says Killing Kittens is “about women – not alpha females who storm up to men – but feminine and sensual ones who can go and dance around in their underwear and drink with no pressure and no expectations, just free to feel sexy and have fun.”
via Sex And The Cities: A Tale Of Two Sex Clubs.
Lena Chan sounds in on her past, present and future as a racy sex blogger.
by College Candy
Lena is the author of SexandtheIvy.com, a blog about sex and dating at Harvard University. She started blogging back in 2006, sparking immediate controversy on campus and off. Lena received lots of attention for her saucy ways and has since been featured as a commentator on college sexuality in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, Salon, and Playboy Radio. She currently blogs at TheChicktionary.com.
Harvard’s Sex Blogger On Sex And The Spotlight – YourTango.
NEW YORK Reuters Health – Many teenagers and young adults may make overly optimistic estimates of how often they use a condom during sex, a new study finds.
Researchers found that among 715 young African-American women, many of those who said they’d consistently used a condom over the past two weeks had objective evidence that this was not the case. One-third had evidence of sperm DNA in samples of their vaginal fluid.
The findings have implications for young people’s sexual health, as well as studies on the matter, researchers say.
Young people overestimate condom use: study | Lifescript.com.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (UPI) — Teens who don’t use condoms are more likely to believe condoms reduce sexual pleasure and are concerned about partner condom approval, U.S. researchers said.
Researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center in Providence, R.I., and three other institutions surveyed more than 1,400 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 21 who had unprotected sex in the previous 90 days.
Study participants in Atlanta, Miami and Providence completed an audio computer-assisted interview to gather information about sexual risk behaviors including condom use within the previous 90 days. The survey participants included 797 females and 613 males, approximately half were African-American, 24 percent were Hispanic and 19 percent were white.
Nearly two-thirds of adolescents did not use a condom the last time they had sex. Participants also reported an average of two partners and about 15 incidents of unprotected sexual activity within the 90-day period.
“It’s clear that we have to address these attitudes, fears and concerns that many teens have regarding condom use, if we want to reduce their risk for contracting a sexually transmitted infection,” lead author Dr. Larry K. Brown of the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center.
The findings appear in the September/October issue of Public Health Reports.
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