The Brave New World of Condoms

“It’s like having sex with a glove on,” he says.

But you are so not ready for a pregnancy scare, not to mention the hassle of the shots and meds that go along with STDs. So glove sex with a condom it is.

Good news! The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a grant to the delightfully named University of Wollongong in Australia to develop a condom that feels like—well, not wearing a condom. It’s almost enough to make this writer give up her Mac!

Unclear when the new condom will be on the market, but the university has made some great strides (strokes?) in using hydrogels, the substance found in contact lenses and food products. The new condom seems to shrink-wrap the penis rather than forcing it to fit into a pre-determined size (and doesn’t every guy buy “large”?). 

Hydrogels feel more like human skin according to the university’s media material, and are transparent, so no more funky blue condoms that match no one’s skin tone. In addition, the university says hydrogels can respond to “external stimulations” to change volume—up to 1000 times their original size. Yeah, you wish.