Bill Gates Will Give You $100,000 to Build a Better Condom | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates Will Give You $100,000 to Build a Better Condom

mashable.com

103 pointsmattquiros80 comments

I 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/

Wow, just wow.

The video for the male condom is very illustrative.

Hopefully they will have success with it.

But 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.

Yes, these demos are always like "as seen on TV" stuff, where people always have problems with the competitor's product.

Exactly 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.

Yeah, using a condom that's too small for the girth of the dildo (which looks more rigid than a penis) seems very dishonest.

Appears to pass the 'would I ever want to wear one of these while having a one-some' litmus test.

Those look strange and awesome; I hope they make it to market soon. Given that the thinness wars have not really resulted in a dramatically better condom experience, nor have new materials (polyisoprene condoms are pretty much just like good latex condoms), there definitely needs to be some new thinking.

There was a latex condom that went down this path a decade, or so, ago...the condom was internally lubricated and intended to move around the penis during sex. But, it didn't really succeed; it was just more condom to dislike. That "feels like wearing a plastic bag" sensation was more apparent rather than less. Hopefully, silicone and a novel sex-toy-like design will succeed where a big slippery latex bag failed.

Cool to see they have designs for all three common use-cases (empowering vaginal and anal recipients on the condom decision can be a good thing from a public health perspective; and this is the first anal receptive condom design I've seen), though I suspect they'll be too expensive for those populations most at risk. Hopefully health clinics will be able to provide them.

"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.

In Sweden you get to put a condom on a realistic dildo. I was 12.

Well, 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.

- 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).

Let's not forget that condoms have a failure rate, given perfect use, of 2%.

I've always wondered about how they calculated that.

If they just taught people how to use a condom and then sent them off to their merry romps, and then checked how many of them got pregnant after a few months, then the statistic is highly suspicious - after all, it could just be from misuse (put it on the wrong way, then remembered how to use a condom and put it on the right way) or just omitting to use them (and then lying about it).

In this case, that would mean that the 2% statistic just indicates that 2% of the participants were not capable or willing to use a condom.

If that's not the way they did it - then how did they do it? Because beyond having every participant followed around by a man with a clipboard, I don't see any ways to reduce the chance of misuse or lying...

I would not be surprised is some of the issue was simply continuing after the first orgasm. Ideally, you should dry yourself and then reapply, but I don't think that happens add that much.

it's calculated as percentage of unintended pregnancy during one year of use. http://web.archive.org/web/20080531095926/http://www.contrac...

Yeah, the failure rate is due to misuse, but that still matters.

Alcohol has an extremely low risk of death (overdose), but alcohol misuse (driving, etc) is much mor common, and that is critically important when assessing the risk.

Nope, the 2% is considering 'perfect use'. Now, if that involves lying (I promise! I was using a condom, and perfectly!) I can't know, but I think statistics usually involve some corrections for these cases.

The failure rate for 'typical use' (which always involves too much cases) is 15%. These statistics come from wikipedia [1], but I knew some rough numbers from sexual education at my school and were around that. For casual sex, yes, condom is the way to go (both for birth control and STDs).

That's a big bummer, because that usually means involving hormone birth control methods in stable relationships, and I hate them and the effect that can have on my partner.

I am looking forward to see the advances in male contraception [2]. But I am afraid it will be something for the next generation.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_met...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_...

I've had that particular 'uh-oh' moment on about 3 occasions. Pretty sure it was a major brand, no idea what caused the break, but it seems to be entirely possible.

I've had one break exactly once over many years of use. As far as I can tell, there was nothing special about that time. So less than 2% in my case anyway, but not zero. 2% is low enough though that I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have had zero breaks just due to randomness.

Ideally the solution should work for porn too.

At the moment condoms aren't really any good for sex that spans 3-4 hours, and as porn is such a substantial influencer the solution should use that influence to it's advantage.

Condoms are the norm in US produced gay porn. Durability can't be the issue.

Are there many porns that have 3-4 hour continuous takes? If not, there's nothing stopping them from replacing condoms between shots. I highly doubt most pornos are shot like reality TV.

You forgot that they are a giant mood killer. Anyone who has been in a long term relationship where condoms are the primary source of birth control knows what I'm talking about.

Want to have sex in the shower? Forget that. Want spur of the moment sex anywhere in the house? Not unless you want to carry some condoms with you all the time. etc.

I hate condoms, but I hate the idea of being a father more.

>I care that it fits!

Many men don't maintain a constant level of hardness during sex. The condom fits great while harder, but slips off while softer.

So you are clutching the condom to make sure it stays on. Great usability, right?

Melinda 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_c...

Let'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.

It'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.

Although 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.

This 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.

You're right. But still: The statement in the article was to improve a condom.

My statement is that condoms are perfectly fine, but the psychological aspect is what's "broken". And you won't fix that simply by designing a better condom. The condom itself is what makes it unpleasurable for some men. Or how would you explain that some men lose their erection if they simply try to put a condom on?

I think the STD-reducing liquid you're referring to is a vaccine.

That's one approach. The other would be something like a spermicide but also agains STDs applied locally.

Nope. He's talking more about a sperm-, virus- and bacteria-killer.

Hmm, 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.

That would provide no protection from STI's.

I 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.

You 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.

Ya 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?

> Maybe something in that vein?

Oh, my.

I 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.

This 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?

Putting 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.

I would much rather see Bill Gates offer $100,000 to developing a cheap and easily reversible vasectomy, and disrupt the condom market.

Vasectomy 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_...

Agreed, 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)

Once 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.

I 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.

I think that was a joke

And/or bring DRACO to market: http://www.ll.mit.edu/news/DRACO.html

Some products are being tested. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_vasectomy/1

I 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.

One 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.

That metaphor applies to people who care, there's still a lot of people using incredibly weak passwords.

Do you think not even seeing "that password can be cracked in 5 minutes" won't get them to add a few more characters?

Nope, 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.

It'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.

A lot of sites use 'your password is weak/strong/very strong' indicators, there's still a lot of weak passwords used for them.

They are rather abstract, though. They don't force the user to watch a movie about getting identity thefted.

I 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/

The 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.

In 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-blee...

Not 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-i...

edit: meaning that with gel, maybe the problem is actually a UI problem. :)

Here'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...

perhaps some kind of spray-on film that peels off easy when finished but won't break and is hella flexible.

Not sure how that would be better. Now you'd get condom spray all over the place.

And I think some guys would be reluctant to spray anything directly at it.

Yes this is something you learn not to do by accidental deodorant spray :) ouch!

A big problem with sprays is that they are cold.

Chemistry can create heat.

In 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.

Make it soluble in a complementary gel.

Perhaps this is obvious, but how do you perform "testing" for prototypes?

For 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?

like,,

Better condom - the greatest challange Western Civilization is facing right now.

where did you get that from?

I 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.

Super-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...

Graphene 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.

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