There are now colored male condoms available in the market. They come in red, green, rainbow colors, neon colors and even glow in the dark colors. Colored condoms are said to make sex more passionate. This is because they give a “twist” or an already ordinary method of contraception and STD prevention.

Condoms also come in different scents and flavors. There are strawberry, banana, apple scented condoms. There are even mint flavored and chocolate flavored condoms. Scented and flavored condoms are usually used in oral sex to prevent transmission of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS through from sexual fluids to the mouth.

Although they are very elastic, condoms come in different sizes to perfectly fit the penis. There are certain races whose men have generally bigger penis sizes than men in other races. So sometimes, the phrase “one size fits all” is actually geographically dependent.

Condom manufacturers have also come up with different condom designs. In addition to colored and scented colors, they have developed ribbed, dotted, and even studded condoms available for one’s own preference.

Condoms prevent unwanted pregnancy and protect a person from sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS and syphilis. To ensure the safety and quality of condoms, they are tried and tested before they are made available in a country. Testing for condom quality vary according to the safety requirements implemented by a specific country. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is responsible for the testing of condoms.

The use of condoms is a part of sex education delivered to teenagers and students. Organizers of sex education courses are mostly medical associations, parent groups, teachers, and public health agencies. In the United States, all students receive sex education in the fifth to seventh grades.

There are two forms of sex education – comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive sex education recognize that sex in during puberty is an already common practice and turn to educating young people about safe sex to prevent early pregnancy and HIV/AIDS infection. Abstinence-only sex education, on the other hand, argues that the only way to prevent early pregnancy and HIV/AIDS infection is to teach moral behavior.

Condoms can also prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS during oral and anal sexual intercourse by preventing sexual fluids from coming in direct contact with a sexual partner’s body parts.

Teenage pregnancy rate is now at its peak with approximately one million teens becoming pregnant in the United States alone. Condoms help in the prevention of teenage pregnancy. Older married couples use condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancy and to follow an agreed-upon family plan.

The use of condoms has proven effective in the above-mentioned uses. Studies show that roughly thirteen out of one hundred women still become pregnant even if her partner regularly and correctly uses a condom.

There are hardly any dangers to using condoms although there have been reported cases of both men and women becoming allergic to the rubber from which condoms are made, and of irritations from lubricant treatment.

Not only are condoms effective in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, they are also easily available and they come cheap. Anyone can buy a condom at a drug store or a clinic for about a couple of dollars. Some clinics even provide free condoms. They are over the counter and no medical certificates or prescriptions are needed.

In addition, condoms come in many sizes. Since condoms are made of very elastic rubber, they would just stretch to perfectly fit to any man’s penis. There are also many brands available, each with its own twist to the condom.

Before purchasing a condom, make sure to check the expiration date first. Also, keep condoms properly stored because constant exposure to heat and light can damage the condom.

Male condoms are made from thin, elastic latex rubber. It is worn over a man’s penis during intercourse. It is open at one end and closed at the other to block a man’s semen from entering the reproductive organ of his partner. The closed end is called a “teat” where a man’s semen is collected after ejaculation.

Male Condoms

The female condom is made of thin polyurethane plastic. Like the male condom, the female condom is closed at one end and open at the other. To use female condoms, it must be put inside the vagina, behind the pelvic bone. The open end of the female condom is placed just outside the vagina. Flexible rings at both ends keep the female condom in place.

Female Condoms

Male condoms have already proven to be effective. They are available in drug stores, local family clinics, and even convenience stores. They also come cheap, costing about two dollars each.

Female condoms, on the other hand, are a lot less commonly used. This is because the use of female condoms has not yet proved to be effective as male condoms. Also, there are currently very few female condom brands but more female condoms will debut in the market soon.

Discovered evidences show that Egyptians have been using condoms for contraception or ritual purposes since 150 AD. In the 1500s, a published description of a condom was found in Italy. Soaking cloth in a certain chemical solution and drying the cloth before use have proven to be effective against syphilis.

In 1855, Charles Goodyear produced the first condom made from rubber. These rather thick devices were reusable but expensive. It was only 1912 that thinner condoms were developed in Germany.

The male condom is worn around the penis while the penis is in its excited state, meaning it is erect. It comes rolled in a small flat package. Before putting it on, a small space at tip of the condom must left to allow space to collect semen. After ejaculation, the penis must be pulled out the vagina before it softens to prevent semen from accidentally entering the vagina. A used condom must be properly disposed of after intercourse and must be used once only.

A person, male of female, may develop allergies to latex, the material from which condoms are made. The penis or the vagina may also get irritated from lubricants used in some condoms.

The most common type of treatment for AIDS is HAART or highly active antiretroviral therapy. This treatment combines at least three antiretroviral drugs to be taken everyday for the rest of an infected person’s life. This combination therapy is applied because HIV can develop immunity from a specific antiretroviral drug when it replicates. HAART, however, has not proved to be an effective treatment for AIDS, curing about less than fifty percent of all reported courses of treatment. The side effects of HAART are insulin resistance, birth defects, an increased risk in cardiovascular, among others.

Combination therapy is rather expensive and the drugs used for this treatment are not easily available, especially to infected people from third-world countries. These people usually receive treatment from diseases caused by a weakened immune system. Success in the treatment of these diseases is only temporary.

AIDS Buddy

Ideally, a vaccine will completely wipe out HIV and AIDS because not only is it preventive, but it is also cheap. A number of medical associations such as Heinrich Pette Institute of Experimental Virology and Immunology at Hamburg and Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden have been showing promise, but a vaccine is yet to be developed.

One of the earliest reported cases of AIDS was of a 15-year-old African American boy, known as Robert R, who was thought to be a prostitute. He died in 1959 and it was confirmed in 1987 that AIDS was the cause of death.

Today, social and peer pressure have pushed and even encouraged teenagers and young adults to have sex. The risks of teenage sex include early pregnancy, cervical dysplasia which is manifested by the development of abnormal cells in the cervix and is known to develop into cervical cancer, and sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS being the most alarming.

The lack of knowledge about HIV and AIDS and contraceptives has resulted in a rapidly increasing number of HIV and AIDS-infected teenagers.

In the United States, the average age of consent is sixteen. The age of consent is simply the age in which you are allowed to have sex, no matter what the case may be. This law is hardly well-implemented and is highly disregarded.

Reported cases of drug abuse in teenagers are also rapidly increasing, therefore making teenagers more susceptible to acquiring HIV through sexual intercourse and drug use.
Teenagers are confined to the idea that having and using drugs are cool so they resort to these rather irresponsible ways. Teenagers should receive sex education and must be oriented with preventive measures for HIV and AIDS infection.

AIDS Buddy

The following year, GRID was officially renamed as AIDS or Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome. Syndrome was appropriately used for the infection did not present itself in a single illness but in rather varied clinical and life-threatening diseases.

The earliest reported case of AIDS was of an English printer who suffered from a number of symptoms namely shortness of breath, skin lesions, weight loss, and high fever in the early 1950s. The printer died in 1959 and a sample of his tissue was preserved. Thirty years later, a test was performed and the tissues turned out positive for HIV. The same symptoms presented in a Haitian clerk who died within the same year.

• It was reported that roughly 450,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV, 77% of which are men.

• About 47% of all reported infections were acquired through male-to-male sex.

• Females comprise about 19% of all reported cases which already advanced to AIDS.

• 93% of the 10,000 children under 13 were infected through pregnancy transmission. Around the world, there are currently about 32 million people living with AIDS.

AIDS Buddy

Here is the recent report of the surveys conducted across the world.The map shows the density of AIDS patients across the world.

• HIV is most commonly transmitted through direct contact with or entrance into a person’s bloodstream. The two most reported cases of HIV transmission are having sexual intercourse with HIV-infected partners and injecting infected needles used by an HIV-infected person.

• During sex, HIV is transmitted through men’s and women’s sexual fluids. Men can transmit HIV in both pre-ejaculation and ejaculation stages. Women transmit HIV through the fluids secreted from her vagina during sex. Having cuts or open wounds inside or close to the vagina increases the risk of getting HIV.

• Sexual fluids can enter the bloodstream through oral sex. When oral sex is performed on an infected man, his sexual fluids can enter the bloodstream through bleeding gums and ulcers of the mouth.

• There is also a greater risk of getting HIV through anal sex because the lining of the anus is easily scratched and bruised therefore making sexual fluids to be easily passed on.

• Infected needles and syringes used as drug paraphernalia come in direct contact with a person’s bloodstream, making it the second most common form of HIV transmission.

• HIV is also transmitted from a mother to her baby during pregnancy. There have been small traces of HIV found in the saliva of infected persons but it has not yet been considered as a possible way of transmission.

AIDS Buddy

Use Condoms, Prevent AIDS

Found to infect and grow in mature T-helper lymphocytes, specifically the CD4+ T cells, HIV spreads from cell to cell by replication while killing all infected cells and rendering other cells that recognize infected cells useless. The process in which the virus is spread among cells develops the virus’s immunity from antibodies.

AIDS is the most advanced infection of HIV and stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. The term “syndrome” is appropriately used for AIDS because it does not present in a single illness but rather in varied clinical and life-threatening diseases.

HIV can remain silent and inactive for years and then replicate once again, therefore taking long periods for HIV to progress into AIDS. Recent developments in medical research produced certain drugs that prolong and slow down the process.

Early studies on AIDS found that only heterosexual men were infected. Thus, AIDS was, for a short time, called as GRID or gay-related immunodeficiency diseases. Months later, it was found that drug users and blood transfusion receivers were infected and presented the same symptoms and immunodeficiency cases.

HIV infection is now considered pandemic, killing about twenty-five million since its discovery in early 1980s. HIV is transmitted through exposure to infected blood transfusions, semen and cervical secretions, and breast milk. An HIV positive mother can also transmit the virus to her baby.

HIV Positive women fighting for the cause.