Page 6
The Behrend Beacon
College males
need education
on condoms
by Ruth Padawer
The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)
If proper condom use were on a final exam,
many college students apparently would flunk the
test.
A study published this month found that an
alarming number of male college students use
condoms incorrectly, raising the risk of exposure
to sexually transmitted diseases and the likelihood
of unintended pregnancy.
Forty-three percent of study participants reported
that in the preceding three months, they had put
on a condom only after sex had begun, 15 percent
said they removed the condom before sex was over,
and 40 percent reported not leaving enough reser
voir space at the condom's tip, among other er
rors. The study was published in the journal Sexu
ally Transmitted Diseases.
"In all, at least half of the men in our survey
made at least one mistake, some more serious than
others," said Richard A. Crosby, an assistant pro
fessor at Emory University's school of public
health. "We saw more errors than even we antici
pated."
The study's results dismayed public health ex
perts, but did not surprise college students.
"All of my friends use condoms, and all talk
about making the same stupid mistakes," said Alex
Conte, 22, a fraternity brother and graduating se
nior at William Paterson University.
"Most of the time, the guy's drunk, he's in the
middle of having sex and only then remembers,
'Oh yeah, I've got to put that on.' When you come
right down to it, sex is a spur of the moment thing
and you don't want to bother with a condom. You
get a girl, and the last thing on your mind is stuff
like remembering to squeeze the tip of the con
dom to leave enough space."
The study involved 158 male, heterosexual, un
married, sexually active condom users enrolled as
undergraduates at Indiana University. Their aver
age age was 20. Crosby speculates that male stu
dents at other universities probably have similar
rates of error, and suggests more research be done.
Another question for further study, he says, is what
sort of sex education the men received in high
school.
Of the men in his study, three in 10 reported
putting on the condom upside down in the preced
ing three months at least once, then flipping it over
and unrolling it properly. The problem is that se
men or germs that touch the condom's outer sur
face will then be introduced into his partner's body.
Sixty percent of the study participants said they
had not discussed condom use with their partners
before sex.
One-third of the men in the study reported los
ing erections from condom use, and nearly one-
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third reported condom breakage or slippage dur-
ing sex
Sex educators worry that the details of proper
use will become even more lost with the rise of
abstinence-only sex education programs. Since
1996, the federal government has committed
nearly half a billion dollars to programs that pro
mote abstinence and avoid mentioning any ben-
efit of contraceptive use.
For their part, abstinence advocates say the
study underscores how uncertain condom use
can be
"Besides, even if people do put it on correctly,
they still can get someone pregnant or pass on
disease," said Richard Panzer, director of Free
Teens USA, an abstinence group in Paterson.
"To hang your faith and entire future on a piece
of wafer-thin latex does not seem wise."
The head of health education at Rutgers Uni
versity, however, believes education needs to
be more detailed, not less. Fern Walter Goodhart
sends peer educators into dorms, sororities, and
fraternities, armed with condoms and anatomi
cally correct models for practicing. The educa
tors even encourage students to practice blind
folded or with the lights out, to be sure they'll
know what they're doing when they're fumbling
in the dark.
"You want them to replicate the skill in the
environment in which it's going to be used,"
Goodhart said. "And you pray that they'll be
sober when they're doing it."
Ever since AIDS gripped the nation, health
experts have called for consistent and correct
condom use. The American public has clearly
heard the first part of that message; condom use
has skyrocketed. But the public health campaign
has not included details on how exactly to use
them.
That knowledge gap accounts for the chasm
between the theoretical efficacy of condoms and
their actual success. When used correctly,
condoms are 98 percent effective in preventing
pregnancy. But, given user errors, the pregnancy
failure rate among typical condom users falls
between 12 percent and 14 percent.
"I rarely run into a teenager who uses
condoms correctly," said Dr. Robert Johnson,
head of the adolescent and young adult divi
sion at the University of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey in Newark. "Just last night, one
youngster in my office told me, 'Oh, I'm safe
because I always put it on just before I (ejacu
late).' By the way, he was there to be treated for
chlamydia. They don't realize you can get some
one pregnant with preejaculate fluid, and that
they can contract or transmit disease by simple
contact."
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