Everywhere I find on the internet says that condoms, when used properly and don’t break, are only 98% effective.
That means if you have sex once a week you’re just as well off as having no protection once a year.
Are 2% of condoms randomly selected to have holes poked in them?
What’s going on?
In: Biology
Birth control effectiveness rates are not “per use”, they’re defined as the percentage of women who do not become pregnant within the first year of using a birth control method.
So the chance of failure per use is actually much much lower than 2%. As for the reason for that percentage, it comes down to what’s defined as perfect use. Breakage, perforation, etc can be sources of error that aren’t factored into perfect use.
But they can break or have flaws. If they said they were 100% effective they would run into a lot of legal issues.
Effectiveness is measured by asking people what prevention they use, then coming back a year later and checking if they got pregnant.
So it can just be one out of a number of condoms during the year.
Also, I suspect it’s hard to make sure they are actually used perfectly. There won’t be three researchers ready to check after the condoms come on.
The 98% figure isn’t “when used correctly”.
It’s:
“Ninety-eight percent of women whose male partners use male condoms correctly in every sex act over one year will be protected from unplanned pregnancy;”
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/condoms
That 2% does come from slips and breakages.
>That means if you have sex once a week you’re just as well off as having no protection once a year.
That’s not how percentages works. It’s not “if it had worked 98 times, the next won’t work”. You’ve got 2% chance of failure every time, not cumulative.
It’s all about statistical chances, man. Like, 98% effective means out of 100 couples using condoms for a year, 2 might end up preggo. It’s not about random holes, but sometimes condoms slip or break, or people don’t use them perfectly every time.
Effectiveness essentially takes the population as a whole and measures how many people got pregnant.
98% effectiveness doesn’t mean you stand a 2% chance of getting pregnant in each use. It just means that 2% of people got pregnant.
That might be due to an imperfection in the product, but also (more likely) incorrect use, use when expired, damage during handling, incorrect reporting, etc.
If you put on a condom, have sex, ejaculate into the condom, check that it’s still on when you pull out, and then check that it has no holes (maybe squeeze it like a water balloon) you can basically be 100% certain *that it worked that time*.
If you check it like that each time, and it hasn’t broken, you will 100% not get pregnant/get anyone pregnant.
(And if you find that it did break, you also have lots of time to get a Morning After Pill so no one gets pregnant.)
Usually people aren’t quite so thorough. Between the one-in-however-many condoms that have a hole, and the people who bang so hard it falls off, and some POS who ‘stealths’, and people who get so horny they say ‘just this once’, eventually some people will get pregnant.
If you market them at 100% effective and someone got pregnant? Oh you would be sued and out of business immediately. But 98% says it’s going to work, but if not, it’s not our fault.
You ever by a brand or product because you like it? For me, it’s converse shoes. Once I wore them, they were my go to shoes. Every once and a while I notice that there might be a small flaw, like the black rubber stripe wears off easily. No big deal it’s a shoe. 98% of the converse I buy are perfect. If it wasn’t a black rubber strip though…
[removed]
Latest Answers