Abstract
Objective
Previous survey research indicates that women and men experience reduced sexual pleasure
when using condoms, especially compared to nonbarrier family planning methods. This
study seeks to explore those experiences of reduced pleasure in-depth and how they
affect contraceptive method decisions and use.
Study Design
In-depth interviews with 30 men and 30 women between the ages of 18 and 36 years in
the United States about their contraceptive decisions and use were analyzed.
Results
Both men and women complained about the way that condoms interfered with their sexual
pleasure. Several women (and no men) complained that condoms actually hurt them, and
the majority of couples had at least one member who reported disliking condoms. For
hormonal methods and intrauterine devices, general side effects were usually one of
the most important reasons that women continued or discontinued methods, but few sexual
side effects were reported.
Conclusions
Interfering with sexual pleasure appears to be the most important reason that both
men and women do not use condoms, and public health practitioners should recognize
the limitations of condoms as a contraceptive technology. Despite problems with general
side effects, most women (and men) prefer hormonal methods to condoms.
Implications
This study provides in-depth descriptions showing that young adult men and women in the United States use condoms less because condoms interfere with their
sexual pleasure. Although women often say they experience general negative side effects
from hormonal birth control, they usually perceive few sexual side effects from hormonal
birth control. Since young heterosexual adults usually perceive themselves to be at
much greater risk for pregnancy than sexually transmitted infections, they mostly
perceive hormonal birth control to be a greatly superior contraceptive option compared
to condoms.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 02, 2013
Accepted:
November 15,
2013
Received in revised form:
November 13,
2013
Received:
May 17,
2013
Footnotes
☆This study received no funding from external sources.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
