The Lorals dental dam shows why it’s so hard to make good safe sex products

The case of dental dams is simple: although many people consider that oral sex is a low risk activity, it can still transmit STIs. But dental dams have never been popular with the general public, and their low sales have hampered product innovation that could make them a more attractive, affordable and generally more attractive safe sex product.

It's not just about whether dental dams are profitable. Inventing a new safe sex device is expensive. All safe sex devices are required to have FDA approval, a process that is not cheap. While traditional dental dams already have the nod, anyone looking for a renewal, such as Lorals, a black latex panty called "lingerie for oral sex", end up spending about $ 100,000 just to confirm that your product is as effective in preventing the transmission of STIs as all other latex safe sex devices.

Dental barriers exist because it is easy to transmit some STIs, such as herpes and gonorrhea, from one partner's mouth to the vulva of another; they are equally at home in any set of mucous membranes. They are also used for analingus, which has its own set of risks, including exposure to pathogens that are not normally associated with sex, such as giardia and hepatitis A. And that's why the FDA is involved: so the Manufacturers of these products show that they work.

But for the creator of Lorals, Melanie Cristol, that expensive production process has created some headaches. Cristol was inspired to create Lorals out of a personal need. Using a prey, she tells me, she may feel "insulting," pointing out that she may feel uncomfortable, uncomfortable and downright soulish to use what she thinks of as "this thin little sheet."

Cristol wants people to feel as sexy as they feel safe, but because he is still raising funds to secure FDA approval, he still can not make health claims about his product. Instead, the product is presented as a way for women who feel uncomfortable with their vulvas to relax in oral sex. Although Cristol hopes that this strategy will help Lorals become popular enough to pay for the FDA approval process, it is an uncomfortable strategy that undermines Cristol's positive mission.

Why does not anyone consider it worth the investment? [19659008] But even if the FDA process is prohibitively expensive for independent innovators like Cristol, why do big companies like Church & Dwight or Glyde Health – which make the leading brands in dental dams – invest some of their budgets? R & D to make oral sex safer? Do you feel sexier? If a sexier dam could really transform the way we think about safer oral sex, why has not anyone considered it worth the investment?

Dental dams could benefit from a makeover. Dental dams actually started as surgical tools and were reused to have safe sex. But the lack of exclusivity is probably not the main reason for its failure to launch. When people consider safe sex a priority, their inherent sensuality follows. Condoms have also been plagued with a reputation for killing mood, but when the alternative was potentially to contract HIV, people found a way to make condoms feel sexy. According to Julia Bennett, director of learning and education strategy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, people who use barrier methods "rate their sexual experiences as pleasurable as those that do not."

Trusting consumer interest, rather than safer sex education, to provoke a revolution in dental dams is a dubious strategy. Coyote Amrich, purchasing director at the San Francisco sex shop Good Vibrations says that although the store has carried out creative acquisitions on the dental dam in the past (including a latex pantyhose, something like Lorals), the products never they seem to generate enough sales to remain in the market for a long time These low sales further depress the interest in R & D of dental dams: why spend time and money to improve a product that few people want to buy?

But if the sexiest prisoners are not the solution, what is it? The use of dental dams is relatively high among homosexual women and their sexual partners. But it is not because this population has access to some kind of special and sexy prey. Instead, it is a greater awareness of the dams and a sense of social responsibility that seem to drive the higher rate of use of the dam.

Many gay and transgender people who use dental barriers do so because safer oral sex is "something you do to show that you care about your partners", Even if you know that the risk of STIs is low, says Chris Barcelos, assistant professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who investigates safer sex practices. Barcelos' research suggests that dental dams are not more popular among homosexual people because oral sex carries more risk to them than to heterosexual people. They are more popular because the queer community gives higher priority to oral sex more safely than the normal and direct world.

No matter how fantastic the improvement that Lorals may have in the traditional dental dam, a better dam on its own will not cause a safer oral sexual revolution. Until we start worrying about safer oral sex, dental dams will always be a marginal product. No matter how much the R & D companies do to make the product feel more attractive, it will not become popular until most of us really consider it necessary.

When it comes to public health, what we want does not always align with what we need. This is how you end up with the Lorals advertising campaign, which embarrasses women for their natural scent instead of promoting a product that could really make sex safer.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply