Condom time!

May 28, 2005 9:04 AM

It is a widely quoted statistic that, with "perfect use", condoms have a 3% failure rate. My question - these 3% of uses that result in pregnancy, is it because the condom breaks, or because of some invisible factory defect? Put another way - if you follow all of the "best practices," and, when you're done, the condom hasn't broken, is it safe to assume that it worked?
posted by afroblanca to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

The chance of pregnancy with no protection is, i believe, 1 in 6. I'm pretty sure the condom figure is for breakage and slippage, so its obvious if something goes wrong. thats all i got :).
posted by Mach5 at 9:30 AM on May 28, 2005

The chance of pregnancy without protection also depends on the woman's age; the likelihood of becoming pregnant goes down with increasing age. Can't comment on the original question.
posted by cahlers at 9:32 AM on May 28, 2005

Best answer:

[T]he term "condom failure" refers to breakage or complete slippage of the device, either of which can result in leakage of bodily fluids. Condom failure may or may not result in pregnancy or disease transmission. Condom failure refers only to what happens to the device, not to the consequences of the failure. [emphasis mine]

Also includes the differences between: nonclinical breakage, clinical breakage, complete breakage rate, complete slippage rate, total clinical failure rate, and total failure rate.
posted by karmaville at 9:33 AM on May 28, 2005

...the likelihood of becoming pregnant goes down with increasing age.

And yet horniness appears to increase. Odd, that.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:41 AM on May 28, 2005

Though I know that this doesn't particularly help answer your question, it should be noted that it's not 3% of the time, it's 3% of all couples that use condoms each and every time that they have sex, as their only form of birth control, over the course of a year.
posted by waldo at 10:02 AM on May 28, 2005

It sounds to me like the real question is: 'I had sex with a condom, it didn't break, and I removed it soon after intercourse, but now I'm worried that somehow, in some invisible way, she might have gotten pregnant anyway. Is that possible?'

The answer to this question is: Yes, but it is so unlikely that if you either need to put it behind you, or look into other forms of birth control.
posted by bingo at 10:18 AM on May 28, 2005

Response by poster: It sounds to me like the real question is: 'I had sex with a condom, it didn't break, and I removed it soon after intercourse, but now I'm worried that somehow, in some invisible way, she might have gotten pregnant anyway. Is that possible?'

This is part of some research for a piece that I'm writing. Thanks to all who are helping find the answer.
posted by afroblanca at 11:22 AM on May 28, 2005

If you have sex with a condom, you're doing it wrong anyway. The condom goes on your thing while you have sex with another person.

the likelihood of becoming pregnant goes down with increasing age. ... And yet horniness appears to increase. Odd, that.

Not really that odd: if your fertility is going down, you've got to have sex more often if you want to end up pregnant. And your genes really, really want you to have children.
posted by kindall at 11:46 AM on May 28, 2005

Well, there's also the argument that humans' generally low fertility rates and high sex drives are an indication that sex is playing some role in addition to simple reproduction. In which case it's possible that as women get older, that other role (pair bonding, say) gets more important.
posted by hattifattener at 1:00 PM on May 28, 2005

Don't anthropomorphize your genes, kindall. They don't like it.

Your tiger pedantry is no match for my dragon pedantry!
posted by grouse at 1:07 PM on May 28, 2005

afroblanca: "It is a widely quoted statistic that, with 'perfect use', condoms have a 3% failure rate."
karmaville quotes a site that says: "[T]he term 'condom failure' refers to breakage or complete slippage of the device"
Looking at another page on that site suggests that the 3% failure rate afroblanca refers to does not correspond to the condom failure term karmaville refers to: "Estimated pregnancy rates during perfect use of condoms is 3 percent at 12 months. (Trussell) The pregnancies that do occur in reported perfect use are due either to condom failure or to inaccurate reports from study participants."
The referenced page doesn't answer your question directly, but deals with similar issues, and does provide references to studies that might.
posted by mistersix at 3:13 PM on May 28, 2005

Wait--I'm supposed to have increased libido as I get older? How in the crap am I going to top 1980, when I was 14 and even trees and passing airplanes caused a reaction?
posted by mecran01 at 6:50 PM on May 28, 2005

I dunno, but I'd love to find out. :-)
posted by five fresh fish at 7:28 PM on May 28, 2005