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Condom Bias and Stigma
 While
condom use is generally considered the best option available for STI/HIV
prevention, providers and clients alike may have biases against the condom
that need to be addressed. Rumors, myths, and misconceptions about condoms
are common. For example, common myths and biases include:
- Condom use is associated
with stigmatized behaviors, such as infidelity or sex work.
- Condoms are primarily for
certain groups of people, such as people with STIs, sex workers and
their clients, men in the military, or adolescents.
- Condoms break readily,
and HIV can pass through a latex condom.
- Suggesting condom use to
a partner implies that a person is unfaithful or accuses the partner
of being unfaithful.
In addition, some condom features
make condoms unappealing to some people. These feelings about condoms
can often be overcome through education and counseling. They include,
for example:
- Condoms ruin the spontaneity
of sex.
- Condoms cause a loss of
sensation.
- Condoms require additional
lubrication.
- Condoms have an unpleasant
odor.
Provider bias
Providers themselves may have
the same biases, as listed above, as communities in general, and may find
condoms unappealing on a personal level; therefore, they may hesitate
to actively and positively promote condom use. Furthermore, family planning
providers in particular may have professional biases against condoms due
to long-standing perceptions in the family planning field of condoms and
other barrier methods as less effective forms of family planning than
other methods. In fact, condoms, when used consistently and correctly,
can be as effective or more effective than many other methods. Other biases
that providers may have include:
- Providers may not trust
clients to be responsible enough to use condoms consistently and correctly.
- Providers may consider
condoms a serious option as an STI prevention method but not as a family
planning method.
- Providers may consider
condoms as a backup method if, for example, a woman forgets to take
her pills or needs to use another method temporarily until a longer-term
method can take effect.
- Providers may assume that
clients do not want condoms or will be offended if they bring them up
as an option.
It is, therefore, important
to increase provider acceptance and comfort with condoms in order to promote
their use effectively with clients.
Condom Promotion and Dual Protection
Effective condom promotion
means that providers:
- Ensure an adequate supply
of condoms
- Discuss condoms within
the context of family planning and reproductive health
- Conduct condom demonstrations
using penis models and have clients practice on the models themselves
- Address client strategies
for communication about condom use with partners, including, for example,
role plays with clients about how they might talk to partners
- Make efforts to destigmatize
condoms by emphasizing their fun and erotic possibilities, as well as
their benefits for pregnancy prevention
Promotion of dual protection
can help to address multiple concerns of clients and destigmatize condoms
by legitimizing condom use as a valid method of family planning. Dual
protection is the prevention of both STIs/HIV and pregnancy through:
- Use of condoms alone for
both purposes
- Use of condoms plus another
family planning method or emergency contraception (dual-method
use)
- Avoiding penetrative sex
and other risky sexual activity for prevention of both pregnancy and
STIs/HIV
© 2007 EngenderHealth
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