So…what exactly is an electronically tested condom?
Like most guys when buying condoms at the supermarket I don’t really spend a lot of time reading the boxes. Infact this is probably the quickest way to wind up with a tap on the shoulder from security.
It’s a little known fact but the second you enter that condom zone and start perusing someone sitting behind a tv screen hits a timer. If you’re there for more then thirty seconds you know you’re getting carted away for questioning.
As such it’s not until you get home that you get an opportunity to actually examine the contents of the box. I don’t know if it’s just me but there’s always something to do;
‘I have to change my clothes.’
‘I need to check something’
‘wait I have to take my makeup off!’
‘I really need to go to the toilet first’
Meanwhile I’m sitting there figuring I might as well at least open the box and be ready. Then that little booklet falls out and I dunno, I can’t help it – Do this a couple of hundred times and you really start to appreciate the nuance between the different brands and even the same brands themselves as time progresses.
For example Durex use black copy on their booklets whilst Ansell use blue, yet both contain strikingly similar non-race descript ‘figurative illustrations’.
Then there’s the positions… I don’t know if it’s usually the combination of too much alcohol plus the surreal experience of hearing everything going on in the bathroom but they’re kind of amusing. Sort of like a pre-game checklist, or roadmap if you’re really out of it.
A couple of things have always bothered me though. The first is that there’s always a guy and girl in the illustrations. Do gay couples even use the same condoms we do? I mean don’t they feel weird… or do they just get straight down to business with no time to peruse?
I know I’d feel weird seeing two guys going for it just before it was my turn to bat so I imagine the reverse is true. I’m not exactly sure how to bring this up in social situations so if anyone’s got any answers I’m all ears.
The second query relates to the words ‘electronically tested’.
Really?
I mean cmon, we’re talking about condoms here. They’re glorified freaking water balloons…
Eee-lek-tron-ikall-lee tested. Roly raised the qestion today and it triggered an unfulfilled lifelong curiosity that I’d always wondered about, but never bothered to find out the answer to.
When I think electronic testing the first thing that comes to mind is robot sex. Have giant robotic dildos been inside the condom before me? Eww.
And what, did they use a gargantuan black robot or an some weeny asian robot?! This stuff matters!
Why do you think the Japanese are making so much of an effort to get robotic facial expressions right? Robotic vaginas are easy, hiding disappointment in a facial expression is thirty years of research and prototypes alone.
So what exactly is electronic testing?
This person clearly has the most exciting job in the world.
Well it turns out my robotic dildo fear wasn’t that far off. When a condom is electronically tested it’s first placed over a ‘mandrel’ which is a fancy way of saying giant metal dildo.
The condom is then passed through an electric field, the test being that because condoms don’t conduct electricity (thank god, pubic hair friction anyone?), if the mandrel registers any electric current then the condom fails.
Despite the use of electricity, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Infact I was a little disappointed.
Still, this is one of those questions you can’t really ask at a party. I mean jesus christ talk about your ice breakers…
‘so does anyone know what the hell an electronically tested condom is?’
‘…’
‘yeah I’m gunna go now.’
You could always call the 1800 customer assistance numbers these guys always have in the info booklets but do you really want to talk these people?
‘So, what do you do?’
‘I answer questions about condoms all day’
‘No seriously.’
‘really, that’s what I do.’
‘You…you answer condom questions all day. That’s… your job?’
‘Yup.’
‘so uh.. what’s the weirdest call you ever took?’
‘well this one time this guy rang up about a horse wit-’
‘…aaaaand I’m done. Thankyou so much.’
So instead we have to turn to the internet for answers, and now you know what an electronically tested condom is so spread the word. Use it in conversations, write it on birthday cards, hell call up your grandmother and finally deliver that explanation she’s been searching for!
You’re welcome.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:20 am Roly(Quote)
{yor gonna owe me one for this Oz}
Well I went through life much like Oz, hoping, in fact depending, on the hope that “Electronically Tested” actually had some real world meaning (Cynical? Who, me?).
So one day the phone rings and I’m off to see somebody at the Prophilactic Division of a certain well-known Aussie-owed, multi-national, rubber company. And the first thing that was made very clear was that they had all heard ALL of them before; no humor please we’re serious condom makers.
The photo above illustrates the “100%” pin hole conductivity test, the “100%” meaning that every single condom is subjected to this test and has to pass. This mostly relates to the formation stage.
Less well known are the batch tests that are done on a constant, and very high proportion, sampling of production. These relate more to the consistancy of the earier basic rubber formulation stage.
Rubber is unlike plastics, it’s an organic product with it’s seasonal and regional variations like milk, and the mixes have to be constantly tested to find the correct “cooking” time for each batch. This confirmation is followed through the process by sample testing at each stage.
One of these tests is to inflate the condom to a (speaking personally here) quite unreasonable size of about a foot in diameter by two feet long (‘tho that may be magnified by distant memory, but it looked like a weather balloon, which they also make, in black)
The test then seals it off and monitors the internal pressure for some time. Basically it still mustn’t leak at all. I also remember something about the first ultrasonic air-leak detector I had seen at that time.
You can simply confirm this by rolling one out and attaching it securely to a sink spout, turn on the water, and stand back for the fun.
The typical response to working around a food factory is to never again eat the product, but this job reassured me that the people who now make most of the condoms in the world, take the quality of their product very seriously indeed.
Sadly Oz, this is a good news story so it isn’t sensational, if slightly salacious, so it’s basically bad capitalism.
But if you want me to dish the dirt on the crinkle-cut chip (heh, heh).
November 1st, 2009 at 2:31 am Martin(Quote)
Roly…. You’re a worry!!
November 1st, 2009 at 10:42 am Boris(Quote)
I’ve just gone upstairs and rummaged about in the bedside locker. One unopened box of ansell condoms, expiry September 2009. Say’s a lot about the action I’ve been getting recently. I am having lunch at Bondi today with a bunch of about ten friends (mostly female) so maybe tonight’s the lucky night. Should I risk the out of date ones?
November 1st, 2009 at 11:56 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Roly… you know waaaaay too much about condoms for it to be healthy.
Ahh I that must be what this guy is doing:
I came across a few photos like this and was wondering what was going on…
I take it easy on the weekends, take care
.
@Boris
Uh… how do you feel about being a dad?
Nah just kidding go for it. No wait, don’t.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:58 pm Martin(Quote)
Thats him checking Roly’s order …. extreme left
November 11th, 2009 at 1:28 am Roly(Quote)
I’ll just leave this here then.
@Martin
I know. In fact I’ve had to do with so many arcane and ephemeral things is scares me. Let’s just say I haven’t knowing touched a McCain’s product in over three decades and I always look sidways at any crinkle-cut potato chips (e.g. caterers’ packs).
@Boris
a bit late now perhaps, but I’d risk an out of date condom over no condom at all. Finishing dates are normally pretty conservative in that they are supposed to be full-spec at least until that date (one-percentile?). The main thing is they get a bit of a set and won’t roll smoothly (but you get an unintended ribbed effect).
The major cause of failure is not using them right; trying to initially put it on inside out, then turning it over. Using a hostile lube. Re-use.
@Oz
Anyone try putting one on a sink tap yet?
Ah HA! The opening in those cabs is about a metre, so was I wrong, or is two feet about 600mm?
Air regulator control knobs each side, and some electronic whizz-bangery in the little grey box in the middle. (But be clear, this is sample testing in the lab, not on the production line; the ones you buy have not been inflated like this.) Even inflated like this they still must not pinhole.
Look, if you guys think this is suitable for ribaldry, you wait until you see the several sizes of Met balloons they also make, in suggestive black. These are that size *before* they start blowing them up.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:15 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Uh… I hope there aren’t any of these factories in Taiwan. I don’t think the world (who am I kidding, or myself) is ready for little Oz’s just yet.
This is something that’s always bugged me, I mean seriously? After doing the deed are people running to the bathroom to rinse the things off or are they just going nasty flipping them out without washing?
That’s like ten shades of ewwwwwwwww.
In my experience condoms are rather stretched after one use so how are they staying on again for round 2?
Yeah two feet is roughly a meter (thankyou working with fish tanks for too long!). I’m not even going to try putting a condom on a sink tap, knowing my luck someone will walk in or it’ll explode showering the entire bathroom/kitchen with water and then I’ll have to explain.
Question: Has anyone ever seen a black guy in speedos? I know I haven’t.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm Martin(Quote)
Ummmm… Does Ernie Dingoe count??
November 11th, 2009 at 3:27 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Uh… I guess it depends entirely on the context
.
What were you doing that you saw Ernie Dingo running around in speedos??
November 11th, 2009 at 3:44 pm Martin(Quote)
The ‘context’ is whats worrying me…. as in why you asked the question in the first place!
Spent a few days on Hamilton Issland in 1996 and Ernie was on the beach there filming some promo or add. Speedos were in fashion then!
You sure come up with some strange questions!
November 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm Roly(Quote)
@Oz
Rubber band?
That was what I was alluding to, rekindled passion. You’re quite right. They are just like seatbelts in this respect; one good prang and they are stretched and pretty-well useless.
At a real pinch there’s often cling-wrap in the kitchen.
BUT; there actually was a time when chemists sold (by prescription, naturally) certain re-usable rubber “appliances”. These included a couple of types of diaphram in discreet round compact-like cases, and, God help us, *re-usable* condoms with drying stands (we’re talking between the wars here). I gather that a dishglove would be a rough approximation.
A paranoid girlfriend who used a diaphram, pressure-pak foam, AND condoms was as funny as a bag of penguins in bed with all the pre-flight prep. Like the night the can wouldn’t stop, shot the injector across the room, and she ended up looking like a cross between Scott of the Antarctic and Father Christmas. Delfin (yep, same name) is an effective contraceptive alright. I was laughing so hard I fell out of bed.
It takes practice to unclip her bra with one hand, put on a condom with the other, while munching on her ear and whipering sweet nothings; all in the confines of a modern back seat.
{Obviously not an accountant.}
“Dingo’s got my baby!”
1. Clear crap out of laundry tub, and plug.
2. Tie condom to tap (string &c) and turn on.
3. ???????
4. Profit.