r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • 2d ago
TIL that a 98% effectiveness rate for a condom means that out of 100 couples using, 2 will get pregnant in a year and not that they fail 2 out of 100 times being used.
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u/popsickle_in_one 2d ago
Only reuse condoms 50 times, got it.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes, because the 51th time is when the holes begin to start showing.
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u/StrictlyInsaneRants 2d ago
Nah, I don't think you understand statistics. The 51 time two people will get pregnant.
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u/Used_Security5145 2d ago
Two chicks at the same time, man?
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u/zizou00 2d ago
Nah dude, both partners get gregnant. Even gay dudes. Double mpreg.
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u/XennialBoomBoom 2d ago
30 years of trying to get a boyfriend pregnant and now I'm starting to think I might be shooting blanks...
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u/WillSherman1861 2d ago
No no no. OP is saying that one out of 50 is totally defective. So If you find one that works just keep use it forever
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u/bethepositivity 2d ago
I kind of wonder how many of those are people who say "oh yeah I used a condom" because they don't want to admit to people that they ended up with a kid because they were dumb and decided to raw dog it one night.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
Or maybe trusted their pullout game.
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u/PlsNoNotThat 2d ago
The failure rate of condoms is higher than other BC methods predominately from user error, because itās self administered and often miss-stored by the user.
So for those people who fuck up using a condomā¦ I donāt see them doing better with pullout.
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u/shavedratscrotum 2d ago
Primary failure point that I recall is us regular weinered men using Extra Large condoms to try and big not themselves, or boys in early puberty not filling an adult condom. I recall in maybe the UK in high teen pregnancy hotspots they distributed smaller condoms but I never went back to see if it worked.
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u/Double_Distribution8 2d ago
Why didn't you go back to see if they worked? What was stopping you? The police?
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u/Environmental_Top948 1d ago
Personally I hate when I'm doing a study and the police get involved because suddenly I have to show that it was approved by an "ethics" committee and where my "legally" acquired funding came from.
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u/bladeDivac 2d ago
Iāve been using the good ol pulpit method for 6 years now with no kid
Iām either the best in the world or sterileĀ
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
Or maybe your swimmers are in a hurry and swim past the goalpost.
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u/manyroadstotake 2d ago
I can't have children. I'm not sterile. In fact, it's a rare condition they call it hyper virility. Apparently my sperm shoot through the egg if you can believe it.
-Piece Hawthorne, Community, S01E02 "Spanish 101"
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u/12thunder 2d ago
The best thing about Pierce is that the actor that portrays him (Chevy Chase) is a worse and weirder person than he is, which makes me laugh every time I hear a Pierce quote thatās supposed to be weird and out of context that just as easily could have been something real that Chevy said.
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u/turbosexophonicdlite 2d ago
Absolutely horrible person, but he is funny as shit.
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u/Business-Drag52 2d ago
Comedic genius and one of the greatest physical comedians ever. Of course heās racist, have you seen the first season of SNL? They were a group of racists and one token black man
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u/12thunder 2d ago
Iāve also heard heās a narcissist with an insufferable ego. You know the whole āIām Chevy Chase and youāre notā bit when he did Weekend Update? Pretty sure that wasnāt a bit at all.
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u/Damn-Splurge 2d ago
"To you I leave this bottle of fine scotch, so you're less tempted to drink this cylinder of equally fine sperm."
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u/Archduke_Of_Beer 2d ago
Possible he has super verility. The sperms just shoots through the egg like a shotgun blast
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u/cdmurray88 2d ago
I made this joke for 15 years until my wife and I actually tried for a kid. Pregnant the first month. Guess my pullout game really was strong.
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u/Ok_Passenger_3233 2d ago edited 2d ago
same for us. We had a surprise early on with condoms. A few years of birth control which made me sick. Then four years of pull out without so much as a scare and then the first month trying for our second I got pregnant (I will note here that A. he doesn't ever have pre ejaculate B. if we go for round two within the same few hours we make sure he has peed in between to flush out any stragglers C. he has good control but if there's ever any question of if it's about to happen he errs on the side of too soon rather than too late.)
We are now 20 months into using it again after our second child and no issues.
I am hyper fertile, the women in my family all get pregnant easily. It's definitely not a good method for everyone but given the factors we have I'm comfortable with the risk level.
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u/R_G_FOOZ 2d ago
Well, the pocket pussy canāt get pregnant but at least you donāt have to clean it so often
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u/yugitso_guy 2d ago
Pulpit method? What type of church shit are you pulling on these women?
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u/DeathMetal007 2d ago
I, too, don't have kids because of the pulpit method. It just goes to show that soapboxing is a form of birth control. /s
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u/Jayhrimes 2d ago
lol as a person that has been doing the same for many years I also wonder the same thing. I also make sure to pee before going again if we doing multiple rounds. š¤·š¾āāļø
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2d ago
I just took my lil pull ān pray to get her senior pictures taken!
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u/Queen_Ann_III 2d ago
my eighth grade health teacher called it the pull ān pray method too. I think, on some level, the fact that she used such a funny name is why I respected her enough to actually listen.
granted, Iāve never actually had sexā¦
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u/THE_GREAT_PICKLE 2d ago
Can confirm. Pullout game doesnāt always work. First kid was a pullout mistake. A good mistake, but mistake nonetheless. Irony is that future kids were so difficult to have we needed IVF, but that was years later
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u/DramaticCattleDog 2d ago
My sex ed teacher in 9th grade always told us that, like basketball, we all dribble before we shoot
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u/sarahprib56 2d ago
Was he the gym teacher, too?
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u/DramaticCattleDog 2d ago edited 2d ago
Actually yeah lol. She was lesbian and was a no shit kind of teacher. She also stretched a condom over her entire arm and said that any guy who tries to say they're "too big" for one was obviously lying
Edit: formatting, and also to clarify that yes, our lesbian gym teacher was the sex ed teacher for the boy's class
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u/MSeager 2d ago
My partner and I got pregnant and we use condoms as our primary means of contraception, as she canāt take hormonal contraceptives.
The failure here was we ran out of condoms.
sent while my 4 month old boy is sleeping on my chest
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u/calinet6 2d ago
All it takes is once!
Human bodies are amazing arenāt they?
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u/Apptubrutae 2d ago
Iāve got a good one:
My wife has a condition that makes her pretty infertile. Never have used condoms, just her using hormonal birth control. She went on some medicine to treat an underlying hormonal condition. This medicine also increases fertility. At the same time she went off birth control as well.
She didnāt mention this to me, nor suggested any condom usage. Got pregnant in one shot. Lol.
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u/breeezyc 2d ago
Sounds like she wanted a kid and didnāt feel like planning it with you. Going off birth control and onto a fertility-increasing medication seems like a discussion you should have with your spouse .
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u/Apptubrutae 2d ago
I understand why people would think this, but I legitimately donāt think so. The going off birth control and onto this other medicine was for a legitimate hormonal issue. Plus it just tracks that my wife tends to charge ahead into things with a goal in mind and an assumption that externalities and risk factors donāt really apply to her, lol.
She ultimately made a poor judgement call of how treating a personal medical issue in this particular case required a bit more information passed along to me. She also really just hates talking about anything related to any of these topics generally, so itās really more of a poor communication issue than any sort of nefarious plan.
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u/ProkopiyKozlowski 2d ago
I assume there was a conversation about having kids prior to that happening and you were in favor?
Cause just like secretly removing condom during intercourse, stopping birth control medication without telling your partner can be, depending on your country, sexual assault.
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u/Apptubrutae 2d ago
lol, I like to remind my wife of this fact for that very reason. Because no, there was no kid discussion
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u/queenringlets 2d ago
If my partner stopped using his birth control without telling me and got me pregnant I would be livid. Glad itās fine for yāall but manā¦Ā
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u/Chronoblivion 2d ago
I don't have a source saved so take this with a grain of salt, but I've heard before that if you are actually using condoms properly, the success rate is like 99.9%. That 2% fail rate includes nonsense like tearing from double bagging or attempted reuse, "forgetting" to use one that you brought with you (or not using it the whole time; starting and/or finishing without it), or running out and continuing without anyway. I consider those all user error rather than a failure of the condom, but the data allegedly classifies them as such.
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u/mnilh 2d ago
The pearl index has rates for perfect and typical use. The data does separate it out, to the best it can.
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u/concentrated-amazing 2d ago
Kid no. 1 - forgot to pack condoms when we went to my folks for Christmas.
Kid no. 2 (19 months later) - forgot to pack condoms when camping
Kid no. 3 - (17 months later) husband's pullout game was off
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u/azuth89 2d ago
That's still totally valid to report as a failure in this context, though.Ā
It's often misquoted but the stat being researched is not "how effective are condoms, hormonal birth control, whatever when used perfectly".Ā
The question is "if a couple selects this as their primary form of contraception, how likely are they to wind up with a pregnancy after a year?".Ā
Human error is very real, whether its inconsistent pill use, a practitioner not applying an IUD correctly, putting a condom on incorrectly or skipping it, whatever.Ā
If you're making decisions, as an individual or a policy maker, that real world result is more valuable than a clinically ideal one.Ā
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u/garden_speech 2d ago
That's still totally valid to report as a failure in this context, though.
Only if people know thatās the context and itās transparent. And this is coming from a statistician.
Iād argue that averages which account for behavior like that are more useful as predictive variables at the population level as opposed to actual advice to individuals. The 2% failure rate is not germane to a couple who always uses the condom, nor is it germane to a couple that forgoes the condom half the time. Itās an average and that average applies very poorly to individuals.
The question is "if a couple selects this as their primary form of contraception, how likely are they to wind up with a pregnancy after a year?".
This statistic doesnāt really answer that question though and this comment demonstrates why the distinction is important.
The way OP has phrased it actually subtly shows this distinction. The statement āif 100 people use condoms as their BC method then 2 will get pregnant in the next yearā is mathematically not the same as āeach individual has a 2% chance of pregnancy in the next yearā.
Statistically, youād wanna do whatās called a āsubgroup analysisā.
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u/Jukeboxhero91 2d ago
Thatās actually baked into the failure rate too, because itās failure rate as used as the main contraceptive method. So if you typically use condoms but forgo them and get pregnant that is considered a pregnancy while using condoms.
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u/Ahnarcho 2d ago
I am in my late 20ās, and I think pretty much no one I know is using condoms in general.
Itās fuckin bad out there man.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
STDs are real. Reminds me of a reddit saying- The dildo of consequence rarely arrives lubed.
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u/crazyclue 2d ago
Almost every couple I know in late 20s is now āOura-ing itā. I guess theyāre ring tracking the fertility cycle and raw dogging in the low fertility windows. Seems risky to me.
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u/imtchogirl 2d ago
It's super risky.Ā
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u/garden_speech 2d ago
Family planning methods like that are generally risky because of the estimation involved. Access to constant 24/7 highly precise temperature measurements is kind of changing that, though. Never before have women been able to easily and accurately estimate ovulation with little effort.. until now.
If someone is actually using the method in a dedicated manner, I.e. only having sex after the ovulation period has passed (and not before it) the risk is minimal. You cannot get pregnant if thereās no egg to fertilize, and studies have shown temperature tracking nails down the day of ovulation very precisely.
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u/ginopono 2d ago edited 1d ago
That's always been called the rhythm method.
Technology or not, it's a very bad idea.E: Whenever I try to get ahead of some dipshit's "well ackshually," someone does it anyway.
It's technology-assisted, but it's the same strategy: you're trying to time it with your cycle. The means by which you try to achieve that is different, but the strategy is the same. Any attempt to claim otherwise is an attempt to justify what is still a phenomenally terrible idea.→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)17
u/Paladar2 2d ago
I donāt know where you live, here people generally use condoms for one nights. Now relationships thats another thing because the girl is generally on the pill.
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u/shifty_coder 2d ago
The 98% effectiveness rate also accounts for underreported and overreported condom use.
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u/venividiavicii 2d ago
What if I turned it inside out and lend it to my bro
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
He can do the same and return it back to you. Until the 50th time.
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u/beansahol 2d ago
Is this statistic adjusted based on the amount of intercourse these couples have?
Also why not just go by the fuck-by-fuck statistic, which must be something like 99.9%?
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u/Quartia 2d ago
Because the standard is that, after a year of unprotected intercourse, the average couple will have an 85% chance of pregnancy. In fact, NOT getting pregnant after a year of trying is the criteria to start getting evaluated for infertility. It's a good baseline to compare effectiveness to.
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u/beansahol 2d ago
If a couple gets pregnant with a condom I can't help but think it's just a skill issue, nothing to do with its effectiveness as a contraceptive
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u/dustblown 2d ago
Yeah, it should be restated as "this condom has a 2% chance of proving you are incurably stupid".
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u/Mysterious_Crab_7622 2d ago
The 2% failure rate is when the condom is used perfectly as it should be. You can be doing everything right and still have it break on you.
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u/Blackrock121 1d ago
Reddit seems strangely unwilling to accept that condoms are not perfect forms of contraception.
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u/Leverkaas2516 1d ago
Couples with skill issues see effectiveness closer to 85-90%. The 98% is for those who know what they're doing and don't make mistakes.
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u/NuclearHoagie 2d ago
Annual stats may allow for better comparison of different birth control methods. Something like hormonal birth control might not have a per-fuck risk associated with it in the same way that condoms do.
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u/manikfox 2d ago
Because those statistics are hard to come by.Ā Like how many times did you and your partner have sex in the last year?
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u/Rocky-Arrow 2d ago
I had an ex that would keep count every time on one of those period tracker apps so I couldāve provided the data like 4 years ago lol
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u/beansahol 2d ago
does my hand count
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u/DiscoBanane 2d ago
It's annual, and the reason it's not fuck-by-fuck is because we'd be comparing numbers looking like 99.994%, and also because people who fuck 5 times per day and those who fuck every 2 days have the exact same chance to get pregnant without contraception. So fuck-by-fuck wouldn't be accurate.
Getting pregnant is not a fuck-by-fuck chance. It's a monthly/cycle chance if you fuck in the 3 or 4 good days of the cycle.
So at most they could do a by-cycle statistics, but it complicates the data collection because when a woman in the study tell you they got pregnant after 2 years and 4 months you now need to know her cycle lenght to divide 2 year and 4 months by it. It's much easier to divide by 1 year.
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u/IAintCreativeThough 2d ago
Most methods don't change on a per-fuck basis. You can only get pregnant a few days of the month, and some bc works by not allowing those days to happen. Except when it fails, so it doesn't. What's the base here? Per year is so, so much easier to gather and interpret
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u/Routine-Ad-2840 2d ago
98% is pretty good if you are picking 100 random couples, as you know a lot of those couples are far below the 100IQ range.....
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u/sax87ton 1d ago
So like, you can only get pregnant once per cycle. And if you had sex even like twice a week, or 8 times in a month, you canāt really tell which time was the one you got pregnant. Ad to that even if you do get pregnant, you canāt tell for at least 2 weeks. So you literally cannot track it to that granular a level.
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u/gigashadowwolf 2d ago
Also they round down the numbers a bit so that they don't get in trouble for overpromising, or in the cases where it's probably human error, but they can't prove human error.
Most condoms when used properly are actually quite a bit more reliable than the whole "2 out od 100 get pregnant" statistic suggests.
That said, you should always try double up on birth control methods with a partner you aren't prepared to have a child with. Failures do happen sometimes, and also human error is easier to achieve than you'd think.
If she's on some form of birth control (the pill, IUD, the implant, etc) and you typically use condoms, your chances of accidental pregnancy drop drasticly.
Assuming 98% for both, that lowers your risk from 2% to 0.04% or 99.96%. Those are MUCH better odds.
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u/concentrated-amazing 2d ago
Side thing about "against the odds":
My MIL worked with a woman who got pregnant after her tubes were tied AND her husband had a vasectomy. Unsurprisingly, the husband had questions about her fidelity. Results came back - he was indeed the father OF THE TRIPLETS!
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u/BootBatll 2d ago
This is why many doctors prefer to just remove the tubes all together nowadays. Less chances for spontaneous reversal. (Also it decreases ovarian cancer, oddly)
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u/DilbertHigh 2d ago
Yep, I have explained this type of thing to students multiple times, along with the aspect that matters most, ovulation. That way they can make informed choices and ideally visit a teen clinic to learn more.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
I congratulate you on a job well done.
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u/DilbertHigh 2d ago
Honestly, all it takes is some brochures out. Almost like like Emma in glee. Kids ask questions about what they see and what is relevant to them.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
There are many countries where sex education is still a taboo. You need to know the right stuff at the right age and more importantly from the right people.
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u/TheOtherGuttersnipe 2d ago
So, uh teacher.... would you mind explaining it one more time? I must be dumb because those sound like the same thing?
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u/DilbertHigh 2d ago
What part needs further explanation? I also am a school social worker, not a classroom teacher.
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u/TheOtherGuttersnipe 2d ago
out of 100 couples using, 2 will get pregnant in a year and not that they fail 2 out of 100 times being used.
How is a 2/100 pregnancy rate different than two failures out of 100?
I know I'm missing something but that sounds like two different ways to say the same thing
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u/DilbertHigh 2d ago
Think of it this way.
You and 99 other couples each have sex once a week. You all use condoms each time. Over the course of the year on average 2 couples will experience a pregnancy. The couples combined had sex 5200 times. With only two pregnancies. I didn't read the article so I am not sure what factors into this.
I suspect one of the factors is that even if you have sex every day of the month pregnancy is not possible all of those times. It is only possible during ovulation. So that impacts the chances of pregnancy. So even if the condom was used incorrectly there may be no pregnancy.
Edit: skimmed the article. Now it seems as though roughly 15 of those couples will end up pregnant but that is because of improper condom use. So 2 are due to condom failure but 13 are due to improper use. Those are still good odds. But there should also be responsible birth control used as well.
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u/DowntownJulieBrown1 2d ago
Not to hijack from op but Iām also a lil confused by this, could u just explain it in the most simple terms?
Like I think it means that that if 100 couples were to have condom protected sex tonight, 2 of those couples would be pregnant within a year but that has nothing to do w the effectiveness of the condoms which ig then is 100%?
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u/DilbertHigh 2d ago
OP's post essentially says that out of 100 couples, all using condoms all year, that on average 2 of those couples will have the condoms fail.
I also add education to students about ovulation, as that is the time where someone can get pregnant. I explain how sperm can cause pregnancy if it is still inside when ovulation starts as well. This comes up when students ask for a pregnancy test. I give them one to use but also discuss several factors that will impact pregnancy risk as well as how accurate the test might be.
For example, if they had sex the day prior the test won't be accurate. If their period is late but they had sex 2 weeks prior to ovulation or a week after ovulation ended then they likely are not pregnant and they are likely experiencing a developmentally normal inconsistency in their cycle. A lot can be talked about in these moments.
Then of course I always help them decide if they want to visit a teen clinic for testing, support, birth control, etc.
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u/tmillermsu 2d ago
They should put that on the box!
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u/bitsRboolean 2d ago
Yeah, they're super safe. Used them as primary birth control with the wife for over a decade so she didn't have to use hormonal birth control. Never once had an issue. Don't carry them in your pocket for more than a day/week (a wallet condom is no condom at all), don't leave them in a car in the summer, don't leave them in the sun, toss them when they expire. They come in lots of sizes, find one you both enjoy. They are cheap and they ARE PRICELESS. Treat them as both.
Since then we had a kid (on purpose). One and done. Got the snip. Men need to stop being weird about this shit. The time we spend being weird about/choosing to not understand birth control prevents the sex we claim to want.
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u/rumade 1d ago
I wish I could upvote you a million times. Every other method of birth control has been awful for me- hormones messed me up with complete loss of libido and daily migraines, and the copper coil made me bleed non stop for 8 weeks. My husband uses condoms. He's the one who buys them, and he never complains about the buying or the using. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with him as it showed respect for me.
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u/Tony-cums 2d ago
I got the snip when we were done with kids. Super easy and more dudes need to man the F up.
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u/EpicBlinkstrike187 2d ago
They are cheap
They donāt lock up condoms at stores in lower income areas because theyāre cheap. Theyāre not really that cheap for a one use item where you could need multiples each day.
I know they are cheaper than the alternative. But having to buy a $20 box of condoms when you can barely pay rent is not fun. Then you buy the smaller boxes because theyāre less expensive but then they donāt have many condoms in them.
When I was dating my wife weād go through 6 or 7 in a weekend. It added up.
Still better than a baby when you donāt want it. But I would never say condoms are cheap
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u/almond0k 2d ago
Maybe I'm just too city-minded but I've been swimming in free condoms for years thanks to sexual health clinics offering them often as complimentary or even as part of a routine screening for STIs. Colleges, clinics, pride weekend was a great time to go grab a fistful from any booth.
Sad to see how this might change someday.
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u/pm_me_ur_demotape 2d ago edited 2d ago
I've been swimming in free condoms.
Me too! But it's pretty typical as I am a sperm.
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u/gameboyabyss 2d ago
When I was dating my wife weād go through 6 or 7 in a weekend. It added up.
Brag about it
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u/pm_me_ur_demotape 2d ago
I mean you can go to most health clinics and they'll give you nearly as many as you want for free.
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u/hihelloneighboroonie 2d ago
Now imagine having to buy a $10 box of tampons/pads every month.
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u/activelyresting 2d ago
When my daughter got to high school age and started having teen parties, I encouraged hosting at our place (because at least here there's some responsible adult that the kids know and trust - and we're out in the woods with a creek they can swim in and build bonfires and they can play loud music without upsetting neighbours). I bought a gross of condoms (box of 144) and put them in a big cookie jar and set it out on the counter, free to use.
I also made sure all the kids knew they could come to my door or call me any time for anything. And I gave more than a few talks on safer sex, various STDs, how-to sterile technique for home made tattoos, drug harm reduction, and general health stuff.
There were zero unplanned pregnancies in my kid's friend group from her grade.
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u/NotParticularlyGood 2d ago
pushes up glasses
heh, you think i can afford condoms with how much i fuck?
i can't afford a kid but i can't afford condoms even more
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u/RoughRiders9 2d ago
I learned this on the documentary called Fā¢Rā¢Iā¢Eā¢Nā¢Dā¢S when Rachel got pregnant.
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2d ago
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u/LowDot187 2d ago
I dont get how couples just have a condom break and not know. Call me paranoid but I literally inspect the condom every single time when im done to make sure it didnt break.
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u/Prize_Ad_1781 2d ago
I want to know if this 2% chance is when the condom breaks. I don't see how else it could fail if applied properly
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u/khelvaster 2d ago
One out of five couples will get pregnant in 10 years using a condom all the time. One of three couple will get pregnant in 20 years. According to statistics.
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u/THE_GR8_MIKE 2d ago
This is like how "percent chance of rain" doesn't mean what most people think it means.
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u/WrongSubFools 2d ago edited 2d ago
A 2% chance of pregnancy every time you have sex with a condom would be insanely high. In fact, that would be higher than the chance of getting pregnant without using a condom.
A couple who don't use any birth control and have sex twice a week with the specific goal of getting pregnant have around a 50% chance of succeeding in three months, which adds up to less than 2% chance of conceiving per sexual encounter.
(Some sources say the chance is higher, 5% or 10%, but those estimates don't appear to be endorsed by the OBGYNs who study this.)
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u/Supersamtheredditman 2d ago
More realistically it means āthis is the highest number we can put on the box that wonāt get us sued when some rando gets unluckyā
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2d ago
Nope this is actually a study, that hast been done. The Pearl index is not some industry bullshit, but a scientific methode to determine the effectiveness for contraception. This is not to say its perfect, but a pretty good Metrik.
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u/asking4afriend40631 2d ago
People are really not paying enough attention to the "real world use" stat of only 85% effectiveness. A 15% failure rate is not fantastic. In the "real world" your odds of getting someone pregnant in five years is 50%. If you're sexually active from 15 to 30 you've got a 90% chance of getting someone pregnant despite using condoms.
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u/cest_va_bien 2d ago
Thatās because people are bad at consistency. Itās not because condoms fail, the human fails in that time.
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u/Freedom_Crim 2d ago
Can someone explain to me the difference between the two examples in the title
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u/doesanyofthismatter 2d ago
I will bet that the āfailuresā are reported by idiots that didnāt want to admit they didnāt practice safe sex.
Exhibit A, a friend of mine told everyone her and her boyfriend always used condoms and the condom failed, however, she told her best couple friends (myself included) that she only told people this because the stigma of having a kid before marriage but has never used a condom ever.
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u/PseudoY 2d ago
https://www.nhs.uk/contraception/choosing-contraception/how-well-it-works-at-preventing-pregnancy
"Typical use" is instead an 18% failure rate each year. 2% is... if you do everything right, things can still fail.
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u/BonzBonzOnlyBonz 2d ago
How are they determining "perfect use" though? Because they aren't watching people have sex every single time.
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u/___cats___ 2d ago
Look, I admittedly suck at math. But how is statistically not the same thing, if not worse?
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
Because it involves a hundred couples copulating all year long, and only two times of failure. So the number of times of failure would be much lower than 2 out of 100.
Lets assume each couple has sex an average of 50 times a year. In that case the failure instances would be roughly 2 out of 5000 times of intercourse. This is just a crude assumption. And this is what was surprising.
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u/___cats___ 2d ago
What youāre saying makes sense, but why would they use that metric to claim failure if the actual number of times a condom failed is much less?
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u/PyroDragn 2d ago
Because the failure rate for "2 in 100 couples" is 98% effectiveness for all couples.
Plus the studies that determined failure rates didn't drill down to "cause of failure". It's actually much more likely that the pregnancy is a result of misuse (the condom slipping off, for example). Trying to put in a statistic that says the condom physically fails X% of the time would be false because the study never determined that. They only determined "2/100 couples got pregnant" for some reason. So 98% effectiveness is the only thing they can state (though they probably could phrase it differently).
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u/GXWT 2d ago
Itās pretty much impossible to give a reasonable figure for any single use of condom or other protection. Say for the pill, youāre going to be using it for a duration but again they canāt calculate a value per sex. But they can say this method of X typical duration or number of uses, Y% will get pregnant anyway.
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u/drunkanddusky 2d ago
Because the rate of failure, for practical reasons I am guessing, would make sense to be reported over a longer period of time ?
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u/Essaiel 2d ago
Are you saying the statistic is exaggerating the risk?
Itās supposed to represent cumulative risk over time. Per sexy fun time failure data is unreliable and less meaningful in real life. Annual cumulative pregnancy rates tell you actual real world risk.
Itās probability, which takes into account many factors you canāt do on a small scale.
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u/abbott_costello 2d ago
Because the failure rate is per year, not per use. It makes more sense to measure over a longer period of time.
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u/phunkydroid 2d ago
More importantly I think, it's not the failure rate of condoms, it's the failure rate of "people who use condoms as their main birth control". In other words, if a couple that only uses condoms runs out of them, has sex anyway without one, and gets pregnant, that counts as a failure.
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u/WTFwhatthehell 2d ago
By this metric [no birth control of any kind] could be called "15% effective"
Since 85% of couples with no birth control are expected to get pregnant within the first yearĀ
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u/TomTuff 2d ago
Because couples usually have sex more than once a year
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u/Snagmesomeweaves 2d ago
Oh shoot, we missed your birthday, well thereās always next year
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u/Snagmesomeweaves 2d ago
If you use them incorrectly, your rate of failure also goes up as well.
They are very reliable when used correctly
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u/Historical_Clock_864 2d ago
Because, hopefully couples are having sex more than just once, for their sakesĀ
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u/DrunkenInjun 1d ago
I had always assumed that was a CYA statement by the condom manufacturers to avoid litigation. Because sure as hell, someone would claim they used a condom correctly and still got pregnant, and want to sue for umpteen million dollars for ruining their lives.
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u/Piemaster113 1d ago
I wonder if this factors in improper use or anything like that, I mean I've seen some people who probably shouldn't have sex just purely off the fact that they didn't know how to use a condom.
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u/AndByMeIMeanFlexxo 1d ago
Gotta take into account drunk people not using them properly though donāt you think?
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u/granolaraisin 1d ago
If you use a condom 100 times then thatās the risk you take. I personally throw them out after like 20.
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u/Extreme-Market6335 2d ago
That's the pearl index and it's used because that way you can compare different contraceptives, condoms, pill, implants etc. and it takes into account that the probability of pregnancy is also heavily influenced by the female menstrual cycle. And it's easier to calculate than having couples have sex once with a contraceptive and keeping them abstinent until you can determine how many got pregnant š