Rubber Match: Which condom is best?

[Book Lover]

Didn't want to put this in LBN, since it's kinda not...


http://slate.com/id/2114132/

Rubber Match
Which condom is best?

When the list of the world's great inventions is tallied, the wheel, the combustion engine, and the computer chip invariably make the list. The condom, amazingly, never does. This seems an injustice. The condom has been around in some form at least since the Roman times, probably longer, and to this day remains the most popular prophylactic in most parts of the world. It is a marvel of human ingenuity, really: cheap, easy to use, and remarkably effective.

Condoms are thought to have originally been made from animal intestines or fish bladders, with some colorful local variations: oiled rice paper in the East, condomlike sheaths made form tortoise shell—yes, tortoise shell—in the South Pacific. Casanova is said to have preferred linen. In the 1840s, Charles Goodyear perfected the vulcanization of rubber, which became the material of choice for over a century and provided the condom with its most enduring nickname (other popular sobriquets include jimmy hat, love glove, and raincoat). In the last 30 years, most condom-makers have switched from rubber to latex, and some have introduced novelty condoms: ribbing, fruit flavors, neon glow-in-the-dark paint. These have been more interesting in theory than in practice.

In the past year, however, the condom industry has undergone a quiet revolution. If you've recently rushed out of the house in a long coat at 2 a.m., you've likely noticed a dizzying array of male-prophylactic choices. There are mesh-patterned condoms and climax-delaying condoms and contoured, studded condoms. The people at Trojan seem to be leading the charge with innovation and flashy design. Some of these newfangled offerings are useful, some not so useful, some just scary. I decided to conduct a test to find the best among them.


<continues at link. I don't want to give away the winner!>