Lelo is launching a "new inovative condom"

[Helena D'Orville 33237]

Quite mysterious. They announce it for this summer. It might be about a condom that will reveal any STDs or STDs? Does anyone know more about this?

 

https://www.lelocondoms.com/

[ChloeSummers 8409]

That's a wild idea!

 

If it does... I'll be using them at a constant. Not sure how they would implement the tech for STD detection... but we can dream.

 

Can't wait to see the launch regardless.

-Chloe.

[Regent 35404]

Hmm, very interesting.

 

I admit, I'm very skeptical for a lot of reasons - starting with Lelo producing a combination of excellent and subpar products but seeming to think very highly of itself as a company, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any info about this beyond the vagueness that Lelo has shared and the outlets reporting on that.

 

Beyond that, the Gates Foundation provided substantial grants to a variety of innovators to redesign the condom in 2013 and as of yet nothing has hit the market. Condoms are considered a medical device and so the FDA approval process is incredibly stringent, expensive and takes years. (I believe Health Canada has a similar review process.)

 

The only way that I can see Lelo bringing a condom to market this summer is if it's substantially similar to existing condoms and able to bypass the FDA testing requirements - so, not the incredible innovation they're claiming on their site.

 

It was last year that some students made headlines for conceptualizing a condom that changed colour in the presence of certain STIs. There's lots of detailed critiques of the concept out there, but suffice to say that it's not a concept that would actually work from a biomed technology position, and it's actually kind of a terrible idea from a safer sex/social reality position. Particularly for transactional sex, finding out mid-act that one of you has an STI seems that it would substantially increase the risk of violence, and sex workers are already at high enough risk of that.

 

So I do hope that Lelo is coming out with something amazing, I really do, but I'm also not going to hold my breath.

[Helena D'Orville 33237]

The possibility of the condom being able to detect the presence of STDs or STIs was only an assumption on my part as I had heard, like Regent mentioned, about the students who developed such condom. Lelo does not talk about this at all on their page. In fact, they remain very mysterious regarding what the innovation will be, which puzzles me (and is not, according to me, a very good way to start attracting attention because it is frustrating, and let's me think that their innovation might not be ready yet...) A condom is quite a simple thing from the start. So what other kind of innovation could it be? Will it be way thinner than any regular condom already on the market? Is it about the texture? (Personally I don't like textured condoms, and it is not new), or about their lubrication? I don't know, I am trying to figure out what could be a real innovation in the condom industry, and I really don't get what. Unless their product will be a new female condom? Female condoms already exist but are hard to find and are less "efficient" than male condoms (and less "sexy" to use, what I have been told).

[Phaedrus 209521]

Looks like an attempt to hype nothing much to me. I hope I'm wrong, but I really can't get excited about this right now.