Current Affairs

Stop washing and reusing your condoms, says US government

  • Aug 02 2018
  • Written by Josh Jackman
This picture taken on January 25, 2018 shows randomly picked condoms of Japanese condom maker Sagami Rubber Industries for quality tests at the company's facility in Atsugi, Kanagawa prefecture. With a little over two years until Tokyo hosts the 2020 Olympic Games, organisers are ramping up preparations, and so are local condom makers hoping to showcase their world-record ultra-thin products. / AFP PHOTO / Behrouz MEHRI / TO GO WITH Oly-2020-JPN-Japan-health-condom, FEATURE by Harumi OZAWA (Photo credit should read BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)

Condoms might soon be much less likely to break (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty)

The US government wants you to know that washing and reusing your condoms is gross and wrong, as well as unhealthy.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Division of STD Prevention has tweeted an apparently timely reminder regarding the public’s condom use: make it a one-and-done.

This announcement comes as the CDC is also making sure men who have sex with men know they are now especially at risk of contracting Shigella – an infection with symptoms like diarrhoea, fever and abdominal pain – through rimming.

Don’t do it (Pexels)

The CDC’s tweet reads: “We say it because people do it: Don’t wash or reuse #condoms! Use a fresh one for each #sex act.”

Of course, the most horrifying part of this is the revelation that people do, indeed, wash out the various fluids which get stuck inside and outside a condom during sex – before doing it all over again with the same condom.

People who do this should know that they are putting themselves and their partner more at risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, and – if it’s possible in your partnership – pregnancy is also much more likely.

Take this to heart. Remember it forever (CDC)

This is because it’s more likely to slip off or tear the second time around – and no-one wants that.

After seeing the CDC’s tweet, people were – understandably – troubled and concerned for their fellow man.

Reusers are losers (Robert Elyov/flickr)

One wrote: “People do that???”

Another commenter tried to imagine the conversation before the couple gets down to business, writing: “Hold on babe, let me just grab one off the clothes line…”

The reaction GIF was absolutely spot-on.

“People really out here reusing condoms?!” said one shocked tweeter.

And another wrote, hopefully with their tongue firmly in their cheek: “Well, what the hell am I supposed to with all these condoms in the dishwasher now?”

“I’m just upset that this is something that people needed to be told,” another person tweeted, which, I mean – same.

A study published earlier this year showed that a significant number of straight men have gay sex, with an analysis of 24,000 undergraduates revealing that of the men whose last hookup was with a male partner, one in eight defined as heterosexual.

Two men sleeping peacefully, safe in the knowledge that they’ve never reused a condom

And for those of us who simply don’t have sex enough, there’s an excellent meme we can use to help laugh away our pain.

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