College Times

Issue date: 7/2/09 Section: Sex

What is a condom company's worst nightmare? It already came.

"Pulling out" is a birth control method nearly as effective as condoms, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Contraception.

Couples who "withdrew" - how the study refers to the method - every time during sex for a year would become pregnant 4 to 18 percent of the time, according to the study. A condom's pregnancy failure rate is 2 to 12 percent according to the FDA. That means that couples that pull out are only slightly more prone to becoming pregnant.

Is this fodder for bareback riding, anti-condom fornicators or just irrelevant academic babble?

LifeStyles Condoms' vice president of marketing, Carol Carrozza, said that while the study was fair, it doesn't really address why people should use condoms. Condoms protect against sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV, which is in pre-ejaculate fluid, she said. Plus, when condoms are used properly they remove the element of human control required to make pulling out successful.

"Perfect use in withdrawal requires that men are in perfect control," Carrozza said. "In the heat of passion that moment might be missed."

Most respondents who reported pulling out did so in combination with other contraceptive measures, such as condom use. Only 5 percent of respondents relied solely on pulling out. And only 6 percent relied exclusively on condoms. Most reported that pulling out was a "back up" measure.

That is why the study will not disrupt condom sales, Carrozza said.

"I think most people intuitively don't rely on withdrawal," she said. "Most people use it in combination, as a last resort."

But in addition to being a last resort when hormones prevailed, the majority of these puller-outers mentioned their distaste for condoms.

"Withdrawal is a great form of birth control," said one female respondent. "You can still keep going, you can still have sex, it doesn't smell bad, [and] it doesn't have chemicals in it."

One male respondent even praised the aesthetics of withdrawal.

"I like pulling out in some ways - I see the yield," he said. "At least it's some half-assed effort."

Jenny Trinitapoli, a Professor of Sociology at Penn State University and an expert on sexual behavior, said she thinks condom use among young people is far overreported; and that withdrawal is more common than people suspect.

"I'm really convinced that young people in the us overreport their condom use," she said. "They seem to have the sense that there's a moral component to it (like not-smoking)."

In the end, the study concludes that "although withdrawal may not be as effective as some contraceptive methods, it is substantially more effective than nothing," the study said. "It is also convenient, requires no prior planning and there is no cost involved."

Those that are too poor, unprepared or simply "inconvenienced" to use more formal contraceptive methods are only running a slightly higher risk of pregnancy than those that do, but are much, much more likely to contract an STD, a fact proponents of "withdrawl" have no answer for.

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