Here's Why Female Condoms Are So Unpopular

​There's this thing called the female condom, if you didn't already know. It looks like a cross between a plastic bag and a male condom. Basically, it's a pouch you can insert in your vagina or anus before sex. Although it's significantly less popular than a regular condom, if used correctly, it's 95 percent effective when it comes to preventing STIs and pregnancy. (The male condom is 98 percent). So why doesn't anyone really use them?

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In an article exploring female condoms in The Atlantic, Christine Ro asks that very question. Only introduced in 1993, the process of inserting a female condom is more involved than its male counterpart. Planned Parenthood outlines these five steps:

Put spermicide or lubricant on the outside of the closed end. Find a comfortable position. You can stand with one foot on a chair, sit on the edge of a chair, lie down, or squat. Squeeze together the sides of the inner ring at the closed end of the condom and insert it into the vagina like a tampon. Push the inner ring into the vagina as far as it can go — until it reaches the cervix. Pull out your finger and let the outer ring hang about an inch outside the vagina.

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That does sound pretty complicated. However, if you take a look at Planned Parenthood's instructions for how to put on a male condom, it also seems pretty involved. In fact, most of the critique surrounding female condoms is the same as their male counterparts: "a lack of spontaneity, a decrease in sensation, discomfort, lack of knowledge, technical difficulties, [and] inconvenience."

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But perhaps their unpopularity is due in part to the unique challenges female condoms present. They're significantly more expensive than male condoms, in part, ironically, because of their lack of popularity. Moreover, Ro argues that "The bar for the internal condom seems to be set higher: Some expect it to be intuitive and comfortable from the first time, despite the much sparser information available about its correct use.​"

Additionally, while traditional male condoms come in every flavor and texture under the sun, there aren't nearly as many varieties of female condoms.

One benefit of the female condom is that it allows women to have more control of their safe sex practices. "Above other things, the female condom was introduced as a way of empowering women to be in control of their sex relationships and to participate fully in family planning, as well as HIV and STI prevention," says HIV activist Anisia Karanja​.

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While there's no arguing that having more options for women's sexual health is a benefit, when does empowerment become a burden? Most contraceptives — like any hormonal birth control or a diaphragm — rely only on the woman alone to use them. Perhaps female condoms have yet to take off because it's yet another thing women have to be responsible for. Recently, the head of The Female Health Company proclaimed that it's time "for men to be ambassadors of the female condom" and that we must "stop the notion that female condoms are a woman's thing.​"