From all reports this is a medical breakthrough, although breakthrough is probably a bad word to use when you`re talking about condoms.
In any case, somebody called it ”a great day for women.” The buzzword of the week was ”empowerment.” All 11 members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel recommended the tentative approval of the first condom for women.
Well, forgive me if I don`t get my ”Sisterhood is Powerful” T-shirts out of storage to celebrate.
About five years ago when alarm about the heterosexual transmission of AIDS first broke through the walls of denial, sexual entrepreneurs began marketing male condoms to women.
The message in the marketing was pretty clear. Women who had taken on the full responsibility for birth control were urged to take on more responsibility for disease control. The condom, which once made an impression in teenage male wallets, was repackaged for female purses.
Now it`s 1992. Almost two-thirds of the AIDS cases worldwide have been transmitted heterosexually. And the new improved line of defense we are offered is a device that eliminates all male responsibility.
This is the much-touted advantage of the female version of the condom. It may be expensive. It may be awkward to use. But it circumvents the need to even ”negotiate” with a man.
Dr. Mary Guinan, who works on sexually transmitted diseases at the federal Centers for Disease Control, is open about the female advantage. ”We need protective devices for women,” she says. ”Then they don`t have to negotiate something with a man. They can do it themselves.”
This is the new reality: The success of the female condom is predicated on the failure of male-female negotiations. The ”empowerment” that comes with a vaginal pouch is proof, if we needed it, of women`s lack of power in relationships.
Guinan wearily admits to the power gap she has seen in many forms and many populations. Not long ago she asked a roomful of peers, all female doctors, how many thought they had equality in sexual decision-making. Only 20 percent raised their hands.
Today one of her patients is a woman married to a hemophiliac with AIDS. He refuses to use condoms, and she continues to have sex with him. She is more reluctant to hurt his feelings than he is to endanger her life.
Drawing such parameters, Guinan asks: ”Do you think a woman can negotiate condom use with a crack user? They have to have something of their own so that the guy won`t beat them up.”
The medical facts show that women are more vulnerable than men to sexually transmitted diseases. Even AIDS is not an equal-opportunity virus. It is easier for a man to infect a woman than the other way around.
But a decent product can still be a lousy sign of the times. This one points to the stark unevenness of social change. The most current sexual armament coexists with the most ancient sexual passivity.
How many women in the last two decades have found it easier to change their own behavior than to change the men in their lives? How many have found it easier to alter the way they behave independently than to alter the way they behave in a relationship?
This time it`s condoms for women. ”We can`t afford to wait until society becomes enlightened,” says Dr. Mervyn Silverman of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. ”I`d hate to see a lot of women die because we were waiting for nirvana.”
So this is reality. One step forward in female protection. One step backward in male responsibility. Something new and something very, very old.
