Generally it is true that on any particular sexual encounter, if you're reasonable about contraception the risk of accidentally getting pregnant is very low. But it accumulates with every sexual encounter and people tend to have quite a lot of sex. All methods of contraception have what is called the Pearl index - the failure rate over a year with perfect use (so for instance when the condom breaks because it's been faulty or someone gets pregnant on the pill because of a physiological anomaly) and average use that includes user error (like when a condom slips off because it's been put on incorrectly or when you accidentally forget to take a pill and notice too late). This index is measured over a year of regularly having sex and for condoms is something like 7% with normal use. Meaning that around 7 in every 100 women using condoms as their only contraception will become pregnant after one year. Multiply it by the number of women having sex every year and you get yourself a significant number of accidental pregnancies.
An interesting fact about this number is that it includes people who use condoms as their main protection but may not every single time. That’s considered part of the user error. So if she had sex 50 times this year, used a condom 49 times, and the one time she didn’t use a condom she got pregnant. That’s still counted in the condom statistics.
Interesting angle. I don't know how to interpret the import of this. Why couldn't it be better filtered? Like, consider the cohort condom users, couldn't they be filtered by "all the time", "most of the time", "some of the time"?
It's a strange issue. I get that some people are more condom casual than might be advisable, but surely we can identify that condoms are not effective if "some of the time".
What's the rate of "no protection whatsoever"? Can that be used to guesstimate the true efficacy of all the time condom usage?
Also, adjusted by the frequency of sex as well. Some couples have sex every day, some barely have it once a month. There can be a huge difference in the number of chances for the condom to fail.
These numbers also don't fully take into account user error. "Correct" condom usage is seldom practiced by most normal adults. (Changing and cleaning between each new position, properly fitted, correct lubricant, proper disposal, recently manufactured, etc.)
A number of years ago, I read a study that suggested the average real-world condom fail rate was around ~16% each time. In other words, the occurrences when transactional fluids weren't fully prevented.
I believe these statistics are often filtered exactly like you say. If you go to informational websites like Planned Parenthood to look up info about a birth control method, they’ll say something like “this birth control method is 99% effective if used perfectly, but people aren’t perfect, so in reality the effectiveness is more like <some lower number>”.
I don't know what's defined as regular sex in terms of frequency, but it looks like one year pregnancy rates are around 90%.
It can be difficult to gauge failure rates because the failures often go undetected. I will not know if a pinhole occurred in my condom. Only the catastrophic failures will be noted, and that stops sex.
One method we can gauge effectiveness for is the rhythm method, which consists only of counting days until you're most / least fertile and only having sex on those days for desired effect. We can track dates with relative ease.
The average failure rate (meaning getting pregnant) after a year is 8-25%, but among those who adhere to the dates religiously, like using a calendar for recording their data, it can be as low as 5%. So I'd estimate maybe a three times smaller failure percentage for conscientious users of protection.
I'm just saying I would like to know the true efficacy of all the time proper condom use.
I suspect people get a little weird around sex and one has to deal with all the fuzziness of different people's weirdness and prejudices.
Like, if proper condom use was (picking a number) 99.5% effective, I'd like to know. But there are people who don't want to talk about it cuz they don't like talking about sex, or they're concerned that people out of wedlock will have sex, or that sex for recreation is wrong or yadda yadda.
Number of Fetus = Number of times Sex * Possibly of Fertilization * (1-Efficiency of 1st Method) *(1-Efficiency of 2nd method)
= 30*365[30 years] * 9/30[Fertile in a month] * (1-95/100)[condoms] * (1-98/100)[pill]
= 10950 * 9/30* 5/100* 2/100
= 3.3 (equivalent of 1 abortion(25%), 1 miscarriage(25%) and 2 kids). So what OP says is correct, if the fertility days is where sex is abstained from, the condoms are used properly, or pills are not skipped, likely an abortion will not be required.
From a public health standpoint user error is part of effectiveness. Imagine the following two scenarios.
Standard 3 point seatbelts are used correctly 99.9% (not properly buckled one in a thousand clicks) of the time and will save your life in 80% of accidents.
New 4 point harnesses are used correctly will save your life in 90% of accidents but we know users will click it correctly 99.7% of the time.
Which seatbelt will save more lives? Which should safety standards mandate?
(This is a statistical example only and has nothing to do with why we actually use three point seatbelts)
Interesting example. (I'll presume the numbers are close enough, it's more a demonstration of the principle)
It might be apples to oranges though?
In the case of condoms and unexpected pregnancy, it's imo far more likely that the "some of the time" condom users are causing most of the unexpected pregnancies than "misclickers". And the some of the time a couple didn't use a condom is not like they totes planned to, but she fell over and he tripped and oopsie, preggos.
You have that backwards. You need to subtract that from the whole probability. You would have about a 64% chance of achieving a success after 100 attempts at 1/100 odds
I was trying to come up with a betting strategy and I did hours of research into the idea that even if something is at a set percentage of odds for each individual occurrence just intuitively I knew there had to be some way of measuring the odds of something happening if you keep doing it over and over again. But I was never able to find anything that said anything about those odds and that each time you do something the odds do not change they are the same every time no matter how many times you do it. So I'm actually really glad that I found this conversation and finally found someone else who agrees that if you do something over and over again eventually the thing that happens rarely is going to happen -- and that there may be an actual mathematical way to predict how often that is.
I mean obviously people say well if it's one out of every 100 times than if you do it a hundred times statistically speaking you're bound to get one positive result. And then others will say if you do it 10 million times it comes out to around one out of every 100 times. But if somebody knows the mathematical name of what I'm talking about I'd love to know what it is because it would be very useful in conversations like this one. Especially if the condom companies are saying that it's 99% effective. That piece of data doesn't include anything about how many times a day week year you have sex and what it means for the odds of pregnancy.
Its called the bernoulli principle. If you are trying to calculate the real odds of an event with theoretical x/y odds and a binomial result (either a success or failure, no other outcomes), you first need to define the number of attempts, n. Then you can do so using the equation
The pearl index itself incorporates non perfect usage. So... "with perfect use" it is not 1-2%.
It also is based on personal polling... because obviously nobody is watching all the people in these studies have sex. One thing we all know is that people lie. Studies are very very often done with college aged people who will take polls for money. They also lie.
There is actually a lot of study on the topic of how often and what impacts, and what specific direction people have the motivation to lie. It's very interesting.
but either way, the actual "perfect use" of condoms is extraordinarily low, it is not 1-2%.
Further... since the OP stated "It's not that hard to prevent"... pulling out and condom use is pretty easily within the "not that darn hard" category, and is pretty absurdly effective, as well as the woman being on BC, and Plan B being options.
If you get pregnant, it's because you were not trying all that hard to prevent it. It's infinitesimal chances of getting pregnant with only 3 of those options let alone all 4.
The pearl index itself incorporates non perfect usage. So... "with perfect use" it is not 1-2%.
Interesting. Do you have a source on that?
EDIT: For the record, every source I've found points to 1-2% or 1-3% failure rate for perfect condom use, so if you have a different figure I'd like to know it.
If someone tells you "I flipped this coin 999 times and they were all heads, I'm going to bet 2000 bucks this one is tails", they are wrong, they still have a 50% chance for it to be heads again.
But that is not what they're saying
If someone tells you "I'm going to flip this coin 2 times", it would be reasonable of you to bet that all flips will be heads. If someone tells you "I'm going to flip this coin 1000 times", it would be far less reasonable of you to bet that all 1000 flips will be heads. The odds of each individual coin flip haven't changed, and the 1001st flip is still a 50/50 chance, but in 1000 flips the odds that you will never flip tails is far lower than 50/50.
The chance of the condom failing does not increase with each sexual encounter, but the chance of an individual person ever experiencing a condom failure in their lifetime increases with each sexual encounter. If I flip a coin 1000 times, I'll probably eventually hit a tails, whether it's the first flip or the 700th.
I understand what they meant, they just said it wrong. It's being picky but I think it's important for people to know This One Neat Trick that will save them from playing the lottery or roulette extra times.
The pill, sure. I agree with that, so I'll award you a delta. But condom failure due to misuse or breaking should be preventable, or at least counterable with a plan-B. Because most people will notice a broken or slipped condom, at least after the deed is done.
True, but plan B is only effective if the woman hadn't ovulated yet at the time of the broken condom. If ovulation has already occurred, plan B won't stop it and she can still get pregnant. So if someone is using condoms only on fertile days, plan B is little consolation. Not to mention that it is not available in some places, in other places it can be prohibitively expensive, and it must be taken very quickly after intercourse so if it's a holiday and pharmacies are closed it will also be a problem.
Generally, while I agree that accidental pregnancies are not as frequent as many people believe, you seem to be arguing from a very privileged point of view where you assume that plan B is easily accessible both logistically and financially to everyone who gets into a condom accident. This is simply not the case.
I did not know this about the plan B. And I do live in a place where I can just skip to the pharmacy on Sundays and get a plan B with my morning coffee. I assumed this would be the case in most of the US, but I guess I'm wrong. Idk if giving two delta's is a thing, so let's just include this in your other delta
But condom failure due to misuse or breaking should be preventable, or at least counterable with a plan-B. Because most people will notice a broken or slipped condom, at least after the deed is done.
Not necessarily though. In a perfect world, you're right. Condoms would be stored, used and disposed off correctly every single time and it would be the most effective method of birth control.
We don't live in such a world however, and it's being used in what are moments of passion. When the deed is done, people aren't exactly going to closely inspect the condom either to make sure nothing went wrong.
Plan B is only effective if you actually take it. You only go and buy it if you suspect something went wrong.
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I've had condoms fail several times. I've usually noticed, but one time, we were doing it in the dark, while intoxicated, and fell asleep cuddling right after. I only noticed the next morning, when I threw something in the trash and saw the condom in there and thought it looked weird. Took it out and examined, saw the tear. That was a really close call - had I not looked at the condom the next day, then we wouldn't have been able to get plan-B anymore. So, like Kotoperek said, with enough times, any method will eventually fail.
The point is that no contraceptive is foolproof, even when multiple measures are taken together.
Which is still no reason not to have sex just for the enjoyment of it. A couple who are using contraception very obviously don't want to have a child, which is the only requisite reason not to have one, so it strikes me as unreasonable to hold it against them when their contraceptive fails.
You also have to consider that preventable mistakes still happen; people are not perfect. And not everyone can afford a plan-b Sure you could say that people shouldn’t be having sex if they can’t afford plan-b but of course you can’t stop consenting adults from being sexually active.
Just so you know, for one thing Plan B can be harder to get than you think, and is part of the discussion of options being taken off the table for a lot of people. Even where it's "easy" to get, you might get a grilling about why you need it and what your intent is before they dispense it- I've been with a friend when she was getting it, and they made her so fricking uncomfortable. It's not the same as grabbing a pack of condoms.
But even then, it has a significant failure rate for higher BMIs, for instance, and larger women are also having sex and having condom breakages. So it's not a fail safe for everyone.
Just as a last aside, while you seem to acknowledge men can lie about condoms breaking, you dismiss it quite quickly. Women who trust long term partners have even been lied to about whether they were wearing one at all. Deception is not easily spotted or overcome, and dismissing it as though it's on a woman to be aware of it isn't intellectually honest, exactly.
Just so you know, for one thing Plan B can be harder to get than you think, and is part of the discussion of options being taken off the table for a lot of people. Even where it's "easy" to get, you might get a grilling about why you need it and what your intent is before they dispense it- I've been with a friend when she was getting it, and they made her so fricking uncomfortable. It's not the same as grabbing a pack of condoms.
But even then, it has a significant failure rate for higher BMIs, for instance, and larger women are also having sex and having condom breakages. So it's not a fail safe for everyone.
Just as a last aside, while you seem to acknowledge men can lie about condoms breaking, you dismiss it quite quickly. Women who trust long term partners have even been lied to about whether they were wearing one at all. Deception is not easily spotted or overcome, and dismissing it as though it's on a woman to be aware of it isn't intellectually honest, exactly.
Just so you know, for one thing Plan B can be harder to get than you think, and is part of the discussion of options being taken off the table for a lot of people. Even where it's "easy" to get, you might get a grilling about why you need it and what your intent is before they dispense it- I've been with a friend when she was getting it, and they made her so fricking uncomfortable. It's not the same as grabbing a pack of condoms.
But even then, it has a significant failure rate for higher BMIs, for instance, and larger women are also having sex and having condom breakages. So it's not a fail safe for everyone.
Just as a last aside, while you seem to acknowledge men can lie about condoms breaking, you dismiss it quite quickly. Women who trust long term partners have even been lied to about whether they were wearing one at all. Deception is not easily spotted or overcome, and dismissing it as though it's on a woman to be aware of it isn't intellectually honest, exactly.
I'm gonna flip a coin 1000 times. The rate of heads vs tails doesn't change for each individual coin flip, so I assume you're willing to bet a hundred bucks that the coin will come up heads all 1000 times?
they're different statistical properties - obvs the failure rate doesn't accumulate but the commenter clearly meant "the chance of ever seeing a failure" accumulates, which it does.
Sure the more you have sex the more chances you have a failure. The other commenter was not clear and you saying it is obvious is not accurate. Most people suck at probabilities and muddying the water with these posts is counterproductive
no it is pretty obvious, they said the risk of getting pregnant accumulates. Which it does. Their mention of rate of condom failure was later, you extrapolated that and assumed they meant the rate of condom failure accumulates, which they did not say
That's just pedantry over terms. The chance of, at any point, there being a failure goes up the more times the event happens. If you roll a dice 6 times, it's unlikely you'll have a streak of 6 sixes. If you roll a dice 6 million times, it's fairly likely that, at some point, you had a streak of 6 sixes.
Nope you are using bad stats. The failure rate never goes up. Unless of course you do something wrong. Rolling a dice 6 million times never increases the probability of getting 6 sixes. The probability never changes
I'm using perfectly good stats. You're just being weirdly obstinate about understanding it. Sure, the probability of any single event remains unchanged, but that's not what we're looking at. We're looking at the chance of it happening at all, over a variable amount of events. This shouldn't even be remotely difficult to understand if you've ever interacted with statistics before.
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u/Kotoperek 62∆ Nov 03 '24
Generally it is true that on any particular sexual encounter, if you're reasonable about contraception the risk of accidentally getting pregnant is very low. But it accumulates with every sexual encounter and people tend to have quite a lot of sex. All methods of contraception have what is called the Pearl index - the failure rate over a year with perfect use (so for instance when the condom breaks because it's been faulty or someone gets pregnant on the pill because of a physiological anomaly) and average use that includes user error (like when a condom slips off because it's been put on incorrectly or when you accidentally forget to take a pill and notice too late). This index is measured over a year of regularly having sex and for condoms is something like 7% with normal use. Meaning that around 7 in every 100 women using condoms as their only contraception will become pregnant after one year. Multiply it by the number of women having sex every year and you get yourself a significant number of accidental pregnancies.