Reconstituted collagen film from beef tendon.

Reconstituted collagen film from beef tendon.

Condoms don’t seem that bad when you consider the alternative: OVERPOPULATION AND DISEASES. (About 86 million accidental pregnancies and 2.7 million HIV cases, in fact.) But I gueeeess some people with dicks aren’t big fans of condoms. Thankfully, Bill Gates has been listening in on your pillow talk and wants to save the day! Back in March, he and ole Melinders told the world that they would give $100,000 to whoever can create the Condom of the Future: baby-preventing AND sexy-feeling. Yesterday, they announced that they’ve handed out 11 grants, putting more than $1 million towards condom innovation research.

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“The common analogy is that wearing a condom is like taking a shower with a raincoat on,” a doc on Gates’ HIV team told the New Republic. Funny, I’ve never thought before that my sweaty dirt was trying to squirt itself off of my body toward the showerhead, but sure. Lighter, thinner raincoats for all!

Here are a few of the ideas grantees are working on in their raincoat sex labs:

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  • A polyurethane polymer condom that molds itself to a dude’s meatstick when things heat up. “The material also would be thinner — about half as thin as current condoms — and twice as strong,” writes TNR.
  • A cow-tendon condom — specifically, using collagen fibrils from raw beef (apparently it feels really skinlike). This is how your sausage wrapper gets made: with help from a California butcher.
  • A sheer plastic condom that “clings rather than squeezes” and that you pull on like a sock (NSFW).
  • Rapidom, a condom applicator with snap-off pull-tabs so putting on a condom is quick and unfuckupable.

OK, who volunteers to test these?!