Condoms 'too big' for Indian men

Friday, December 08, 2006

A survey of more than 1,200 Indian men has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too big for a majority of Indian men.

The two-year study, carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research, found that 60% of the men measured, had penises 3-5 centimetres shorter than the international standards used to manufacture condoms. This has led to a call for various sizes of condoms to be more readily accessable throughout India.

The Indian men used in the study were representative of all of India in terms of urban and rural dwellers, class, and religion.

This issue is a very serious one in India because an estimated 1 in 5 times a condom is used in India, it either tears or falls off, due to improper fit, and India already has the highest number of HIV infections of any nation worldwide.

Most Indians would be too embarrassed to go to the chemist and ask for smaller condoms, (or any condoms at all in many cases), so one recommendation made by the study, calls for condom vending machines to be accessable around the country.

But Indian men should not be concerned about measuring up according to Sunil Mehra, the former editor of the Indian version of the men's magazine Maxim.

"It's not the size, but what you do with it that matters. From our population, the evidence is Indians are doing pretty well." Mehra said. "With apologies to the poet Alexander Pope, you could say, for inches and centimetres, let fools contend."