Sex may not be an official discipline at the Olympics, but it sure looks like Paris is readying itself for vigorous indoor sports. The Covid-related intimacy ban instigated during the Tokyo Olympics has officially been lifted and a bulk order of contraceptives has been placed. During a recent press conference, the organisers of the 2024 Games said that 200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female condoms and 10,000 dental dams will be made available in the Olympic Village, where 14,500 athletes and staff will be heading in about a week’s time.
In some respects, this is business as usual. For decades, there have been boatloads of free contraceptives at the Olympic Village. The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games broke records, providing 450,000 condoms, including (for the first time) 100,000 female ones. Even the no-sex Tokyo Games featured 160,000 free condoms – with strict instructions for athletes not to use them, but to take them home as souvenirs. (“Hello, Mum and Dad! I had a great time in Toyko! Would you like to see my commemorative condom?”)
The Tokyo Olympics also featured recyclable cardboard beds, which became a meme after social media users speculated that they were “anti-sex beds”. (This was denied by the organisers.)
So, while contraceptives at the Olympic Village aren’t new, I am struck nonetheless by the number of female condoms and dental dams that have been laid on in Paris, largely because I am not sure I have seen a female condom in the wild. In fact – and this may reflect more on me than anything else – until I went down a Paris Olympics rabbit hole, I had no idea that people used the things. (My preferred method of birth control is homosexuality.)
Studies seem to back up the fact that usage of female condoms is not exactly widespread. In the 2006-10 National Survey of Family Growth, only 1.7% of US women aged 15 to 44 reported ever using female condoms. That said, they are more common in some places than others. Brazil and South Africa have higher levels of use than the rest of the world because of distribution campaigns and education about how they help reduce the spread of HIV. Still, they don’t seem popular enough to warrant providing 20,000 units at the Olympics.
As for dental dams, which are marketed mainly at lesbians? There is plenty of evidence that few people use them. One US sex shop chain told the Atlantic in 2019 that it sold fewer than 600 dams a month, across 13 shops and its website. A 2010 study found that among 330 Australian women surveyed who had sex with women, only 2.1% used dental dams often.
What’s going on in Paris? Do the people responsible for procuring polyurethanes and latex know something I don’t? Has there been a worldwide resurgence in dental dams and female condoms?
“In a nutshell, no,” says Dr Sophie King-Hill, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham who specialises in sexual behaviours, when I quiz her on the issue. They are still niche contraceptive methods. This is for a few reasons, including lack of education and the fact that female condoms can be pricey, hard to find and tricky to insert. Use of dental dams is low partly because of mistaken assumptions that STIs can’t be transmitted via oral sex with a woman.
Still, just because these forms of contraception are not widespread doesn’t mean that the organisers of Paris 2024 are misguided. “It is a move in the right direction, as it is implicitly acknowledging the importance of the autonomy of women and their sexual pleasure,” King-Hill says. “Female condoms and dental dams, especially, are linked to the sexual pleasure of a woman – this is something that is still taboo in many places in the world, including the west.”
The organisers of the Paris Olympics seem keenly aware of this. This year’s Games will feature a sexual health campaign that focuses on pleasure and consent as well as safety. So, giggle at the idea of female condoms all you like; the fact they are being promoted at such a big event is positive. Even if there are still a lot of barriers to entry.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
