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Is Coconut Oil A Safe Lube For Sex?

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While coconut oil is known to have moisturizing properties, it's unclear whether it works well as a personal lubricant. It may also cause skin irritation for some people.

No matter the quality of your sex life, chances are it can be enhanced with a little lubrication.

In a 2015 study, about 30 percent of women reported pain during their most recent sexual encounter. Not only can lube ease some of the vaginal dryness that may cause this discomfort, it can also help increase sensitivity and arousal.

Lube works by decreasing friction in your genitals. This can be helpful if your body doesn't produce enough lubrication due to aging, medications, or hormones.

While there are many different types of lube specifically designed for this purpose, you may consider coconut oil if you want to try something more natural and free of some of the chemicals found in other products.

It's also known for its moisturizing properties, making it an especially appealing lubricant. Read on to learn if it's safe to use coconut oil during sex.

According to a 2014 study, coconut oil is clinically proven for safe and effective use as a moisturizer. Its moisturizing properties may make the product an effective lube and allow for longer-lasting intercourse.

For women going through menopause, coconut oil may be especially helpful. It's common to experience the following symptoms during menopause that may increase the need for lube:

In particular, vaginal atrophy may be combatted with more frequent sex, so it's important to deal with any pain associated with sex.

For those with allergies or sensitive skin, choosing a more natural option like coconut oil, with no added chemicals or toxins, can also make for an appealing lubricant.

You may want to look for unrefined coconut oil, as refined oils are more processed. Unrefined coconut oil doesn't undergo the bleaching process that happens with refined coconut oil.

In spite of these potential benefits, more research is needed to see exactly how using coconut oil as a lube can benefit you or your partner.

There are a few risks associated with the use of coconut oil as lube that you should consider before adding it to your routine.

There aren't any scientific studies about how coconut oil works as a personal lubricant

Many of the claims touting the use of coconut oil as a personal lubricant have yet to be substantiated, so it's important to proceed with caution until further research is done.

It may weaken latex condoms

A 1989 study showed that exposing commercial latex condoms to mineral oil for as little as 60 seconds can decrease their efficacy by as much as 90 percent.

If you're using latex condoms or dental dams, it's important to stick with water-based or silicone-based lubes to stay on the safe side.

It may increase the risk of vaginal infections

Coconut oil has a high pH, making it alkaline, while the normal pH of the vagina is acidic. These properties can disrupt the natural pH balance of your vagina. This upset can cause yeast infections or other vaginal infections.

If you're prone to yeast infections, you may want to stay away from using coconut oil as a lube until further research is conducted.

It can cause an allergic reaction

Though rare, coconut oil can cause an allergic reaction. If you're allergic and ingest coconut oil, it can cause symptoms such as:

It's also possible to have a topical allergic reaction to coconut oil, which will usually result in more mild symptoms, like a skin rash or blistering.

It can stain your sheets

Like many other oil-based lubes, coconut oil may stain your sheets. If you do experience staining, apply baking soda to the area, and let it sit for an hour or so before washing your sheets.

You may be tempted to reach for coconut oil during intimacy, but more research is needed to determine how safe it really is.

In the meantime, there are plenty of tried-and-tested lubes you may consider. See our shopping guide here.

A Little More Love For Latex

There are more than 40,000 types of commercial products that are made from natural rubber latex (NRL), an extract of the Pará rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). Valued for its desirable properties, NRL is used in numerous products in the medical industry, including latex gloves, adhesive bandages, catheters, breather bags, and condoms. However, out of more than 200 proteins contained within NRL, 13 are known to be allergens. The American Latex Allergy Association estimates that 3% of the general population and 17% of healthcare workers exhibit some form of latex allergy, thus hindering the use of such products.

Fortunately, a solution exists for removing the antigenic proteins that can cause such immune responses. It involves the addition of aluminum hydroxide, Al(OH)3, a well-known protein-binding chemical, to NRL while it is still in liquid form. This compound acts as a binding agent to the latex and produces protein complexes that can be removed using existing industry practices. The result is an ultra-low-protein variant of NRL that retains all of the advantages of the material while reducing the exposure of individuals to the allergenic proteins. How is modified NRL made? What makes it superior to traditional untreated NRL? And what advantages does it offer healthcare workers and patients in terms of specific medical applications? These are the questions this article attempts to address.

Manufacturing a Low-Protein Latex

The complex properties of NRL—as well as its availability, ease of production, and performance—allow its use in a broad range of medical applications. In addition, its proven "green" biodegradability often makes it an appropriate choice in an increasingly environmentally conscious society.

Manufacturers have utilized low-protein latexes, combined with improved leaching processes, in an attempt to offer consumers safer latex products. The Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) has even defined safer latex as latex with less than 50 µg/dm2 for total extractable protein and less than 10 µg/dm2 of antigenic protein. Latex products that meet this standard are referred to as "Latex Safe" by AORN. A relatively new form of modified NRL not only contains significantly fewer allergenic and total proteins than previous versions but also has additional benefits that enable manufacturers to offer better products with the modified NRL as a cost-effective ingredient. Each end-product discussed in this article has its own unique compounding additive requirements as determined by its respective manufacturer. The benefits of removing specific nonrubber impurities naturally found in NRL include the production of a more stable, cleaner latex that may require fewer compounding additives such as whiteners and stabilizers during production.

 

Unlike most synthetic alternatives, Al(OH)3–treated NRL uses green chemistry to modify pure latex. The modified NRL derived from the Hevea brasiliensis rubber tree remains 100% natural. As proof, note that bacteria and fungi are capable of degrading NRL;1,2 one elegant experiment has demonstrated that latex balloons degrade equally, if not faster than, oak leaves.3 In contrast, many synthetic alternatives to latex, such as PVC vinyl, styrene, nitrile, choloroprene, and polyurethane, which are made from petrochemical derivatives, are neither biodegradable nor compostable. Incineration of these synthetic products can liberate toxins and carcinogens, such as dioxin, cyanide, vinyl chlorides, and hydrogen chloride.4 Unlike such synthetic alternatives, the modified NRL has minimal impact on the environment.

The treatment process for modified NRL removes specific nonrubber impurities from NRL through the directed application of Al(OH)3. A commonly used absorbent, emulsifier, ion exchanger, and antacid, Al(OH)3 is commonly used in the process of water purification. It forms a jellylike structure suspending any unwanted materials in water, including bacteria.5 Using traditional latex processing methods, a slurry of Al(OH)3 can be strategically added to the pure latex. Protein and other nonrubber impurities from the pure latex emulsion bind to insoluble Al(OH)3, with some of the nonrubber impurities adsorbed to the reactive surface of the Al(OH)3 crystals.6  

With this processing step integrated into the manufacturing stage, there is no added expense of capital equipment. Reacted Al(OH)3 complexes are removed by a combination of filtration and centrifugation. The remaining rubber particles retain the surrounding lipid layer, which, during subsequent maturation, improves the mechanical stability of the latex as higher fatty acids are formed. Notably, scientists have observed that this process yields products that exhibit greater clarity and significantly reduced odor when compared with untreated NRL, in addition to fewer antigenic proteins, without sacrificing the properties that give NRL its advantages over synthetic alternatives. Prior industry efforts have produced low-antigenic-source latex through the treatment of raw latex with enzymes with little commercial success.7 Results from field evaluations suggest that modified NRL offers improved performance characteristics that scientists believe to be a result of the nonrubber impurity removal process, and one that is not part of the enzymatic treatment. These benefits include improved overall stability, color, gel time, pickup (i.E., weight increment or thickness), and air retention.

Advantages over Traditional Untreated NRL

The most prominent products made from NRL are latex-dipped goods that encompass nearly 50% of latex production, e.G., gloves, condoms, balloons, breather bags, and tubing.8 Other items made from latex include foam products (mattresses, pillows, and cushions), adhesives (pressure-sensitive and cold-seal applications and footwear and bandages), and elastic thread (socks, hosiery, and undergarments). Modified NRL can transform those industries that rely on natural rubber latices. The reduction in certain nonrubber constituents in the source material contributes to its greater stability, and therefore longer shelf life, compared with standard NRL. Customer observations reflect the clean appearance and lack of odor in the expansive list of products made from modified NRL.

In addition to having a variety of foam applications, NRL plays a role in the adhesives market. NRL was the first polymer used to produce pressure-sensitive adhesives. NRL sticks to itself, making it ideal for cold-seal adhesives. NRL has several key physical properties that are advantageous when used in pressure-sensitive and contact adhesive formulations. For example, its low glass transition temperature, –70°C (versus –40°C for polychloroprene), and low surface energy enable NRL to effectively flow evenly over surfaces when in liquid form. Additionally, the proteins in NRL can cause an allergic reaction, manifested as sensitized skin. This sensitization may be mitigated with the use of a modified NRL with no detectable carryover of the antigenic proteins that can cause the allergic responses into the end product.9

Significantly, the modified NRL, having an ultralow protein content of 50 µg/g versus 1000 µg/g for untreated NRL as measured in cohesive bandages, has exceptionally high shear stability compared with traditional untreated NRL. Furthermore, gel times can be customized using additives to suit particular application needs. Manufacturers noted positive processing characteristics of the modified NRL in both spray and roll coating applications.

Another advantage to the use of modified NRL is the decreased amount of water and energy required for its manufacture. Within the latex-dipped goods industry, manufacturers have demonstrated increased efficiency by reducing processes such as excessive washing and leaching, which are typically used to remove compounding chemicals and reduce protein levels. This reduction can significantly lower water and energy consumption, and simultaneously reduce the presence of harmful leachates such as zinc and other potential contaminants in waste water. The overall environmental impact is minimized, resulting in increased production cost savings. Modified NRL is slightly more expensive than traditional untreated NRL, with a 25% premium on average. It is priced comparably to, and in many cases less expensively than nitrile, chloroprene, polyisoprene, and other synthetic alternative materials, and provides significant cost value when compared with other synthetic latices.

Raw, natural latex is a liquid. When dried and cured, the film dries semitransparent yellow. Manufacturers can add whitening agents, such as titanium dioxide or calcium carbonate, to express whiteness in the finished product or to provide a white background for which color pigments can be used. Although it is a common alternative, the use of titanium dioxide can be more expensive. Because the modified NRL is characteristically white in appearance, its use reduces the amount and cost of whitening agents.

Collectively, these results suggest that manufacturers can achieve savings in energy and material costs when using modified NRL. Further, decreased pigmenting is an added cost benefit for such dipped good industries as breather bags and rubber tubings. Additionally, the use of modified NRL decreases the costs of compounding chemicals as well as rinsing and leaching for gloves and foam. It also decreases the costs of spraying for adhesives as well as those of compounding and pigmenting chemicals, dipping, and rinsing and leaching for balloons. 

Manufacturers interested in advances in latex technology may find modified NRL intriguing. Natural products that minimize the environmental effect while maximizing economic, health, and safety benefits are critical to the sustainability of the latex industry. This need is addressed by commercializing the process of modifying NRL while enhancing its attributes and performance. Preliminary studies of the process of using Al(OH)3 indicate that it may eliminate up to 95% of proteins and other nonrubber composition in latex. If confirmed by further research, use of Al(OH)3 would allow manufacturers to offer notably safer pigmented products. Additional benefits worth gauging in further detail include modified NRL's gas and air retention and drying time.   

Preliminary studies indicate that foam made with modified latex may emit significantly less odor and be much whiter in appearance compared with foam made from standard latex. An increased stability of modified latex would give foam manufacturers the ability to increase their use of a natural product whose environmental advantages would tie into a growing global initiative for green products. Latex-dipped goods manufacturers, who traditionally are users of large amounts of water and energy required to achieve acceptable protein levels, would benefit from using modified latex, if it is confirmed that the latex modification process results in an ultra-low-protein product. Additionally, the modified latex compound requires fewer additives such as stabilizers and whitening agents, both of which are traditionally used in the latex modification process in preparation for end-product manufacturing. 

The use of modified latex represents an interesting potential alternative for manufacturers that are currently using traditional untreated latex across a broad scope of industries, including medical manufacturing industries. If the material in fact possesses the performance benefits attributed to it, it would offer a unique value proposition to manufacturers, allowing them to capitalize on its green advantages while addressing health and safety concerns. Production cost-saving opportunities using modified latex could make this a sensible material of choice for future generations. Balancing material acquisition and production costs, manufacturers could quantify the true cost savings of Al(OH)3–treated NRL.

Surgical and Examination Gloves

The rise of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s highlighted the widespread use of latex gloves to protect against infection. But for many healthcare professionals, the increased exposure to latex led to allergic reactions. Symptoms ranged from watery and itchy eyes to red and irritated skin to trouble breathing and even life-threatening anaphylaxis. Healthcare professionals developed dangerous latex allergies that, in some cases, limited or ended their care-providing careers. Latex gloves were also negatively perceived because of the powder associated with the gloves that left residue on users' hands and caused skin irritation.

It must be stressed that NRL gloves are known for their strength, thinness, and tactile sensitivity. As such, they have been, and still are, widely used—particularly in healthcare settings where effective barrier protection is of great importance against viral transmission and infectious diseases. With the exception of vinyl or PVC gloves, which have been shown to provide lesser barrier protection, NRL gloves are generally less expensive than many synthetic alternatives, such as polyisoprene, polychloroprene, and often nitrile.

As outlined above, there appears to be a need for a safer, modified NRL in the surgical and examination glove market that contains less than 50 µg/dm2 of total protein considered "Latex Safe" by AORN, but that retains the barrier protection and tactile sensitivity of latex. Both exam and surgical gloves in manufacturer trials contained significantly fewer proteins than untreated control gloves. These results indicate that glove manufacturers using the modified NRL as their raw feedstock could adhere to ASTM glove protein compliance levels with only "pre-leaching" with Al(OH)3–modified NRL. While mitigating immune responses that can result from the antigenic proteins, such gloves would preserve the durability, comfort, fit, tactile sensitivity, and high resistance to puncture and tear for which NRL is known. One major U.S. Healthcare company has received 510(k) clearance for an exam glove made from modified NRL, and others are expected to follow suit. 

Adhesive Bandages, Catheters, and Condoms

Latex gloves represent just one of several potential markets for modified NRL within the healthcare arena. A second notable potential application is adhesive bandages. Many cohesive medical bandages use NRL as an adhesive; however, if the standard NRL is not modified, it can once again pose a potential risk of provoking a sensitive skin reaction. Bandages produced with a modified NRL–formulated adhesive have in preliminary tests shown a 95% reduction in the protein content than bandages made with adhesive containing standard NRL. A combination of greatly reduced protein, improved processing, and effective adhesion could make the modified NRL a prominent candidate for the next generation of NRL adhesives.    

 Certain catheters, including urinary catheters, use NRL. All such products that routinely directly or indirectly come into contact with mucosa, nonintact skin, and internal bodily spaces (including catheters) may trigger complications. Therefore, they represent another potential target for modified NRL manufacturers. Anesthesiologists who handle breather bags made of latex may also experience allergic symptoms and thus this equipment is also a likely market.Finally, some individuals who suffer from latex allergies have exhibited irritation associated with traditional untreated latex condoms. A major healthcare company has recently introduced a new condom made with modified NRL that, according to some tests, retains all the positive qualities of the traditional untreated latex variety, including barrier protection, tensile strength, tactile sensitivity, elasticity, comfort, and fit, and includes the only label claim cleared by FDA of less than 2 µg/dm2 of antigenic protein. This in fact is the first modified NRL product available to consumers.

Conclusion

The development of modified NRL has the potential to pave the way for a new era in the use of latex products in the healthcare arena. As production of this material is ramped up in coming years, and if its safety is independently analyzed and confirmed, it is reasonable to expect that hospitals and other facilities will find it a welcome alternative to traditional untreated NRL as it already meets AORN's "Latex Safe" standard. Both patients and their caregivers who are prone to latex allergies may find a new class of products at their disposal that can aid in the healing process while mitigating the immune responses that could result from traditional untreated NRL proteins.   

References

1.    A Ikram, "Environmental Degradation of Natural Rubber Gloves," Malaysian Rubber Board, Monograph No. 2 (1999): 1–20.2.    DK Burchette, "A Study of the Effect of Balloon Releases on the Environment," National Association of Balloon Artists (1989); available from Internet: www.Hi-float.Com/biodegradeablility.Pdf.3.    "Balloon Facts," The Balloon Council; available from Internet: www.Balloonhq.Com/BalloonCouncil/facts.Html.4.    MD Moriss, "Health Considerations of Synthetic Alternative to Natural Rubber Latex," Journal of Natural Rubber Research 9, no. 2 (1994): 121.5.    HF Holtzclaw, WR Robinson, and WH Nebergall, General Chemistry, 7th edition (Washington D.C.: Heath and Co., 1984): 884–885.6.    M Swanson et al., "Vytex Natural Rubber Latex: An Innovative Source Material for Natural Rubber Products," available from Internet: www.Vytex.Com/technicalpapers.Aspx?Id1=2&id2=2&pageid=M19.7.    S Nakade et al., "Highly Purified Natural Rubber. Preparation and Characteristics of Gloves and Condoms," Journal of Natural Rubber Research 12, no. 1 (1997): 33–42.8.    L Casarett and C Klassen, Casarett and Doull's Toxicology: The Basic Science of Poisons, 6th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001): 540.9.    K Cornish et al., "ASTM D1076 Category 4 Latex and Quantifying Guayule (NRG) and Hevea (NR) Latex Protein," in Proceedings of the International Latex Conference (Charlotte, NC: Rubber & Plastics News, 2006), 246–261.

William R. Doyle is president and CEO of Vystar Corp. (Duluth, GA).

'People Are Like, Wow!': The Man Trying To Make Condoms Sexy

It is important to Ben Wilson, the man in charge of the condom brand Durex, that he chews the condoms he sells. He likes to consider their flavour, to know the sensory experience of a customer engaged in oral sex, and to think about how it could be bettered. He makes other people sample them, too. In a car on the way to the Durex condom factory on the outskirts of Bangkok, as traffic vibrated in the heat along the highway, he told me with pride about the time he had laid out rows of bananas and condoms for a gathering of senior executives at Reckitt, Durex's parent company. "I said: 'If you want to work on condoms you need to put a condom on that banana and taste it.'"

Freshly promoted, Wilson is Reckitt's global category director for intimate wellness, overseeing all the company's sex-related products, including Durex condoms, lubes and toys. Sandy-haired, rosy-cheeked, nearing 50, Wilson has a kind of renegade energy, consciously uncorporate. He spikes his hair, never wears a suit and zones out to DJs Paul van Dyk and David Guetta while travelling. To prepare for his fortnightly DJ lessons, he is at his decks for up to 12 hours a week in a specially designated room in his house on the south coast of England, where he lives with his wife and two children. (Wilson's retirement plan is fully formed: a second home in Ibiza, already bought. He would die happy, he told me, if he could play a set at the EDM festival Tomorrowland.)

In conversation, Wilson doesn't even slightly adjust his upbeat tone when discussing the problems of anal lubrication. He's spent most of his professional life talking about sex. He started out at Johnson & Johnson in the 90s, working on K-Y, then moved to Reckitt in 2007, headed up Durex in China for eight years, became the brand's head of innovation and now finds himself perched at the top of the intimate wellness ladder. Over his career, he's noticed how the conversation around sex has changed. At Johnson & Johnson, he recalled standing up in front of an all-male sales force and being met by nervous laughter. Now, he said, there is an openness in talking about sex, "right up to the CEO". Early in our visit to the Durex factory, he warned me that we would be discussing sex often and candidly: "I hope you don't mind."

Wilson's immersion in Durex is total. He's been offered other jobs at Reckitt, which also owns Strepsils, Gaviscon, Nurofen and Dettol, but he's always turned them down. Condoms mean more to him than Strepsils ever could. In his spare time, he scours eBay for vintage condoms. He recently paid £2 for a specimen from the 1970s that had been discovered in a binoculars case in a charity shop. (He would not recommend using it: "It would be like putting on a 50-year-old sock.") With the heroic participation of his wife, he tries out all kinds of condoms and lubes – his favourite is strawberry – as well as alternative forms of contraception to compare. (The experiment with the non-Durex female condom, a sort of bag attached to a ring that is inserted into the vagina, was not a success.) At dinner parties, he likes to share titbits from the Durex sex survey, a research project the brand conducts every few years, exploring global sexual habits. Russians, for example, are the world leaders in anal bleaching. "People are like, 'Wow!'"

Not long ago, in one of his regular archive trawls, Wilson found an old Durex press release from 1976, defending the brand's sponsorship of a Formula One team, which caused the BBC to pull the broadcast of a race. Durex went into sport, the release explained, to destigmatise and modernise condoms: "We'd like to be seen in the human happiness business." Wilson describes his mission similarly. He wants to "normalise" the brand: to make the use of sex products open and universal. He also fervently believes that each of the nearly 3bn Durex condoms sold (and hopefully worn) every year is doing good. After all, as he often reminded me, the condom is the only form of protection that prevents unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, which are generally on the rise. (The US reported a 32% rise in syphilis infections from 2020 to 2021, and in 2022 England recorded the highest level of syphilis in 75 years and a 50% rise in gonorrhoea diagnoses.)

At the same time, according to population surveys, condom use has been declining in recent years. The pandemic didn't help: people had less casual sex. Even in 2022, Reckitt reported "weaker demand" for intimate wellness products in China due to ongoing lockdowns. According to a BMJ Global Health report, access to sexual health services also fell globally, and then there's the ongoing competition, in the form of other types of contraception, the coil and pill, and alternative STI protection such as the HIV-prevention medication, PrEP. According to a US government survey, the percentage of high-schoolers who said they used a condom the last time they had sex fell from 63% in 2003 to 54% in 2019.

The central challenge of Wilson's professional life is that condoms remain a tough sell: an article in the Harvard Business Review, The Marketing of "Unmentionables", once declared that the condom shared "marketing characteristics with napalm, drugs for terminal illnesses and funeral arranging". People don't want to talk about them. Worse, as Wilson put it: "No one wants to use a condom." They interrupt the moment; they get in the way. People loathe the things. It's not hard to understand why. For centuries, condoms were made from the lining of sheep guts, and there is still something distinctly intestinal about the condom now. Open the foil packet and you discover a gelatinous membrane, an object that seems to ooze, as if it might have been recently alive or only just been born, a large yellowish grub that should have been left alone to germinate into something more beautiful. Martin Amis once called it "a greased wafer". And that's before you even reach the hurdle of getting the thing on, or "donning", as they call it in the trade. Amis: "You seem to need three hands."

Donning, a five-second task that can seem to take an eternity, is a delicate act, easily bungled. For Wilson, perfecting that five-second window – making it not just easy but an enjoyable part of what those working in intimate wellness insist on calling "the sex occasion" – is the key to encouraging more people to use condoms. His challenge is to convince people, in whatever way possible, that condoms are about pleasure as much as protection. He has a way to go. It is difficult, in the presence of the crumpled ick of a condom, to find anything appealing about it apart from what it represents, which is a barrier between you and a baby you don't want, or a disease. And yet that is precisely Wilson's task: to make sexy the most unsexy item imaginable.

On a recent morning in a beige monolith on an A-road in Slough, Wilson gave a presentation on the history of Durex to a team of European Reckitt executives. Surrounded by pressed jackets and polished shoes, Wilson wore blue jeans and luminous yellow trainers. He delivered the presentation – one of his favourites, cut down from the usual virtuosic two hours to a mere 30 minutes – with the bouncing energy of a children's entertainer equipped with a box of tricks: a golden box containing a 1940s Durex reusable condom, a tiny model of the Durex-sponsored Formula One car and a 90s Durex keyring ("Don't be silly, cover that willy").

The history of the condom is really a history of gradually diminishing pain. Rubber condoms started replacing sheep's guts from around 1855, after Charles Goodyear (of the tyres) had discovered the process of vulcanisation, when rubber is heated to make it more malleable. In 1877, mass production began of "vulcanised crepe rubber sheaths", as Jessica Borge unappetisingly describes them in her history of condom manufacturing, Protective Practices. The earliest rubber condoms were impressively awful, made from sheets of latex rolled around a mandrel (a large tube) and then stitched together, creating a seam that must have been agonising for "user and receiver", as Wilson sometimes calls people having sex.

By the end of the 19th century, condoms were being made by "cement-dipping", a process where the mandrel was dipped into rubber heated with petrol solvent. This got rid of the seam, but the factories occasionally blew up due to the petrol, and the resulting condom was thick, heavy and designed to be reused. During his presentation, Wilson brought out his 1940s specimen, bought on eBay for £300. Inside was a brown rubber sheath, as thick as a verruca sock, and a set of instructions: after use the condom should be washed and then dusted with "French chalk", whose dry residue you imagine had a certain chafing effect on any genitalia that encountered it.

A promotional Durex keyring from 1992. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

The brand Durex was registered in 1929 by brothers Lionel and Elkan Jackson, founders of the London Rubber Company. Durex – standing for durability, reliability and excellence – used new latex-dipping technology developed by a 17-year-old Polish immigrant, Lucian Landau, who had studied rubber at the Polytechnic of North London. The Jacksons had previously been selling imported condoms out of a tea chest in their hairdresser-tobacconist shop on Aldersgate Street (the barbershop was apparently the birthplace of the phrase: "Something for the weekend, sir?"). By 1952, London Rubber reported a 95% market share for condoms. (The company was later investigated three times by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.) With the 1957 introduction of the "Gossamer" condom – the first to be pre-lubricated – consumers discovered that using a condom didn't have to be appalling. Durex Gossamer soon made up 70% of the business. After that, London Rubber began to expand globally, becoming London International, before it was taken over first by SSL International, then Reckitt Benckiser in 2010.

Now, Durex occupies about 40% of the global condom market – a market worth an estimated $4.6bn. It is the leading brand in Europe and much of Asia, including China. A handful of other brands have a significant presence in certain regions, such as Okamoto in Japan, Skyn in the US and parts of Europe, and Trojan in the US. (The latter is not the only testosterone-fuelled name of Durex's rivals: there is also Jissbon in China, apparently a phonetic rendering of James Bond, and Manforce in India). Despite Durex's pre-eminence, however, there remains the significant problem of all those people having sex who will do anything not to buy or use condoms.

Wilson isn't easily deterred. When he moved to China in 2010, Durex had a negligible presence. He had to figure out how to sell condoms in a place where you couldn't mention them on TV or in print. Initially, this involved finding out how the Chinese had sex. Mutual pleasure and technique, he told me, were both important (which you would hope might apply anywhere), as was Japanese porn, because of the lack of a porn industry in China. Due diligence complete, Wilson got creative. "We did some crazy shit," as he put it, including putting a condom in space, and roping in a blogger couple to travel around China and trade sex toys for food and accommodation. (Wilson loves telling his marketing coups, like the time he launched a World Aids Day campaign called Give a Fuck. "A lot of people who said we shouldn't do it," he told me, "but I was in charge at the time, so we did it.")

The challenge in China was an extreme version of the one he still faces: how to make condoms something people want. In the Reckitt meeting room, Wilson framed the task in terms of cultural relevance. He harked back to Durex in the 90s when it partnered with MTV, ran a magazine advert of men dressed as sperm holding guns to their heads ("for an incredible bang"), and launched its first website in 1996, just a year after Amazon and Coca-Cola, and only a couple of years after Apple. "That's the sort of mindset we need in terms of digital innovation," he declared. "We have to be up there with the likes of Apple."

Durex, after all, can claim a certain global stature. Thanks to the sex survey, they know more about the world's sexual habits than anyone. The survey is not made public – "it's a goldmine" – but Wilson let me peek at a couple of slides. Who's having the most sex? Colombians and Indonesians (86% of respondents said they had it once a week). And the least? The Japanese (26%). Wilson proudly recalled the time he'd told a conference in Thailand about the anal sex habits of different countries. As he put it: "There's not a lot of people who go around collecting anal sex data in the world."

Armed with such data, Wilson's ambition, alongside making the condom sexy, is "category penetration". (Innuendo is never far away.) That is, to make condoms available where they've never been before. Back in the 90s, Durex convinced Cardiff city council to let it put a vending machine in the central bus station. (Wilson, inevitably, has a massive 70s condom vending machine in his home office; his wife despairs.) Now, Durex runs sex education programmes in schools in India and South Africa. In Italy, it has worked with regulators to soften the rules around advertising. Still, it's not enough; it's never enough. To his mind, it should be possible to find a Durex condom in stores in every corner of Earth, its cellophane-wrapped packet as reassuringly familiar as a can of Coke.

Condoms are like wine. It is one of Wilson's many maxims. Most Durex condoms are made from "natural rubber latex" extracted from rubber trees, mostly in Thailand, the world's largest producer of rubber. As with wine, the quality of the latex is affected by the terroir: the climate and soil conditions. A few hours south of Bangkok, in the wooded, rural region of Surat Thani, we visited the vineyard equivalents: rubber plantations where latex, a milky sap, is extracted in the darkest hours of the night, when it flows most freely.

Pre-dawn, birds screeching and farm dogs at our heels, a crescent moon bright above, I watched a farmer, Nittaya Kongsri, make her way from tree to tree, planted in long straight rows. At every tree, Kongsri carefully cut a foot-long ribbon of bark away from the trunk with a curved knife, as if paring a strip of skin from an apple. Immediately, the creamy fluid began to flow down the newly cut channel and into a small black bucket hanging below. It is called rubber-tapping, this process, but it looked more like the tree was being bled in a medieval ritual, each drop of white the fundamental ingredient for a condom.

Once the tapping is complete, vats of latex are loaded into a motorbike sidecar, taken to a nearby collection centre and weighed. A sample of the liquid latex is put in a microwave to dry out the water it contains, leaving behind a small strip of dry latex. By working out the proportion of "dry rubber content" in the sample, the manager of the collection centre can calculate how much the farmer should be paid for the full quantity of latex he has brought in the vats. On this occasion it was 42 bhat (94p) per kg of dry rubber – not enough, said the farmers I met, many of whom are in debt. (In collaboration with an NGO, Earthworm, Reckitt pays the farmers a premium of €0.50 (43p) per kilo on top of the fluctuating collection centre price, and supports their efforts to introduce modern agronomy techniques, such as crop diversification.)

The raw latex is then taken by lorry to the Durex factory in Bang Pakong, an industrial suburb east of Bangkok. As we pulled up outside the row of hulking white buildings, palm trees waving, Wilson warned me against taking photos. The technology inside was proprietary. "Mike would kill me," he said. On cue, site director Mike Evans emerged in a pink Reckitt polo shirt, exuding the kind of house-pride of someone who had just upgraded their real estate. "This is one of the biggest factories in the company," he told me. "One of the best."

Durex condoms being made in a factory in Bang Pakong, Thailand. Photograph: Durex/ReckittBPK

Around half the world's Durex condoms are made at this factory, built in the early 90s, once condom manufacturing left the UK for good. A billion a year, shipped all over the globe. (The other half are made in China, mostly for the Chinese market.) A workforce of 1,000 people is spread among research and development, a testing laboratory and production lines capable of operating 24 hours a day and spitting out more than 200,000 condoms in an hour.

The first stop was the tanks: 51 vast cylinders into which raw latex is pumped and then combined with other ingredients. "It's like KFC," said Evans. "There's a secret recipe." After a week of mixing, the compound is then piped to the automated production line. Evans, I sensed, was excited to open the door to the factory's piece de resistance: a large room containing colossal machines the length of blue whales, which operate night and day, shuttling a procession of glass "formers" – essentially overlarge glass penises – along the line to be dipped into the latex mixture below. As the former slowly rises out of the latex, a thin layer of white remains on the glass: the first iteration of the condom. The formers then whirl over a low metal barrier like a row of cabaret dancers' legs, rise into an upper chamber to be dried, and are then lowered, dipped and dried again. The whole cycle takes about 15 minutes, before the condom is rolled off the former and sent to be washed in a giant laundry machine.

Given the safety standards required of condoms, the testing regime is elaborate. The thing has to work, and fundamentally, "it's about a penis going into a hole," said Wilson, "where there's quite a lot of force and friction." The condom has to be able to withstand the most vigorous sex, having survived a six-week journey on a shipping container from Thailand, a five-year shelf life in all possible climates, and the likelihood of being stuffed into the back of a sock drawer for an indefinite period of time.

In the research and development laboratory, run by Panadda Katikawong, a sample of 200,000 condoms a year are checked to ensure they meet regulatory standards for length and thickness, softness (known as "modulus"), burst pressure and strength. Katikawong demonstrated the test, inflating a trio of condoms – latex and non-latex – in a row of glass cases. The condoms filled with air, passed the prize-winning marrow stage and turned into something resembling a missile before they eventually burst in a thunderclap. A tensile machine nearby then demonstrated how far it was possible to stretch a condom before it ripped. (They are all unlikely somehow, these tests, it being hard to imagine what "sex occasion" could involve either inflating a condom or elongating one until it snaps.)

To avoid the doomsday scenario of a hole in a condom, meanwhile, requires the testing of every single condom destined to leave the factory. One pinprick and you've got an unwanted pregnancy and a fundamental failure of the brand. After washing, the condoms are taken upstairs to a large room where dozens of women sit in front of testing machines made up of a circle of rotating metal mandrels. Their task was a little like playing the piano, involving both hands working independently while they kept their gaze fixed on the mandrel in front of them. One hand would sort and pluck a condom from a pile on the table while the other, in a rapid wrist-flick, unrolled a condom on to the mandrel. An electric pad then touched the condom while a current passed through the mandrel: if it short circuited, it meant there was a hole and the condom was rejected. The rotation happened so fast, however, that the condom-donning seemed to occur in a kind of rhythmic blur. In one 10.5-hour shift, one worker will test more than 22,000 condoms. I wondered why there were only women in the room, given the task involved. "Dexterity," said Evans. "We've had guys come in to do it, but women are better."

Back on its journey, the hole-free condom is rolled up, lubricated, closed into its foil case, joined into a pair, then packed into a box – Surprise Me, Pleasure Me, Invisible Extra Sensitive, Intense Ribbed and Dotted, Mutual Climax and so on. Even the packaging has to be tested. In a small room containing what looked like a series of mechanical torture instruments, sample packs of condoms are dropped and exposed to heat and vibration, to simulate the conditions of ocean-crossings and lorry journeys. "This one's a simple squasher," said Wilson, pointing to a machine that crushes the box, a re-enactment of the chaos that might befall it on a pallet. If a condom can survive all that, you'd think it could survive anything. But then, it hasn't met a human yet.

In isolation, said Christian Fiala, gynaecologist and founder of Vienna's Museum of Contraception and Abortion, a condom is like a motorbike – well-designed and perfectly safe. Accidents happen when someone goes for a ride. Friends have told me stories of mishandled condoms breaking during sex, or, in their misguided youth, trying to use the same condom twice. One, still aghast 20 years later, recalled the time he discovered on withdrawal that the condom had disappeared, presumably lost somewhere inside his girlfriend. "There is nothing worse," he said solemnly, "than taking your dick out and finding there's no condom on there."

Stories like this drive Wilson crazy. You have to get the fit right! But people make mistakes. During a discussion of ways to make condoms cool, I mentioned men ripping open the foil packet with their teeth. "Never do it with your teeth!" said Wilson, with a well-worn frustration that suggests he often hears about such wayward behaviours.

Even getting condom-donning right can involve a fairly sobering dose of logistics (well demonstrated by Claes Bang in Ruben Östlund's film, The Square, who takes agonising minutes putting one on under the impatient gaze of Elisabeth Moss). It's this inglorious wrangle that most preoccupies Wilson. The five-second donning window needs to be, as he put it, a "multi-sensorial experience". The condom has to smell good, taste good, feel good. "It needs to be sexy to put on, part of the foreplay," he said, "like having a tickling feather or a spanking paddle."

The condom as tickling feather might still be a remote concept, but over the years, there have been many attempts at re-invention. In 2006, a German entrepreneur launched a spray-on condom, but was stopped short by EU regulation – and the fact it took two moment-ruining minutes to dry on the penis. In 2012, US inventors came up with a product called the Galactic Cap, intended to cover the tip of the penis, leaving the shaft exposed to improve sensation. (It is still not approved by the FDA, though ships internationally.)

'Even getting condom-donning right can involve a fairly sobering dose of logistics.' Photograph: Roman Merzinger/Getty Images/Westend61

In 2013, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded 11 new condom design projects $100,000 to help bring their product to market. But the figure wasn't realistic. One of the funded designers, Mark McGlothlin, came up with a plan to make condoms from the collagen found in bovine tendons to replicate the feeling of actual skin. Two years later, he told reporters that the project had stalled as it required more than $1m just to get through FDA approval. The Gates Foundation is now concentrating its contraceptive funding in developing countries on methods designed for women, such as a once-a-month pill or six-monthly injection. Women, they discovered, "want options they can control themselves".

In the UK, meanwhile, startups such as Hanx and Roam are trying to dent Durex's dominance. As Alex Griffiths of Roam put it, "there has been almost zero innovation" in condom production for decades. (Wilson would object, but Griffiths is not far wrong: the rising and falling mandrels I saw in Thailand in 2023 looked extraordinarily similar to a photograph of a production line in 1949.) But the startups' efforts to reimagine the form have mostly equated to alterations in packaging. Hanx, founded in 2017 by two women tired of male-centric marketing, packs its condoms in elegant white-and-gold foil and claim an ingredient mix that is more sensitive to women's bodies. Roam, meanwhile, recently launched a new range of "skin tone" condoms in four colour shades to cater to a diverse