My mates say that condoms are dangerous to use, because they break. Are they right?
No. Condoms do break occasionally, but this is unlikely if you handle them gently, and don’t snag them with your fingernails or jewellery. It’s recently become clear that a lot of females who ask for the morning after pill say the condom broke – because they don’t want to admit that they didn’t use one. This has helped to give condoms a false reputation for breaking. Even if one in a thousand condoms breaks, that’s still far, far better than the risks of not using one at all. Is it true that you can’t get pregnant the first time you do it? This is a dangerous myth that has been responsible for a lot of unwanted pregnancies. You can get pregnant the first time you have sex, and it has happened to many, many young women. You might get away with it, because the chance of getting pregnant from a single act of sex is around one in 20. But it really isn’t worth taking the risk. If you’re going to do it, use a reliable method of contraception. A friend has told me that you can’t get pregnant
