Condoms are terrible, amiright? They don’t feel good and they don’t even protect people from sexually transmitted diseases. (Oh, wait, never mind about that second one.) One man has been working on a new condom design that would address the sensation problem. He calls his rubber the Galactic Cap and it is truly out of this world.
Charlie Powell has been working on the condom for five years and raised $100,00 through a 2014 Indiegogo campaign. He has updated the design from its first iteration, which some people called a “just-the-tip” condom. Now, the Galactic Cap is made from two-ply medical-grade polyurethane in basically the shape of an elbow Band-Aid with adhesive on one side. MEL Magazine explains it this way:
It’s designed to leave the sensitive skin around the rim of the head and along the shaft exposed, and has a small hole in the bottom layer of plastic that you align with your own hole, so semen can escape into the reservoir between the plies.
You peel off the backing, place the hole over your own hole, then smooth down the rest of the material. Here’s a video describing in detail how to apply and remove it:
This engineering does not come cheap. Galactic Caps are $25 apiece or as low as $15 a pop when you buy ten. But be warned that it’s a non-FDA-approved prototype, as clinical trials to get the FDA stamp could cost as much as $1 million.
Powell’s team tested it with a fleshlight and a literal sex machine constructed at California State University, Long Beach, with a dildo. They found it could hold a bladder’s worth of “simulated” pee before falling off. But the adhesive is vulnerable to lube, so saliva only!
Or you could wear condoms that cost less than a buck each, are FDA-approved, and work with water-based lube.
