10 bizzare things about condoms

By Wesley Kipng'enoh (@wess_kipp)

It's International Condoms day today, well, that is at least according to Aids Healthcare Foundation(AHF).

It is an informal holiday observed in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. Whoever attached this condoms day, to Valentine knew exactly what he was doing.

That notwithstanding, Nerve published an interesting article on bizzare things about condoms that you probably might not know. Among those highlighted include:

1. The world's oldest surviving condom dates back to 1640 and is on display in an Austrian museum. The Swedish condom is made of pig intestine and was said to be soaked in warm milk prior to use to ensure it was disease free.

2. In a research carried out in the U.S, about 87 condoms are used each second on Valentine's Day.  It’s Valentines tomorrow I can only sit and imagine how we are doing in Kenya.

 3. In the 19th century, the German military was the first institution to recommend condoms to its soldiers. During World War I, the United States and Britain were the only countries in Europe who wouldn't provide the rubbers to their men in arms. They learnt it the hard way: There were almost 400,000 documented cases of syphilis and gonorrhea in the U.S. military. Yeah, they had to do something about that, and they did in World War II

4. This may be shocking: A condom can hold up to 4 quarts of liquid, which in our measurement is about 4 liters! So, no, you cannot be too big for a condom to contain it

5. The Danish word for birth control is Svangerskabsforebyggendemiddel. Yeah, it’s tiring to even look at, let alone read it. How do they even whisper such a word?

6. Ireland is one of the most expensive places to buy condoms in, at about Sh 1,600 a packet.  It’s an equal of buying denim jeans in Kenya I guess.

7. The earliest known depiction of a man using a condom is a 12,000-15,000 year-old painting on the wall of a cave in France called Grotte des Combarrelles. So we’v always been really obsessed with documenting everything we touch

8. There is no documented medical reason a person can't use a condom. So you got no excuse to practice unprotected sex.