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Male condoms come in all types of fun shapes and sizes and flavors. Some even glow-in-the-dark.
男用避孕套有各种各样有趣的造型、尺寸和味道，甚至连夜光的都有。
There are hundreds of male condoms that have been approved by the FDA. Amazon alone has 76 pages full of different options.
通过美国食品及药物管理局（简称“FDA”）认证的男用避孕套就有好几百种。亚马逊上各种各样的男用避孕套信息也多达76页。
But how many types of female condoms are available in the US? Turns out, just one.
然而美国有几种女士避孕套呢？答案是，只有一种。
A female condom is the only woman-initiated method of preventing unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections.
女士避孕套是女性自主防止意外怀孕和性传播感染疾病的唯一途径。
It's a sheath with two rings, one open one closed, that can be used for vaginal or anal sex.
这种避孕套一端开口一端封闭，可用于常规的为爱鼓掌或后庭。
Typically it's almost as effective as a male condom and it can be inserted up to eight hours before having sex.
这种避孕套的避孕效果通常和男用避孕套不相上下，甚至可以在事前八小时配带。
So, you don't have to stop in the heat of the moment to fumble with a clumsy condom wrapper.
这样一来，大家就不用在热火朝天的时候为撕避孕套包装袋出洋相了。
Despite being effective and convenient, only a small percent of women in the US have reportedly ever even used a female condom.
据报道，尽管女士避孕套实用又方便，仍然只有少数美国女性使用过这种避孕套。
Why aren't more women using this thing? We decided to find out.
为什么这么少？我们决定一探究竟。
So I enlisted Dion to help me scour the neighborhood to find one.
所以我拉了迪昂来帮我去附近社区找一个。
Can you just put a wig on and you can do it? Do you guys have female condoms? Do you guys have female condoms?
戴个假发你自己就可以去问啊 请问这里有女士避孕套吗？麻烦问一下你们这里有卖女士避孕套吗？
They don't have it.
都没有。
Even though we ended up getting brownie snacks out of the whole thing, not a single store that we went to sold female condoms.
尽管我们辛苦半天只买到了巧克力饼干，就是没有一家店卖女士避孕套的。
I don't even have to leave my office lobby to buy male condoms.
而我连公司门都不用出就能买到男用避孕套。
After doing a little research I found out why it was impossible to find a female condom.
在做了一个小小的调查之后，我终于知道为什么买不到女士避孕套了。
It turns out you can't buy them in a store. Well, that sucks. Yep.
原来商店里是不卖女士避孕套的。好吧，好扫兴噢。没错。
Veru Inc., formerly known as the Female Health Company, is the only company with a female condom on the market in the US.
Veru公司，也就是之前的女性健康公司，就是美国唯一卖女士避孕套的那个公司。
And they switched to a prescription based system in 2017.
他们在2017年转型专做处方药了，
So if you want to get one, you either have to go see your doctor or buy it directly from their website.
所以，如果你想买女士避孕套，你要么让医生给你开方子，要么直接去他们官网买。
Imagine if a man needed prescriptions to buy condoms.
试想一下，要是男人们买个避孕套都得开处方……
Female condoms aren't new.
女士避孕套并不是什么新鲜事物。
A Danish inventor created a prototype in the early 1980s, in response to the AIDS crisis at the time.
早在八十年代早期，为了应对当时的艾滋病危机，一名丹麦发明家就发明了原始安全套。
In 1993 the Female Health Company brought the design to the US,
1993年，女性健康公司将这一设计引入了美国，
and their first FDA-approved version was unimaginatively called the FC1.
他们首款通过FDA认证的安全套有个缺乏想象力的名字：“FC一代” 。
It was made of polyurethane plastic, which was less flexible than latex.
其材料为聚氨酯塑料，弹性也不如乳胶。
Some women reported that it was uncomfortable, made squeaky noises
一些女性称使用感不理想，还会发出声音。
and, because there was little awareness around proper use, it sometimes fell out during sex.
因为大家对正确佩戴安全套的意识也比较薄弱，使用时还有脱落的情况。
The media also ridiculed it, comparing its appearance to a jellyfish, a windsock, and a plastic bag.
媒体对这种安全套也是极尽挖苦讽刺之能事，将其外形比喻成水母、风向袋或塑料袋。
In 2009 the company came up with a second version, the FC2, made with a softer rubber.
2009年，该公司推出了第二款女士安全套，“FC二代”，材质使用的是更为柔软的橡胶。
It was more comfortable and quieter, but it still didn't take off.
第二款虽然佩戴更舒适也没了噪音，其销量仍然十分惨淡。
Male condoms certainly have been around for a lot longer and are more accessible
男用避孕套的确更悠久也更容易买到，
and people, frankly, are much more comfortable with the things that they know.
而且说实话，比起新产品，人们还是对他们了解的东西更放心。
This is Dawn Bingham, an ob-gyn and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.
这位是妇产科医生道恩·宾汉，她也是生殖健康医生协会的会员。
And I think that the female condom has not grown in popularity as the male condom has, because it's very easy to educate people about male condoms.
在我看来，女士避孕套之所以不如男用避孕套受欢迎，部分原因在于男士避孕套方面的教育更容易。
You can let the people know how to use a prop, using a banana to show how simple it is to put on a male condom
只要有一根香蕉就能教大家怎么使用道具，怎么佩戴男用避孕套，
and we don't have the same accessible models for female condom to make people that comfortable.
但在教大家使用女士避孕套时我们就没有类似的并且不会引起大家反感的道具。
According to a report in the Journal of Urban Health, the tampon had similar challenges when it was first introduced in the 1930s.
据《城市健康》杂志透露，上个世纪三十年代卫生棉条刚面世的时候也遇到了同样的难题。
In the first decade on the market, the tampon was only used by 4 to 6% of women and doctors questioned its safety and usefulness.
在棉条刚上市的头十年，用户比例只有4%到6%，甚至连医生也怀疑其安全性和实用性。
It took decades and carefully planned marketing campaigns to reach even modest popularity among women.
棉条能普及到现在这种勉强还行的程度也是花了几十年的时间，还有为此精心筹划的推广活动。
Female condoms had a similar trajectory in Zimbabwe.
女士避孕套在津巴布韦的普及也经历了类似的过程。
After health organizations campaigned for the condom as a successful barrier against HIV, the government introduced it in 1997.
卫生部门声称这种避孕套能够有效防止艾滋病感染，津巴布韦政府也在1997年正式引入了这种避孕套。
To boost popularity they were marketed across universities, pharmacies, and even hair salons.
为了推广，大学、药房，甚至理发店都有出售女士避孕套。
Which eventually led to high usage rates and a decline in HIV cases.
最终才提高了女士安全套的使用率，降低了艾滋病感染的几率。
These kind of contraceptive and STI prevention methods are useful, because they empower the woman or whoever the receptive partner is to protect themselves.
这些避孕方式以及预防性传播感染的方式都能够很好地帮助女性或者任何使用的人群保护自己。
And they're simple to use.
用起来也很简单。
But there still isn't enough awareness around female condoms in the US yet.
但美国人民对女士避孕套的重视程度还不够。
The FDA put the female condom in the most strictly regulated category of medical devices,
FDA将女士避孕套纳入限制最严的药品之列，
which requires hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra research and takes a ton of time for market approval.
这就意味着要额外投入数十万美元进行研究测试，还需要大把的时间获得市场的认可。
But the FDA is now considering reclassifying the female condom and renaming it the "single-use internal condom";.
但FDA已经在考虑重新给女士避孕套归类，并将其重新命名为“一次性内置避孕套”，
This would ease restrictions on companies and let people know they're actually not just for women.
这就放宽了对企业销售女士避孕套的限制，让大家了解到这种避孕套不仅仅适用于女性。
Sure, male condoms work but that doesn't mean they should be the only accessible choice for everyone.
诚然，男用避孕套是很管用，但这并不意味着男用避孕套就是所有人唯一的选择。
