Female condoms haven't really caught on in the US--- or in any country for that matter. Often, the male condom has served as a less embarrassing and more natural feeling alternative. However, male condoms generally put contraceptive power and choice into the hands of those who wear them, men. This has proven to be a problem in Africa, where the AIDS epidemic is ever-present. Many women have to choose between keeping their partners happy and keeping themselves protected. The traditional female condom design was uncomfortable and awkward, leaving this contraceptive method rarely utilized. However, researchers have developed a new design that feels natural, and in many cases, men can hardly detect its presence. In Africa, this is an especially important technology, allowing women to protect themselves from the threat of AIDs without needing permission from their partner.
Beyond Africa, female condoms could play an important role in changing women's reproductive freedom. Men often are "in charge of" supplying condoms and women in taking the pill. This often allows women control over the choice to procreate, while the risk for sexually transmitted diseases still looms. A more desirable female condom may allow women take a more active role in preventing STD transmission.
Here are some questions I have:
1. Is there a market for female condoms in Western countries?
2. Even if there isn't a market, do female condoms signify an important step toward female autonomy in reproduction?
3. If female condoms do become more popular, will they affect the desirability of male condoms at all?
You raise some interesting questions about prophylactics, and in particular, the contraceptives known as "female condoms". You touched on the power that comes from how the device is supposed to work, that is, is it protecting and controlled by the penetrator or pentratee. I use those words not to further entrench gender binaries, but rather to imply that gender doesn't need to be relevant in terms of the sex act the contraceptive is being used for. What does it mean that in more then 99.8% uses of contraceptives, the penetrator is the one in control of the use (source link)? Can this unbalanced power dynamic perpetuate oppression because of heteronormative sexual practices? Why is there such a disproportionate use of contraceptive types over others, perhaps beyond condoms? Why are some types more readily available over others, or pushed (or not pushed) for by State organizations? I would be interested in engagement between this topic and Donna Haraway's "Fetus" from Modest_Witness. In what ways can and do transnational powers affect the ways in which we conceptualize sexuality, sex acts, and reproduction? Haraway specifically talks about how narratives perpetuate through Western discourse and histories because of "Christian humanism". Who's interests are promoted by protecting and/or marginalizing certain sex acts and the people engaging in them? Haraway says that "reproductive politics are at the heart of qustions about citizenship, liberity, family, and nation". The first point that I'm most interested in getting across in this response is that the global systems of power are very complex, temporally related, and act on different bodies differently. And finally, that there are consequences to types of sex acts and bodies that are deemed "valuable" and the hierarchies that are created around them.