Use of Condom on the Rise, but still only a third of men wear them: CDC

Condom use is thankfully on the rise, but only about a third of sexually active American men, and a fifth of women surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control say they use them.

The federal health organization interviewed 11,300 women and 9,321 men ages 15-44 and found that only 23.8% of women and 33.7% of men used a condom the last time they had sex.

The study

, conducted between 2011-2015, showed that condom use among men increased from just 29.5% in 2002 and 33.1% from 2006-2010.

Women, on the other hand, have gotten worse at condom use. In a prior four-year study from 2006-2010, 25.4% of women reported using condoms during their last sexual encounter, now down to 23.8%.

The new study also showed that, on average, only 14.8% of women and 19% of men aged 15-44 followed the “no glove, no love” rule, using a condom “every time” they had sex in the past year. This number decreased as respondents got older: there are more 15- to- 19-year-olds who use condoms every time than 35- to- 44-year-olds.

And 59.9% of women and 47.3% of men didn’t use condoms at all during the last year.

Only just over a quarter of respondents who were casually dating or had just met their last sexual partner used a condom every single time. And scarily, another 26.5% of respondents having casual sex said they used condoms none of the time.

Condoms are the only contraceptive that protects against sexually transmitted infections and prevents pregnancy, so wrap it up.