World AIDS Day: 57% Indians don’t use contraception, Ahmedabad ranks lowest, survey finds
Health

World AIDS Day: 57% Indians don’t use contraception, Ahmedabad ranks lowest, survey finds

The survey findings come the same day UNAIDS warns of possible '7.7 million more AIDS-related deaths' in next 10 years.

   
Representational image. | Photo: Flickr

Representational image. | Photo: Flickr

Delhi: A survey released Tuesday, on the eve of World AIDS Day — on 1 December — shows Ahmedabad to be the Indian city with the lowest use of contraception, while Delhi-NCR tops the list of Indian cities in terms of maximum contraception use.

The survey also revealed that 57 per cent of Indians do not use any form of contraception, like condoms, which may lead to sexually transmitted diseases from unprotected sex.

Conducted by the Gurugram-based hygiene brand Pee Safe, under its sub-brand of female condoms, Domina, the survey findings come the same day UNAIDS warned about the possibility of “7.7 million more AIDS-related deaths” in the next 10 years.

The survey recorded the response of 25,381 Indians from across places like Agartala, Bengaluru, Bareilly, Bhopal, Mumbai, Patna, Chennai, Noida, and Visakhapatnam. Delhi recorded the maximum number of respondents — 4,980.

While 70 per cent of the respondents were aged between 19 and 29 years, 25.8 per cent were in the 30-49 years age group, and 1.8 per cent were aged between 50 and 60 years.

The survey also had more male respondents — 58 per cent.


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No dating apps, no sex toys

To a question on the preferred kind of condoms, while 56.15 per cent respondents said they preferred the external (or male) condom, 7.21 per cent said they preferred the internal (or female) condom. Among the respondents, 4.14 per cent had never heard of the female condom before.

The survey also included questions on preferred sexual practices, sexual satisfaction and pleasure and frequency of engaging in sexual activities, especially during the pandemic, when restriction on movements and physical meetings had made intimacy a challenge for many.

However, despite media reports on the popularity of dating apps and the surge in virtual romances during the Covid-induced lockdown, 64 per cent of respondents of this survey said the pandemic had not made them more inclined towards using dating apps. Only 19.74 per cent answered the question in the affirmative.

Similarly, 52 per cent of the respondents answered in the negative when asked whether the pandemic had driven them to “experiment” with sex toys. Only 15.96 per cent answered “yes” to the question.

And despite couples spending more time together at home during the pandemic, 61.7 per cent of the respondents said they had not “engaged in more sexual activity during the pandemic than previously”.

The focus being on the promotion of safety with pleasure, the survey also included questions on masturbation, extra-marital sex, foreplay and the use of performance-enhancing products for sex.

(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)


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