The redesigned female condom is made of softer, thinner polyurethane to better transmit warmth. It is easier to insert; one end is bunched up as small as a tampon, an improvement on the old design, which resembled the stiff rubber ring of a diaphragm and had to be folded into a figure 8 for insertion.

During sex, the new female condom also moves more like a vagina than the old design did, according to couples in Seattle, Thailand, Mexico and South Africa who tested a series of prototypes, said Joanie Robertson, project manager for the condom at PATH. The old design hung passively from the rubber ring, which could shift around and sometimes hurt; the new design has dots of adhesive foam that adhere to the vaginal walls, expanding with them during arousal.

According to PATH, more than 90 percent of the couples were satisfied with the ease of use and comfort of the new condom, and 98 percent found the sensation of sex to be “O.K. to very satisfactory.”

it cannot be used secretly. For that reason, married women, now one of the highest risk groups for AIDS in poor countries, rarely use it.

“I don’t want my husband to know that I am wearing a condom,” said Lois B. Chingandu, the director of SAfaids, an anti-AIDS organization in Zimbabwe.

While the F.D.A. designates male condoms as Class 2 medical devices — meaning that a new maker has to pass tests only for leakage and bursting — it puts female condoms in Class 3, the same category as pacemakers, heart valves and silicone breast implants.

. . . the Class 3 listing means that any new design must pass clinical trials, which would cost $3 million to $6 million.

Last year, Wal-Mart began selling prescription drugs for $4. This year, they've announced an expansion of that program to cover medication for, among other things, glaucoma, attention deficit disorder, and, yes, contraception.

The Democratic presidential candidates are unveiling their health care plans that attempt to cover millions of Americans with slightly lower premiums and affordable prescription co-pays but it's Wal-Mart that announces it will sell birth control and fertility drugs for $9 a pop. Why is it that in this country, only a giant corporation, able to pressure its suppliers to lower prices, can make health care more affordable to Americans, while our political system isn't strong enough to bring about systematic health care change?

a "testosterone-like" oral pill and a Depo-Provera shot (a once/every three month injection of progestin). And a vasectomy alternative, the Intra Vas Device (IVD), was presented, fresh from tests in its first U.S. study. A set of plugs inserted into the vas deferens that block sperm from traveling through the tube, the Intra Vas Device was successful at the end of six months in ensuring that 92% of the men studied had no sperm (or very little sperm) in their ejaculate.

"We could have something like the IVD on the market in four to five years, if we make an all-out effort with funding and focus. But if we continue with just a study here and a study there, it could be an eternity."

Male contraception as a remedy for men needing to take on unplanned parental responsibilities seems like a stretch; when a man chooses to have sex with a woman, he is also choosing to take the risk that she may get pregnant and decide to keep the baby. Male contraception may make it less likely that a woman is purposefully able to get pregnant without her partner's knowledge, but "forced" fatherhood is a reality with which men who choose to have sex with women must contend.

As for the idea that women will no longer have to experience side effects from birth control, if women don't want to tangle with hormonal side effects, why should we expect or encourage men to?

"I do think this could be a shared responsibility between men and women, and really should always be a shared responsibility. I know that wouldn't work in every situation, but I also think that the situation where a shared responsibility will not work points to other large problems in the relationship." Another man I spoke with said, "Women have been bearing the burden for a long time now. It's about time that men started taking responsibility for where they do or don't put their sperm."