Visit to a Condom Factory
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Making condoms sounds more complicated that I’d expect.
An array of glass dildos as long as a forearm, called “formers” in the trade, hang from a belt and are dipped into vats of liquid latex.
The dildos are dipped once, and then popped into the ovens. After drying, they are again dipped in the liquid latex before going back into the oven.
Thereafter, the condoms are rolled and undergo a “leaching” process, in which all the impurities, water and residual protein are extracted from the condoms to prevent any protein-based allergies, which could result in a nasty rash.
The condoms are then blown off the dildo by a jet of air into water, after which an employee inspects them for stickiness, roughness, lumps, burn marks, machine damage, uneven powder distribution, something called “figure-eight beading” (in which the base of the condom is damaged) and, of course, holes.
They are then “washed” in a grain starch powder and dried in huge tumble dryers.
As a measure of strength, some of the condoms are tested to bursting point. A condom is attached to a tube and when the machine is switched on, the condom swells up — to double the size of a watermelon — until it bursts.
It all starts with a glass dildo
