Barbed-wire condom made to prevent rape

During my daily scour for women's interest stories (usually the best way to find skin care and beauty news & advancements) an article about a "condom with teeth" stuck out like, well.... a condom with teeth.

It truly is hard to believe that in the year 2010-- where regular people are able to connect with the Internet via computers that fit in their pockets-- there are still parts of the world where humans live like barbarians. Surreal as it might seem however, it is a fact that there are currently many places where human life has no value, especially those of women.

In some under-developed areas, just like stories from thousands of years ago also relay, women are considered property instead of people, which means they can be stolen, plundered, and thrown away when their use is complete. Take into consideration Africa alone, where places like Darfur, the Eastern Congo, and parts of South Africa see rape as a constant part of every female's life. In South Africa alone, the staggering statistics show that one out of every two females will be raped at some point in their lives. 

In order to allow women to protect themselves against this frenzy of sexual abuse, a secret weapon has been developed-- a weapon so discreet that it is actually only activated once something unwanted has been inserted into her vagina.

Similar a tampon, the device called a Rape-aXe is smooth, soft, and leakproof on the outside, so as to cause any discomfort once the woman inserts it into herself. 

However, the inside of the device is covered with carefully crafted hooked barbs that latch onto anything which penetrates that area. The Rape-aXe is designed so that once it hooks into a man's penis, only a doctor can remove it, at which point the police should be contacted.

The theory is that once the Rape-aXe latches onto a rapist's penis, they are overcome with pain and unable to complete the rape. Sonnet Ehlers, a woman in her 60's who spent 40 years developing this device, was at first concerned that a rapist might be prone to more violence after being snared in the Rape-aXe. However, a study of jailed rapists revealed promising news; the convicted rapists admitted that the surprise attack to their penis would be such a shock that they wouldn't immediately know how to react, thus buying the female time to escape. 

Although the Rape-aXe is not on the market yet, Ehlers is currently in the works with multiple medical supply companies to enable this product to be available worldwide. Her website antirape.co.za gets 18 million hits a month, and many groups are contacting her about future distribution, including female soldiers in the U.S. military who want to protect themselves from enemy rapes in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (And, Ehlers also adds, against rape from fellow American male soldiers.) 

This is a very interesting concept with which to help empower women to protect themselves, but the element of surprise surrounding this device will only last so long. If this became a common enough practice, wouldn't a would-be rapist insert a stick or rod inside first to safely remove the threat of the Rape-aXe? For fear of the Rape-aXe, isn't it possible sodomy rapes would increase instead?

My cynical brain can't help but trouble-shoot this almost brilliant concept: How does a woman take it out if she wasn't raped? If the woman is not raped, is it reusable? Can they be used in other vulnerable orifices? (So that a man could possibly use this for protection also?) If there was a group of rapists, wouldn't the presence of this device probably create more harm than good for the victim?

In order for something like this to work, (and I feel like I am completely going to sound like a science-fiction-pervert here) it seems like the device should almost be surgically implanted, and controlled by specific muscle contractions or something, so that it can be used even if the victims body is incapacitated. Instead of hooked teeth on the inside, the weaponry should be a taser, or something that could be used multiple times. Yes, I just recommended a vagina laser, but as crazy as it sounds-- in order for a vaginal weapon to work it would have to be something which couldn't forcibly be removed and could be used numerous times. 

Is there an app for that? It's ironic AND sad that in this day and age, our amazing technological advances should be used to prevent the oldest crime in the world. However, it is inspiring to hear of (absolutely no pun intended) truly out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to developing ways to allow women to protect their own bodies.