‘She sleeps around, he’s prepared’: Women report massive double standard for carrying condoms
A new national study has revealed that women face a troubling double when it comes to carrying a key component of sexual health: condoms.
When Australian women were asked about other women carrying condoms, the two most common answers were both about her sexual conduct: that she is planning to have sex (45.4%), and that she sleeps around (38.6%). Yet, the most common answer about men carrying condoms? “Is prepared” – at 43.9%.
Key findings from the 2026 Moments Sexual Wellness Study:
Buying condoms has gotten easier for women, but being judged for carrying them has gotten worse
Three in four Australian women have hidden, disguised or abandoned a condom purchase
Two-thirds of Australian women have gone without a condom because neither person had one
Additionally, the study found that Australian women aged 18-45 are still uncomfortable buying or carrying condoms. And, while more women felt comfortable buying condoms than 10 years ago, feelings of judgement for carrying condoms has actually gotten worse.
“The stigma [around condoms] didn’t dissolve. It relocated,” said sex educator Eleanor Hadley about the findings. “We’ve spent a decade making the public part of this easier – better shelf placement, self-checkouts, more open conversation – and by our own tracking, buying condoms has genuinely got easier. But nobody was working on the private part. That’s where it has settled, and that’s where women are now paying for it.”
With an overwhelming feeling of judgement running rampant across women even throwing a pack of condoms in their regular groceries, three in four Australian women are usually either hiding them via self-checkout or disguising them within other items.
The study also found that “Other respondents had waited until a shop was quiet, bought online to avoid buying in person, asked somebody else to buy, or gone somewhere they were less likely to be known.” Some Australian women have simply abandoned their condom purchases altogether. This has prompted condom brands like Moments Wellness to offer services like discreet condom deliveries (and even subscriptions).
With public perception working against them, women are struggling to get to a place where, as Moments puts it, “A condom should be able to sit beside coffee, deodorant or lip balm without recruiting the rest of the basket as cover.” Though we’re yet to break the stigma completely, here’s hoping conversations created by projects like Moments Sexual Health Study can help normalise being assertive with one’s own sexual health, for women, as much as men.
About the study: Moments Sexual Health Study 2026. 1,111 Australian women aged 18–45, weighted by age, state and region. Carrying behaviour, partner response and responsibility were measured for the first time in 2026 and have no prior comparison. The 2026 wave was fielded by a different provider to the 2017 and 2021 waves. More here.
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