One recent night when I was hours away from snapping a dry spell that had lasted the better part of a fiscal quarter, I found myself in my local Rite Aid, using my phone to Google, “Is my dick big enough for a Magnum condom?”



It’s not. Call it wishful thinking, because I guess I knew that already, as I had once tried an XL condom when a woman handed me one from her nightstand. Instead of completely ruining the moment by laughing and shouting, “This is going to be like putting a tube sock on a toothpick!” I put it on and then we had sex. It was fine, but not the best. The condom was too long, so it bunched up, decreasing sensation and making it look kind of like an accordion. It also ended rather quickly, and not for the usual reason. I had started to worry about whether the condom could actually slip off, something that could have put both of us at risk. So I faked a cramp and stopped.

Conversely, however, the issue I’ve had for years with standard-sized condoms is that they feel too tight and constricting, to the point where it feels like they’re literally reducing blood flow. This is of course not a great thing when you’re attempting to maintain and use an erection. (To be clear, I’m not saying I have, like, a wildly girthy penis or anything. Lots of guys have this issue with condoms.)

I realized I didn’t know what an ideal-fitting condom would feel like on my penis, because until recently such a thing didn’t really exist. I wondered why condoms hadn’t always come in more sizes — like shoes, suits, or fitted hats — because a guy’s penis size generally means much more to him than the size of literally anything else on his body. And penises come in all kinds of sizes, so why wouldn’t condoms?

It turns out the minimal size selection was due to FDA regulations that required condoms to be at least 6.69 inches long, but The New York Times reports that the FDA granted clearance for expanded sizes.

Global Protection Corp. (which is a badass name I wouldn’t immediately associate with birth control products but something more like armored security vehicles) was ready for the policy change, because the company recently introduced its myONE Perfect Fit line of bespoke condoms. They come in 60 different sizes, comprised of 10 lengths and 9 widths.

All the sizes. myONE Condoms

To find your size, all you have to do is engage in some good old-fashioned dick-measuring with a printable device called a FitKit, send them the results, and wait for your sample pack of perfect fitting condoms.

As one of the many dudes across the nation who has been yearning for a better condom without really even knowing it, I was excited to give these a try.

The FitKit is an interesting mechanism for penis measurement because it doesn’t go by inches or centimeters. This was nice because for me and for a lot of other dudes, knowing your penis length and circumference in inches or centimeters can make you feel inadequate in some way, even though it shouldn’t.

The FitKit instead uses seemingly arbitrary letters for length, and numbers for width. The website does allow you to send in your length by Millimeter, though, in case you’re more comfortable with a measuring tape or for some strange reason already have your measurements memorized. Which would probably make you the kind of guy who gets boners and admires them in the mirror just for fun.

You basically print a measuring chart, cut it out, and wrap it around your penis. Fun! myONE Condoms

I hadn’t measured my penis since I was in high school, but back then I did it just to see how long it was, mostly out of curiosity. It occurred to me while I was measuring this time around that I was doing it for the first time without feeling tempted to lie about the results. Back then if someone asked me how long it was, I’d have padded my stats by at least an inch or two. But now, being honest about it was really the only way to get the right fit, and, for what it’s worth, the company keeps your measurements confidential.

First thing I had to do was produce an erection and then place the cut-out paper thing underneath it, with the edge at the base of my penis, to determine length. After watching a few minutes of loosely scripted porn, I recorded the letter that my tip most closely reached. I then took the same piece of paper and wrapped it around the aforementioned erection to determine, by number, my girth.

I’m the kind of person who (luckily) gets a boner if the wind sways in a certain way, but maintaining one while I was trying to basically avoid paper-cutting my dick was somewhat challenging. For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to measure at half-mast, so in between measuring length and width I made sure to do a little erection maintenance. It was like I was my own fluffer! Which is probably the closest I’ll ever get to living out my lifelong fantasy of being a porn star for a day. I did both measurements several times, hoping that my erection would, as if by magic, get larger, but this did not happen.

myONE Condoms

I sent my measurements to the company, and was mailed a sample pack, which included the condoms that were supposedly the best for my penis, and a size up and a size down from what my measurements indicated would be most fitting for my dick. So I could experiment with a range. I hear it's a little like Rent The Runway.

Before actually trying my bespoke condoms in a real sexual situation, I decided to put one on and try it out while I masturbated—which is something I haven’t done since adolescence, when I understood neither masturbation nor condoms. It felt like a goofy thing to do, but this trial run, set to yet another clumsily scripted porn scene, had me optimistic. I mean, I was able to get off pretty easily by my own hand with a condom on. Like, almost as easy as if I hadn’t had one on. Plus, it actually looked like it fit better; like my penis was somehow more comfortable in this new sheath.

Then came the time to actually use it with a woman!

It was definitely better than if I were using a standard or XL condom. While rolling it on I was extremely excited because, sure, I was about to have sex and that is always an exciting thing, but it was also thrilling to be on the verge of trying something new that was supposedly going to improve the experience. I took a fleeting look at how the condom seemed to fit like a one-handed glove, nodded my head in approval and then commenced fornication.

There was no bunching or sliding off, which have been issues for me with store-bought brands. The best part, though, was that the fit was snug, but not constricting. It was freeing — like latex was no longer attempting to kill my boner.

It was still a condom, though, which, in my experience so far, means that there will always be less sensation than if I wasn’t wearing one. But condoms are crucial to sexual health and my general peace of mind, so here we are. And now that I’ve tried a size measured to fit my erection pretty much as closely as possible, I may as well keep rolling them on.

And although the woman I was with said she didn’t notice a difference on her end, I hope to put these to the test with her several more times to really find out.

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