Self-lubricating, biodegradable and – did we mention – Viagra dispensing? Meet the new, innovative condom with a skin-like feel being made by scientists in Australia. 

After receiving a $100,000 grant, the University of Wollongong claims to have found a solution to make wearing a condom more pleasurable. Bring in hydrogel: a very flexible and super strong material, which can be engineered to have various functions including self-lubrication and delivering supplements of Viagra.

For the past nine months these scientists have been at work, testing and manipulating this material to create the ultimate condom. Robert Gorkin, lead materials scientist on the project, told Science Alert: “Our original idea was just to try to prove that an original material could replace latex.” 

“We had an idea that these new materials would have the same properties as rubber with a nicer feel, but we weren't sure if they had the right properties for a condom.” 

The grant given to the team was one of 52 handed out by the Bill & Melinda Gates’ Foundation, with the mission to deflate the stigma that wearing condoms makes sex less pleasurable. From this, Bill Gates tasked scientists from around the world to create “the next generation of condom.”

Although the idea behind the grant was to penetrate this negative stigma, Gates stated he also wanted the project to “lead to substantial benefits for global health, both in terms of reducing the incidence of unplanned pregnancies and in prevention of infection with HIV or other STIs.”

From their experiments so far, the team from down under have proved that hydrogel can be made into a condom that not only stops sperm passing through, but that also has a skin-like feel. They suggest it will feel like you’re not even wearing a condom.

But before their amazing design can even hit the shops, it needs to go through biometric testing, which they are doing in partnership with the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

If all goes well, it could be goodbye latex and hello hydrogel.