the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread
- Thread starter wader
- Start date
wader
Well-Known Angler
Toilet explodes after freak lightning strike at Oklahoma apartment, firefighters say
The toilet shattered into dozens of charred pieces.
I will never head to the toilet during a thunderstorm now.
wader
Well-Known Angler
Woman strips, urinates on floor of Georgia Walmart after profanity-laced tirade, police say
Police said she was searching for prophylactics when she started cursing at employees and throwing things at them.
Rick67
Well-Known Angler
Rick67
Well-Known Angler
You pay to see that in Tiajuana.
Woman strips, urinates on floor of Georgia Walmart after profanity-laced tirade, police say
Police said she was searching for prophylactics when she started cursing at employees and throwing things at them.www.yahoo.com
wader
Well-Known Angler
Whoops, the U.S. Sent So Many Missiles to Ukraine That It Depleted Its Own Stockpiles
Some, like the Stinger missile, have been out of production for years with no easy path toward replenishment.
Chinacat
Well-Known Angler
Seems like an easy fix to me.Whoops, the U.S. Sent So Many Missiles to Ukraine That It Depleted Its Own Stockpiles
Some, like the Stinger missile, have been out of production for years with no easy path toward replenishment.
Find some idle factories, convert/retrofit them to producing missiles
Hire a bunch of a people, pay them a good salary with good benefits.
Use the $$$ earmarked for build back better
A win/win for everybody
wader
Well-Known Angler
Rainbow trout with unique features caught in Spring Creek in Tennessee
Ty Jones caught a rainbow trout in Spring Creek in Reliance, Tennessee which likely had been stocked by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
Mike Organ, Nashville Tennessean
Tue, May 10, 2022, 9:41 AM
Ty Jones caught a rainbow trout with unique features in Spring Creek in Reliance, Tennessee. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency posted Jones' fish on its Facebook page. The trout weighed 4.3 pounds and measured 19.5 inches in length.
Chinacat
Well-Known Angler
Never ending
They finally charged this kid....
nypost.com
Vermont man charged with killing his mother at sea for $7M inheritance
Nathan Carman was found floating in a raft alone eight days after he and his mother went on a fishing trip in 2016 off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
nypost.com
South Carolina man dies of heart attack while burying woman in backyard
The Edgefield County Sheriff says evidence shows Joseph McKinnon strangled Patricia Dent inside the home and was burying her in the backyard, when he died of a heart attack.
www.wbtw.com
wader
Well-Known Angler
James Cromwell Superglues Hand to Starbucks Counter to Protest Starbucks' Upcharge for Vegan Milk
"There's no reason for it except greed," James Cromwell said of Starbucks' pricing system
wader
Well-Known Angler
BRAVO!!!
Wed, May 11, 2022, 9:57 AM
A passenger on a private plane was forced to land the aircraft without any flying experience after the pilot suffered a medical emergency.
The passenger safely landed at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on May 10 with the help of air traffic control..
"I've got a serious situation here," the unidentified passenger said according to audio from Live Air Traffic. "My pilot has gone incoherent, and I have no idea how to fly the airplane."
Air traffic control advised the passenger to follow the Florida coast north or south until they were able to locate the plane.
“Have you guys located me yet?” the passenger asked. “I can’t even get my nav screen to turn on. It has all the information on it. You guys have any ideas on that?”'
Air traffic control eventually located the Cessna Caravan 20 miles east of Boca Raton and helped the passenger land safely at the Palm Beach airport.
“You just witnessed a couple passengers land that plane,” an air traffic controller said over the radio, according to WPBF.
“Did you say the passengers landed the plane?” A voice responded. “Oh, my gosh. Great job.”
The Federal Aviation Administration told USA TODAY via email a single-engine Cessna 208 landed safely at Palm Beach International Airport around 12:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday. The pilot suffered a possible medical issue and the FAA is investigating.
'No idea how to fly the airplane': Passenger forced to land plane after pilot becomes sick
Asha C. Gilbert, USA TODAYWed, May 11, 2022, 9:57 AM
A passenger on a private plane was forced to land the aircraft without any flying experience after the pilot suffered a medical emergency.
The passenger safely landed at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on May 10 with the help of air traffic control..
"I've got a serious situation here," the unidentified passenger said according to audio from Live Air Traffic. "My pilot has gone incoherent, and I have no idea how to fly the airplane."
Air traffic control advised the passenger to follow the Florida coast north or south until they were able to locate the plane.
“Have you guys located me yet?” the passenger asked. “I can’t even get my nav screen to turn on. It has all the information on it. You guys have any ideas on that?”'
Air traffic control eventually located the Cessna Caravan 20 miles east of Boca Raton and helped the passenger land safely at the Palm Beach airport.
“You just witnessed a couple passengers land that plane,” an air traffic controller said over the radio, according to WPBF.
“Did you say the passengers landed the plane?” A voice responded. “Oh, my gosh. Great job.”
The Federal Aviation Administration told USA TODAY via email a single-engine Cessna 208 landed safely at Palm Beach International Airport around 12:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday. The pilot suffered a possible medical issue and the FAA is investigating.
wader
Well-Known Angler
seems to over reach as far as I can see.............
www.yahoo.com
Beyond immigration: ICE's massive surveillance system has info on most Americans, report says
Immigration officials have weaved a vast surveillance system with personal information on most people living in the United States, researchers found.
wader
Well-Known Angler
A couple is suing their son and daughter-in-law for $650,000 for not giving them a grandchild
Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad want their son and his wife to pay them $650,000, the amount they spent on him, if a child is not born within a year.
- Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad are suing their son and his wife for $650,000.
- The Prasads say their son inflicted "mental cruelty" on them by not producing a grandchild.
- They are requesting the sum if the couple does not have a child in the next year.
Sanjeev Prasad, 61, and his wife Sadhana, 57, say their son, Shrey Sagar, and his wife, Shubhangi Sinha, should pay them $650,000 if the couple does not give them a grandchild within a year, according to the BBC.
Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah...
pressherald.com/2022/05/13/new-yorkers-floridians-pay-most-and-mainers-least-for-auto-insurance/
By Ron Hurtibise May 13, 2022
Floridians on average pay the second-highest share of their incomes on auto insurance premiums, according to a tally of data from price comparison website Bankrate.com.
The tally, based on the website’s True Cost of Auto Insurance in 2022 annual report, compared what 40-year-old drivers with clean driving records and good credit pay across all 50 U.S. states and Washington D.C.
In Florida, the average driver spends 4.42% of their income on auto insurance. That’s behind only Louisiana, where drivers must spend 5.26% of their incomes.
In a dollar-for-dollar comparison, Florida drivers pay an average $2,762 a year for what Bankrate describes as full coverage. The most expensive state was New York, where the same driver pays $2,996 a year. Louisiana was number three at $2,864. Drivers in Maine, the lowest-cost state, paid an average $876.
Florida’s average cost was nearly $400 more than the $2,364 average in Bankrate’s 2021 report. It also far exceeds the national average of $1,771 or 2.57% of annual income.
Auto insurance costs in busy, litigious, congested South Florida are even higher than the state average, Bankrate’s report shows. In the metro region composed of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, the average premium was $3,508.
Rates were calculated based on assumptions that each customer drives a 2020 Toyota Camry, commutes five days a week and drives 12,000 miles annually.
The study also assumed each driver carried full coverage. That’s defined as: $100,000 bodily injury liability per person, $300,000 bodily injury liability per accident, $50,000 property damage liability per accident, $100,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per person, $300,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per accident, $500 collision deductible, and $500 comprehensive deductible.
The state has historically come out near the top of auto insurance price comparisons, regardless of which organization produces the comparison. In 2018, price comparison site The Zebra found Florida was the fifth-most expensive state. A decade earlier, Florida’s average premium for liability coverage was second-highest in the nation, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
Why Florida?
Reasons Florida drivers pay so much include the state’s susceptibility to severe weather such as tropical storms, hurricanes and tornadoes, Bankrate.com’s Cate Deventer wrote in an April blog post. Deventer also pointed to the state’s high percentage of uninsured drivers — 20.4%. That means one out of every five vehicles on the road is driven by an insurance scofflaw, which increases costs for uninsured motorist coverage.
Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications for the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute, also pointed to high levels of medical billing fraud related to staged crashes and the state’s no-fault insurance laws, and a provision of state law requiring insurers to replace damaged or cracked windshields with no deductible.
“Contractors approach motorists at shopping centers, gas stations and car washes and offer to handle replacement of their damaged windshield in exchange for a gift card,” he said. “The motorist is asked to sign an AOB (assignment of benefits),” which gives the contractor the right to sue an insurer on behalf of the policyholder.
“Simple repairs are sometimes billed for thousands of dollars to insurers,” he said. “Many claims involve litigation filed against the insurer while the vehicle owner is not even aware a lawsuit has been filed.”
Auto insurance rates nationwide have increased after temporarily dropping when the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to stay home. Miles driven and accidents decreased sharply, and the auto insurance industry gave back about $14 billion in the form of cash refunds and account credits, Friedlander said.
But motorists quickly resumed their old driving habits after the economy reopened, and traffic fatalities also increased after decades of steady declines, he said.
Auto-related fatalities in Florida increased from 3,332 in 2020 to 3,629 in 2021, according to the Florida Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That’s nearly a 10% hike that also boosts insurance costs and premiums, Friedlander said.
Inflation is also contributing to rate increases. “What we are now seeing are double-digit year-over-year increases in repair costs — driven by supply chain shortages of replacement parts and higher labor costs,” he said.
Rates are higher even than state averages in South Florida because of several factors, Friedlander said:
• Higher number of accidents and greater severity
• More expensive auto repairs due to higher labor costs
• Higher level of vehicle-related crime, such as theft and vandalism
• Heavier traffic patterns
• Higher healthcare costs
• More aggressive driving
What to do
While drivers cannot change those cost factors on their own, they can keep their own costs as low as possible by avoiding “life events” that can lead to significant rate increases, Bankrate.com’s study points out.
Allowing your credit score to decrease from “good” to “poor” can raise average auto insurance premiums in Florida by $2,715, the study shows.
Costs can also increase if you: get a speeding ticket (+$514); cause a car accident (+$1,046); let your insurance coverage lapse (+$448); get convicted of DUI (+$1,695), or put a teenage driver on your policy (+$3,043).
Beyond avoiding such events, experts suggest a number of ways motorists can try to reduce their premiums. If you drive less than the average vehicle owner, you might look into policies that allow you to pay by the mile. Those typically require allowing insurers to monitor your driving through smartphone apps that connect to your odometer to record miles driven.
Other savings are available by buying and paying online, paying for your term all at once, and purchasing in advance.
New Yorkers, Floridians pay most – and Mainers least – for auto insurance
By Ron Hurtibise May 13, 2022
Floridians on average pay the second-highest share of their incomes on auto insurance premiums, according to a tally of data from price comparison website Bankrate.com.
The tally, based on the website’s True Cost of Auto Insurance in 2022 annual report, compared what 40-year-old drivers with clean driving records and good credit pay across all 50 U.S. states and Washington D.C.
In Florida, the average driver spends 4.42% of their income on auto insurance. That’s behind only Louisiana, where drivers must spend 5.26% of their incomes.
In a dollar-for-dollar comparison, Florida drivers pay an average $2,762 a year for what Bankrate describes as full coverage. The most expensive state was New York, where the same driver pays $2,996 a year. Louisiana was number three at $2,864. Drivers in Maine, the lowest-cost state, paid an average $876.
Florida’s average cost was nearly $400 more than the $2,364 average in Bankrate’s 2021 report. It also far exceeds the national average of $1,771 or 2.57% of annual income.
Auto insurance costs in busy, litigious, congested South Florida are even higher than the state average, Bankrate’s report shows. In the metro region composed of Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, the average premium was $3,508.
Rates were calculated based on assumptions that each customer drives a 2020 Toyota Camry, commutes five days a week and drives 12,000 miles annually.
The study also assumed each driver carried full coverage. That’s defined as: $100,000 bodily injury liability per person, $300,000 bodily injury liability per accident, $50,000 property damage liability per accident, $100,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per person, $300,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per accident, $500 collision deductible, and $500 comprehensive deductible.
The state has historically come out near the top of auto insurance price comparisons, regardless of which organization produces the comparison. In 2018, price comparison site The Zebra found Florida was the fifth-most expensive state. A decade earlier, Florida’s average premium for liability coverage was second-highest in the nation, according to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.
Why Florida?
Reasons Florida drivers pay so much include the state’s susceptibility to severe weather such as tropical storms, hurricanes and tornadoes, Bankrate.com’s Cate Deventer wrote in an April blog post. Deventer also pointed to the state’s high percentage of uninsured drivers — 20.4%. That means one out of every five vehicles on the road is driven by an insurance scofflaw, which increases costs for uninsured motorist coverage.
Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications for the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute, also pointed to high levels of medical billing fraud related to staged crashes and the state’s no-fault insurance laws, and a provision of state law requiring insurers to replace damaged or cracked windshields with no deductible.
“Contractors approach motorists at shopping centers, gas stations and car washes and offer to handle replacement of their damaged windshield in exchange for a gift card,” he said. “The motorist is asked to sign an AOB (assignment of benefits),” which gives the contractor the right to sue an insurer on behalf of the policyholder.
“Simple repairs are sometimes billed for thousands of dollars to insurers,” he said. “Many claims involve litigation filed against the insurer while the vehicle owner is not even aware a lawsuit has been filed.”
Auto insurance rates nationwide have increased after temporarily dropping when the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to stay home. Miles driven and accidents decreased sharply, and the auto insurance industry gave back about $14 billion in the form of cash refunds and account credits, Friedlander said.
But motorists quickly resumed their old driving habits after the economy reopened, and traffic fatalities also increased after decades of steady declines, he said.
Auto-related fatalities in Florida increased from 3,332 in 2020 to 3,629 in 2021, according to the Florida Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. That’s nearly a 10% hike that also boosts insurance costs and premiums, Friedlander said.
Inflation is also contributing to rate increases. “What we are now seeing are double-digit year-over-year increases in repair costs — driven by supply chain shortages of replacement parts and higher labor costs,” he said.
Rates are higher even than state averages in South Florida because of several factors, Friedlander said:
• Higher number of accidents and greater severity
• More expensive auto repairs due to higher labor costs
• Higher level of vehicle-related crime, such as theft and vandalism
• Heavier traffic patterns
• Higher healthcare costs
• More aggressive driving
What to do
While drivers cannot change those cost factors on their own, they can keep their own costs as low as possible by avoiding “life events” that can lead to significant rate increases, Bankrate.com’s study points out.
Allowing your credit score to decrease from “good” to “poor” can raise average auto insurance premiums in Florida by $2,715, the study shows.
Costs can also increase if you: get a speeding ticket (+$514); cause a car accident (+$1,046); let your insurance coverage lapse (+$448); get convicted of DUI (+$1,695), or put a teenage driver on your policy (+$3,043).
Beyond avoiding such events, experts suggest a number of ways motorists can try to reduce their premiums. If you drive less than the average vehicle owner, you might look into policies that allow you to pay by the mile. Those typically require allowing insurers to monitor your driving through smartphone apps that connect to your odometer to record miles driven.
Other savings are available by buying and paying online, paying for your term all at once, and purchasing in advance.
Hmmmmm, vanilla flavored tuna...
This is a story about infections, sex and underwear. More specifically, it’s about sexually-transmitted infections, oral sex and ultrathin, super-stretchy, vanilla-flavored panties.
The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the panties to be considered protection against infections that can be transmitted from the vagina or anus during oral sex. It is a first for underwear.
The undies are part of an understudied but important area of sexual health where the few options for protection are considered cumbersome and hardly used.
“Oral sex is not totally risk-free,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She said the need for protective methods was of growing importance because more “teenagers are initiating their first sexual activity with oral sex.” For people of all ages, she added, a protective barrier that is enjoyable to use could “reduce anxiety and increase pleasure around that particular behavior.”
Infections like herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis can be transmitted through oral sex, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risk of transmitting H.I.V. from a vagina through oral sex is considered very low, the C.D.C. said. But HPV — human papillomavirus — is more easily transmitted that way, and mouth and throat infections from some types of HPV may develop into oral or neck cancer, the agency said.
How often people transmit infections in this manner is unclear and difficult to study because most people who have oral sex have vaginal or anal sex in the same encounter, said Dr. Kenneth Mayer, the medical research director for Fenway Health, a community health center in Massachusetts that focuses on patients who identify as L.G.B.T.Q.
“The F.D.A.’s authorization of this product gives people another option to protect against S.T.I.s during oral sex,” said Courtney Lias, director of the F.D.A. office that led the review of the underwear.
The only product previously authorized for protection during oral sex was a dental dam — a thin, rectangular sheet of latex (or sometimes polyurethane) that typically must be held in place with one’s hands to form a barrier between the mouth and genitals.
As the name suggests, dental dams, invented in 1864 and originally made of rubber, were designed to isolate teeth during dental procedures. But the AIDS crisis ignited concern about sexual transmission of infections, and in the early 1990s an Australian company, Glyde Health, created a dental dam that was primarily inspired by concerns of women who have sex with women, an official with the company has said.
Although several brands of dental dams have received F.D.A. clearance for protection against sexual disease transmission, the devices have not exactly been a hit.
“They’re extremely unpopular,” Dr. Marrazzo said, adding: “I mean, honestly, could there be anything less sexy than a dental dam?”
There’s little data on how widely they are used, but a 2010 study of 330 Australian women who had sex with women found that only 9.7 percent reported ever using a dental dam, and just 2.1 percent said they used dams often. A 2021 C.D.C. report said use of dental dams and other safe-sex methods was “infrequent” among women who have sex with women.
Dams are sold online and in sex shops, but are not widely available at pharmacy chains, and are usually more expensive than condoms. The C.D.C.’s web page on dental dams shows how to cut a condom to make a dental dam, but this doesn’t appear to be popular either.
“Many people report that dental dams are awkward and take all the pleasure out of oral sex for both the giver and receiver,” said Chris Barcelos, an assistant professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “They are hated even more than condoms.”
The idea for dam-like undies struck Melanie Cristol after an experience in 2014 during her honeymoon in Mexico with her then-wife. Ms. Cristol, then a corporate lawyer, discovered she had an infection that could be sexually transmitted.
Realizing how limited the protection options were, “I was just so discouraged,” said Ms. Cristol, who recalled that when she was a sex educator in college and taught about dental dams, “people looked at me like I was crazy.”
“I wanted to feel sexy and confident and use something that was made with my body and actual sex in mind,” she said.
Ms. Cristol formed a company that in 2018 began selling single-use underwear for “people with vulvas.” She said she named the product Lorals partly because the L sound “evokes words like love and lust, and it feels a little bit like a movement that you use” during oral sex.
The panties — available as bikinis or shorties — are made of latex that’s about as thin as condom material and forms a seal on the inside of the thigh to keep fluids in, Ms. Cristol said. The company markets their use for a range of reasons, including during one’s period, when a partner has a scratchy beard or when a person has experienced previous trauma and doesn’t want to be too exposed.
Ms. Cristol said that, responding to customer feedback, the company lessened the intensity of the vanilla taste, added more cornstarch to prevent stickiness and will introduce a sheer version in addition to the current opaque black version.
On Thursday, the company will begin selling undies explicitly for infection protection, which Ms. Cristol said would resemble its other products but would meet the more rigorous uniformity standards required for F.D.A. authorization.
“What’s interesting about this is that they have basically eroticized protection, which is something that condom companies have struggled with for years,” Dr. Marrazzo said.
The F.D.A. said it did not require human clinical trials but, as it does with condoms, gave Lorals authorization after the company submitted extensive documentation about thickness, elasticity, strength and other measures. Within the past year, the F.D.A. has also given clearance to two new dental dam companies, possibly suggesting increased consumer interest.
Sexual health experts said they welcomed the additional option, but some were unsure it would be popular and said more medical information was needed.
Dr. Mayer said he’d like to see “real-world data” from people’s actual experience to substantiate the underwear’s ability to block infection transmission.
“The F.D.A. clearances and increased product development seem to signal a greater potential market, but I don’t see a ton of demand,” Dr. Barcelos said, but added that such products can be “an important way to show a sexual partner that you care about them and take sexual health seriously.”
Two Lorals customers, whose contact information was provided by the company and who asked to be identified by their first names because of the sensitive subject matter, described various motivations for using the underwear.
Wisty, 28, who identifies as pansexual, has had sex with men and women, and uses they/them pronouns, said the panties were “a solution I didn’t know I needed.”
A dancer and Reiki energy healer in the Boston area, Wisty said they had herpes simplex, a common infection that in rare cases can cause serious inflammatory conditions. “I wanted to find something that makes it easier for me to enforce the boundaries that I wanted to,” Wisty said. “To be able to still play and explore while having that comfort and safety of knowing that I’m protected from my fluids going everywhere.”
Shelly, 29, a nurse in Washington State, said she saw the panties on TikTok at a time when she and her fiancé, Ashton, were struggling to re-engage in oral sex after cancer requiring reconstructive surgery had caused changes in his tongue’s mobility and ability to taste. In the aftermath of his cancer treatment, oral sex — once their favorite sexual activity — made Ashton feel like he was choking, and they had not done it in nearly two years.
“It was such a huge thing that he’d enjoyed over penetrative sex or anything,” Shelly said. Without it, she experienced “a lot of insecurity, feeling that maybe he doesn’t have interest for me in that way anymore.”
After ordering the panties, “we spent a couple hours just looking at it,” Shelly said. “We’re like ‘What are we dealing with here? It smells like vanilla, it stretches to kingdom come — like, what is this?’”
Wearing them during oral sex worked very well, said Shelly, who added that she could barely feel the panties and that Ashton said the texture resembled skin and the taste was “like you’re eating a cookie.”
She said she appreciated the new clearance for infection protection because Ashton is likely vulnerable to cancers that can be triggered by sexually transmitted infections.
The sexual experience was especially important, she said. “I never thought I would feel that again,” Shelly said. “And he was very like gung-ho about it when he realized that: ‘Oh, I can do all the things.’”
F.D.A. Authorizes Underwear to Protect Against S.T.I.s During Oral Sex
It’s the first time underwear has been authorized for this purpose, and it provides a new choice for protection where the few options have been unpopular.This is a story about infections, sex and underwear. More specifically, it’s about sexually-transmitted infections, oral sex and ultrathin, super-stretchy, vanilla-flavored panties.
The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the panties to be considered protection against infections that can be transmitted from the vagina or anus during oral sex. It is a first for underwear.
The undies are part of an understudied but important area of sexual health where the few options for protection are considered cumbersome and hardly used.
“Oral sex is not totally risk-free,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She said the need for protective methods was of growing importance because more “teenagers are initiating their first sexual activity with oral sex.” For people of all ages, she added, a protective barrier that is enjoyable to use could “reduce anxiety and increase pleasure around that particular behavior.”
Infections like herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis can be transmitted through oral sex, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The risk of transmitting H.I.V. from a vagina through oral sex is considered very low, the C.D.C. said. But HPV — human papillomavirus — is more easily transmitted that way, and mouth and throat infections from some types of HPV may develop into oral or neck cancer, the agency said.
How often people transmit infections in this manner is unclear and difficult to study because most people who have oral sex have vaginal or anal sex in the same encounter, said Dr. Kenneth Mayer, the medical research director for Fenway Health, a community health center in Massachusetts that focuses on patients who identify as L.G.B.T.Q.
“The F.D.A.’s authorization of this product gives people another option to protect against S.T.I.s during oral sex,” said Courtney Lias, director of the F.D.A. office that led the review of the underwear.
The only product previously authorized for protection during oral sex was a dental dam — a thin, rectangular sheet of latex (or sometimes polyurethane) that typically must be held in place with one’s hands to form a barrier between the mouth and genitals.
As the name suggests, dental dams, invented in 1864 and originally made of rubber, were designed to isolate teeth during dental procedures. But the AIDS crisis ignited concern about sexual transmission of infections, and in the early 1990s an Australian company, Glyde Health, created a dental dam that was primarily inspired by concerns of women who have sex with women, an official with the company has said.
Although several brands of dental dams have received F.D.A. clearance for protection against sexual disease transmission, the devices have not exactly been a hit.
“They’re extremely unpopular,” Dr. Marrazzo said, adding: “I mean, honestly, could there be anything less sexy than a dental dam?”
There’s little data on how widely they are used, but a 2010 study of 330 Australian women who had sex with women found that only 9.7 percent reported ever using a dental dam, and just 2.1 percent said they used dams often. A 2021 C.D.C. report said use of dental dams and other safe-sex methods was “infrequent” among women who have sex with women.
Dams are sold online and in sex shops, but are not widely available at pharmacy chains, and are usually more expensive than condoms. The C.D.C.’s web page on dental dams shows how to cut a condom to make a dental dam, but this doesn’t appear to be popular either.
“Many people report that dental dams are awkward and take all the pleasure out of oral sex for both the giver and receiver,” said Chris Barcelos, an assistant professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “They are hated even more than condoms.”
The idea for dam-like undies struck Melanie Cristol after an experience in 2014 during her honeymoon in Mexico with her then-wife. Ms. Cristol, then a corporate lawyer, discovered she had an infection that could be sexually transmitted.
Realizing how limited the protection options were, “I was just so discouraged,” said Ms. Cristol, who recalled that when she was a sex educator in college and taught about dental dams, “people looked at me like I was crazy.”
“I wanted to feel sexy and confident and use something that was made with my body and actual sex in mind,” she said.
Ms. Cristol formed a company that in 2018 began selling single-use underwear for “people with vulvas.” She said she named the product Lorals partly because the L sound “evokes words like love and lust, and it feels a little bit like a movement that you use” during oral sex.
The panties — available as bikinis or shorties — are made of latex that’s about as thin as condom material and forms a seal on the inside of the thigh to keep fluids in, Ms. Cristol said. The company markets their use for a range of reasons, including during one’s period, when a partner has a scratchy beard or when a person has experienced previous trauma and doesn’t want to be too exposed.
Ms. Cristol said that, responding to customer feedback, the company lessened the intensity of the vanilla taste, added more cornstarch to prevent stickiness and will introduce a sheer version in addition to the current opaque black version.
On Thursday, the company will begin selling undies explicitly for infection protection, which Ms. Cristol said would resemble its other products but would meet the more rigorous uniformity standards required for F.D.A. authorization.
“What’s interesting about this is that they have basically eroticized protection, which is something that condom companies have struggled with for years,” Dr. Marrazzo said.
The F.D.A. said it did not require human clinical trials but, as it does with condoms, gave Lorals authorization after the company submitted extensive documentation about thickness, elasticity, strength and other measures. Within the past year, the F.D.A. has also given clearance to two new dental dam companies, possibly suggesting increased consumer interest.
Sexual health experts said they welcomed the additional option, but some were unsure it would be popular and said more medical information was needed.
Dr. Mayer said he’d like to see “real-world data” from people’s actual experience to substantiate the underwear’s ability to block infection transmission.
“The F.D.A. clearances and increased product development seem to signal a greater potential market, but I don’t see a ton of demand,” Dr. Barcelos said, but added that such products can be “an important way to show a sexual partner that you care about them and take sexual health seriously.”
Two Lorals customers, whose contact information was provided by the company and who asked to be identified by their first names because of the sensitive subject matter, described various motivations for using the underwear.
Wisty, 28, who identifies as pansexual, has had sex with men and women, and uses they/them pronouns, said the panties were “a solution I didn’t know I needed.”
A dancer and Reiki energy healer in the Boston area, Wisty said they had herpes simplex, a common infection that in rare cases can cause serious inflammatory conditions. “I wanted to find something that makes it easier for me to enforce the boundaries that I wanted to,” Wisty said. “To be able to still play and explore while having that comfort and safety of knowing that I’m protected from my fluids going everywhere.”
Shelly, 29, a nurse in Washington State, said she saw the panties on TikTok at a time when she and her fiancé, Ashton, were struggling to re-engage in oral sex after cancer requiring reconstructive surgery had caused changes in his tongue’s mobility and ability to taste. In the aftermath of his cancer treatment, oral sex — once their favorite sexual activity — made Ashton feel like he was choking, and they had not done it in nearly two years.
“It was such a huge thing that he’d enjoyed over penetrative sex or anything,” Shelly said. Without it, she experienced “a lot of insecurity, feeling that maybe he doesn’t have interest for me in that way anymore.”
After ordering the panties, “we spent a couple hours just looking at it,” Shelly said. “We’re like ‘What are we dealing with here? It smells like vanilla, it stretches to kingdom come — like, what is this?’”
Wearing them during oral sex worked very well, said Shelly, who added that she could barely feel the panties and that Ashton said the texture resembled skin and the taste was “like you’re eating a cookie.”
She said she appreciated the new clearance for infection protection because Ashton is likely vulnerable to cancers that can be triggered by sexually transmitted infections.
The sexual experience was especially important, she said. “I never thought I would feel that again,” Shelly said. “And he was very like gung-ho about it when he realized that: ‘Oh, I can do all the things.’”
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