It's too much pressure. It really changed my sex life," says Francisco Araujo, a year-old Venezuelan civil engineer. They have completely disappeared from the shops here. Venezuela is one of the unsafest countries in the world, with one of the weakest economies. Thanks to a potent mix of hyperinflation, intense price and currency controls, disappointing oil revenue and years of terrible governmental decision making, we're also blessed with the fact that very normal goods are extremely scarce here.
You'll have to wait in line for hours or days to get your hands on them β and that's only when they sporadically come in. This obviously has a lot of implications on life in Venezuela β one of them being that some Venezuelans, given the scarcity of contraceptives, are wary to have sex.
But I haven't as much over the last couple of years, since there's an enormous lack of condoms. I saved all the condoms I had and only use them if I really can't help myself," says year-old Alejandro Bohorquez. I'm afraid of getting an STI, so I honestly prefer abstinence, just to be safe.
That means that almost half of the population in Venezuela has difficulties in getting condoms, which in turn undermines prevention measures taken against HIV and other STIs, carried out by NGO's in the country. To make matters worse, Venezuela already has the third highest number of AIDS infections per resident in South America, and an extremely high teen pregnancy rate.
But if you're really desperate for a condom or a pill and you can afford some crazy prices, you can usually find one. In Venezuela, we have two prices for everything β tires, milk, toothpaste, toilet paper, contraceptive pills, DirecTV and plane tickets β due to the supply never being enough for the demand. There is the official price and the black market price. If you have a dealer's phone number, that helps. A dealer can help you find almost anything, basically.
