There’s a bizarre, dangerous new trend among teens that hopefully can be nipped in the bud before it spreads. The Condom Challenge involves inhaling an unwrapped, presumably unused, condom through the nose and pulling it out the throat.
This isn’t exactly new, but like many other questionable trends among the youth, is something that saw a resurgence from something bored teenagers have been doing through the years, Newsweek reports. A quick search for the Condom Challenge on YouTube pulls up an array of videos showing teens and young adults snorting condoms.
This so-called challenge was one of many dangerous trends that parents were taught about in a new parents’ class in San Antonio. The classes are for parents who want to better understand what their children do when they’re not around.
Stephen Enriquez, a state education specialist, said, “There are all kinds of drugs and kids are clever, so it’s just really what are our kids doing? So, that’s what we try to share.” Enriquez added that social media and the need for validation through “likes, views, and subscribers” is driving stunts like these. He said,
As graphic as it is, we have to show parents because teens are going online looking for challenges and recreating them.
Educators in Texas are visiting schools to talk about drug and alcohol prevention, and inform parents of dangerous activities such as this.
Snorting a condom is not just painful, it’s downright hazardous to a person’s health. The nose is an opening to air waves, so there is always the risk that shooting a condom up the nose won’t come out the mouth, but gets inhaled into the lungs.
In one reported case, a 27-year-old woman accidentally inhaled a condom during oral sex, and suffered through six months of persistent coughing and fever before doctors were able to pinpoint the source of her problem.
