Where following safe-sex guidelines can be anything but safe

Safe sex on the mainland can make you sick, kill you or get your girlfriend pregnant. That's because up to a third of the prophylactics may be fake in some areas.

State media reported a police raid on a factory in Hunan this week that could have produced more than two million fake condoms, half of which have already been distributed across the province and even the mainland. Police confiscated about a million of the fake prophylactics and said they were working with health departments to track down those already shipped off. But a police spokesman was honest enough to admit the chances of retrieving them were not great.

The raid uncovered an illegal factory that made knock-off condoms with such brand names as Okamoto, Durex and its mainland Chinese-language brand Jissbon, which deliberately sounds like James Bond, the womanising spy, in Putonghua. If memory serves, Bond in the movies never used a condom.

The news reports graphically described shirtless men who spent all day lubricating fake condoms with vegetable oil and sealing them in packs without bothering to sterilise them. It is the largest case of its kind uncovered in the province, according to police.

Mainland health authorities said the knock-offs conferred no protection during sex; worse, the vegetable oil may be spoiled and become smelly when mixed with the rubber.