Another government study that is utterly absurd to the point of being a waste of money.

The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don't like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money.

Researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why "young, heterosexual adult men" have problems using condoms. The study will include "skill-based intervention" to teach grown men how to use protection.

The first phase of the two-year study called "Barriers to Correct Condom Use" will be a simple Q&A, but doctors say the second phase will plumb uncharted territory.

"The second phase involves a laboratory study, and focuses on penile erection and sensitivity during condom application," reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute.

"The project aims to understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems."

Indeed, I'll spare the researchers he trouble of ding this report at all by providing the answers now.

1. Men prefer having sex with a woman rather than a balloon.
   
2. Sex is ultimately about procreation -- and men who don't use condoms are (consciously or not) simply answering the biological imperative to spread their genes and propagate the species.
   

Now someone cut me that check for $200K.