Couple In Bed
The government are launching a new sexual health campaign in light of findings from a new survey iStock

A survey carried out by PHE and YouGov has revealed that almost half of 16-24 year-olds have never used a condom with a new partner.

What's more, one in ten had never used one full stop.

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In light of these findings, Public Health England has launched a new campaign to get more under 25s to use condoms and prevent sexually transmitted infections spreading – the first government sexual health campaign in eight years.

Public Health England and YouGov got the results by speaking to more than than 2,000 16- to 24-year-olds about their sexual health.

The main reason for not using a condom was because they claimed sex felt better without one.

The poll also found half of the people who admitted to not using a condom were drunk during intercourse.

Other reasons given were that one of the couple was on another form of contraception such as the pill or having a contraceptive implant.

In an article on BBC, Ellie said that the burden of an unexpected pregnancy is shared with a male partner, whereas an sexually transmitted infections (STI) is seen as an individual's problem.

According to Public Health England, in 2016, there were approximately 420,000 diagnoses of STIs made in England. In addition to this, there were 5,920 diagnoses of syphilis in 2016, a 12% increase on the year before and the largest number of diagnoses since 1949.

Jesse, who's 24, told Newsbeat he contracted both chlamydia and gonorrhoea because he didn't use a condom.

"The worst of it though was having to tell my previous and current sexual partner that I had contracted the STIs, so they also needed to get checked and treated."

Symptoms vary but some, like chlamydia, often do not show any.

"I had symptoms, but I know there are so many people who don't have symptoms," says Jesse.

"Now when having sex with someone new I will definitely use a condom."

In May of this year, a new trend in condom-use made news for dangerous reasons. 'Stealthing' was an increasingly reported trend of men removing condoms midway through sex without their partner's consent or knowledge.

Sexual health