[Broken_Hippo]

I'm pretty sure birth control is safer than being pregnant every 10 months. From what I understand, this pregnancy thing is the real reason for the taboo against being sexually active more - that and society's penchant for knowing who to pass on their stuff to after they died. Granted, many of these sorts of taboos have traditionally been only for women and not men, and have not always been consistent over time. Additionally, old-time methods for birth control were bad, and abortion options (they have had them for centuries) were even worse. Pregnant women needed a lot of support as well, so this could lead to some of the taboo.

A condom is not the best option for birth control, merely one of the options. The best would be voluntary sterilization for both the man and the woman. There are other non-hormonal birth control methods, such as a copper IUD and other barrier methods that work, some better than a condom and some worse.

The main benefit from a condom is STD protection, but for that to be effective they need to be readily available to everyone and cheap enough to afford.