Sex is cleaner with a packaged wiener. Since the first talk with mom and pop about the birds and the bees, we’ve been told to use condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Simply put, no glove = no love.

But many fools aren’t wrapping their tools, so what’s a girl to do? Meet C31G. No, it’s not a Star Wars character or a crazy sex toy. It’s a new contraceptive vaginal gel to prevent unwanted pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“Negotiating condom use is not always successful,” says Kiri Knutson-Baldi, associate project director at the California Family Health Council (CFHC) in Berkeley. “[C31G] puts the means of contraception and disease prevention in the woman’s hands.”

C31G is a microbicide, a gel agent proven in lab tests to protect the body and combat viral and bacterial microorganisms. Its effectiveness in pregnancy prevention is being tested in the Bay Area by the CFHC, while its use in disease prevention is being tested in Africa where STDs pose a greater risk. According to the Rockefeller Foundation, an organization that provides funding to eliminate poverty and disease in poor countries, 2.5 million HIV infections could be prevented over the course of three years if only 20 percent of at-risk-women would use microbicides.

The contraceptive is being tested against the FDA-approved Nonoxynol-9 spermicide gel Conceptrol that has been available in stores for years. Though spermicides annihilate the seeds of life before they are planted, they do nothing for disease prevention, leaving a woman’s best bet for safety in her man’s wallet.

“We can’t claim that [the gel] is more effective than a condom,” says Ann Marie Corner, senior vice president of women’s preventive health at Biosyn, Inc., the lead developer of C31G. “If someone is using [a condom] correctly, it could be 99 percent effective. This is for women who can’t get a partner to use a condom correctly.”

The results won’t be available until the trials wrap up sometime next year. If the testing is successful, the gel could be available by the end of 2007, according to Corner.

Until then, men: use your head (the one with the brain). And don’t fiddle with her middle without covering your diddle.