Charlie Sheen is the new face of a fundraising campaign for a re-engineered condom.

The 50-year-old actor , who is HIV-positive, is backing a new condom called Lelo Hex in an effort to promote safe sex.

In a video for the campaign he said: "I think people associate the word condom with less pleasure. With less connection, you know?

"What may feel like five seconds of an inconvenience or a halted or thwarted moment can absolutely prevent a lifetime of potential grief and suffering."

He added: "I don't know why it hasn't happened, but the condom has not changed for 70 years until right now."

The Lelo Hex focuses on changing the structure of the latex, using hexagons in order to prevent breakage, reduce slippage and eliminate discomfort.

The campaign currently has 10 per cent of the 10,000 backers it needs.

On safe sex, the former Two and a Half Men star said: "It's a dialogue that people don't want to have, it's uncomfortable, it's awkward.

"A lot has to do with that fantasy belief that that can never happen to them, and that's something that I can speak to.

"I pretty much felt the same way, that's stuff for other people, you know?"
Sheen said it was his aim to turn something "so completely negative and life destructive" into positive change.

On life after his diagnosis, the star said: "Things that are most different, things I address health-wise, things not only can't I do any more but I choose not to, so there's great change there."

He added: "There's an odd combination now, people still want to be like me and want to experience my life but there's a little detail that they want no part of so they can avoid that by using this."

Mirror