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 ight
before finals last semester, the University of Arizona started offering
students bulk discounts — on condoms. (One hundred for $10
(how could you possible need…?), 250 for $25.)
"It's
like going to Costco instead of Circle K for your milk," a
"health educator" with the school's Campus Health Service
told the Arizona Daily Star.
On the hit
Showtime television series Queer as Folk, two of the main
characters followed an ad in a gay newspaper to a "bb party."
They thought that meant body builders. Evidently, it doesn't.
The men left
the party outraged not that they were at an orgy, but that the men
involved in anonymous couplings there were not using condoms.
The condom's
back. And it appears to be better than ever.
Sure, there
have been condoms-in-schools flare-ups in the last decade or so,
but the "have safe sex, use a condom" message was not
being touted as the universal solution it once was.
Now, however,
"safe sex" appears to be back in style.
In fact, along
with American flags, condoms were among the first responses to September
11. Across the nation, Planned Parenthood clinics offered patriotic
condoms, expecting that casual sex and subsequent "unintended
pregnancies" would be on the rise following the attack on America.
The head of a PP branch in Virginia told local papers, "Offering
patriotic condoms will hopefully stem the increase of unintended
pregnancies while letting Americans to display their colors proudly."
More recently,
there's the Olympics. During the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney,
Australia, free condoms were "such a hit" — more
than 70,000 condoms in gold, bronze, and silver were distributed
to athletes — that organizers couldn't help bringing them to
Utah's 2002 Winter Olympics, to begin this Friday. The drug supplier
to the Olympics, Cardinal Health, donated 12,000 condoms to the
Olympic village clinic. They will also be available at first-aid
stations throughout the village. "We consider it a good public
health practice," a spokesman for the Olympic Committee has
said.
Most athletes
who have been interviewed so far consider it a brilliant idea, since
most are young and single — and likely to want to have sex
during downtime. Vuk Radjenovic, 18, a member of Yugoslavia's bobsled
team, told the New York Times: "It's a very good idea,
a very, very good idea. Today is a very nasty time for diseases,
and there will be a lot of parties in the Olympic Village, I suppose.
It's a natural thing, sex, but you must be careful."
Some suggest, however, that the actual reason the condoms are so
hard to keep in supply is that condoms aren't as readily available
in some of the 80 or so countries from which the 2,400 Olympians
hail. So they're bringing them home as souvenirs, for when they
are needed.
As you might
imagine, Mormon Utah is not overjoyed. (Try pulling this if the
Olympics were being sponsored by the House of Saud.)
Of course,
those uncomfortable, or even outraged by the condom dump at the
Olympics should actually be relieved. Originally, the condoms were
to be part of a package every athlete receives upon registration.
Some of the Olympians are quite young, including two 16-year-old
girls who are members of the United States team: Lyndsay Walls of
Churchville, N.Y., a hockey player, and Sarah Hughes of Great Neck,
N.Y., a figure skater.
The condom
distribution has not been without opposition. Generation Life, a
group of college students, artists, and musicians from Boise, Idaho,
headed to Salt Lake City last week to start their campaign —
in the media and then outside Olympic venues — to protest the
condoms. The Olympics should be about "virtues, like the spirit
of unity and sportsmanship, not recreational sex, not even safe
sex," said Generation Life director Brandi Swindell.
Take also the
recent ad campaign in 134 Washington, D.C.-area Metro rail stations
and 50 bus shelters. A CINO group — Catholic in Name Only,
that is — called Catholics for a Free Choice launched an ad
campaign attacking the Catholic Church for causing people to die
of AIDS. The ads, which read, "Because the bishops ban condoms,
innocent people die" and "Catholic people care. Do our
bishops?"
At the start
of 2002, similar ads were introduced in several other countries,
including Belgium, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico.
"The Vatican
and the world's bishops bear significant responsibility for the
death of thousands of people who have died from AIDS," Frances
Kissling, the president of Catholics for a Free Choice, said in
a November 29 press release. "For individuals who follow the
Vatican policy and Catholic health care providers who are forced
to deny condoms, the bishops' ban is a disaster," added Kissling,
who is a former abortion clinic director. "We can no longer
stand by and allow the ban to go unchallenged."
However, Susan
Gibbs, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C., archdiocese, points
out that Catholic organizations currently provide 25 percent of
all HIV/AIDS care worldwide, making the Church the largest provider
of this type of care. And — as William Donahue effectively
argued in a debate with Kissling on Crossfire last month
— no one has ever died of AIDS because he obeyed Catholic
Church teaching on sex.
But before
any more jump on the bandwagon, they should note that the condom
still isn't foolproof. A report that was finally released (after
over a year of delay) by the Centers for Disease Control late last
year found that condoms only really have high levels of effectiveness
in "preventing HIV transmission in both men and women who engage
in vaginal intercourse," and that "the latex male condom
could reduce the risk of gonorrhea in men."
So the Queer
as Folk guys really do have something to congratulate themselves
for: as promiscuous as they are, they're keeping themselves from
contracting gonorrhea — maybe.
Florida Republican
congressman Dave Weldon, a medical doctor, suggested on the release
of the report: "I think there's grounds for class action suits
against the government based on the report. They had been promoting
the use of condoms."
During the
summer, the United Nations and World Health Organization issued
a joint statement endorsing condoms as "the best defense"
in preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
Of course,
there is one other alternative. It's not cool though. So I won't
even bother.
At least the
Olympic Committee doesn't need to worry about a shortage of condoms.
"These (protesters) are missing the boat," said Adam Glickman,
chief executive of Condomania, a Los Angeles condom store. "Condoms,
when distributed with educational material, have been shown to decrease
sexual promiscuity.
"If the
Salt Lake village runs out of condoms, let me know. I'll send a
shipment," Glickman added. "We've even got them in red,
white and blue."
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