Salon.com > Condoms

Condoms shouldn’t be a crime

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 21:35:00 +0000

New York City loves condoms. The municipality has its very own brand of rubbers. Every month, the Department of Health hands out more than 3 million of them. But the NYPD considers those same city-issued condoms, along with your run-of-the-mill Trojan, to be evidence of a crime: prostitution. (Some have suggested that this is a blatant attempt by law enforcement to meet quotas.)

The health impact is clear: As Human Rights Watch reported,"Police use of condoms as evidence of prostitution has the same effect everywhere: despite millions of dollars spent on promoting and distributing condoms as an effective method of HIV prevention, groups most at risk of infection ... are afraid to carry them and therefore engage in sex without protection as a result of police harassment." What's more, "Outreach workers and businesses are unable to distribute condoms freely and without fear of harassment as well."

Ban on free condoms under scrutiny at Boston College

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Boston College, a private Jesuit university in the tony suburb of Newton, MA., officially bans the distribution of condoms on campus, and the policy has recently caused a considerable amount of friction with a student sexual health group.

After years of operating on campus without incident, the group, Boston College Students for Sexual Health, received a letter in March from the administration, ordering them to stop giving out free condoms and sexual health education kits to students.

According to The New York Times, the letter explained that "the distribution of condoms is not congruent" with the values and traditions of Boston College:

While we understand that you may not be intentionally violating university policy, we do need to advise you that, should we receive any reports that you are, in fact, distributing condoms on campus, the matter would be referred to the student conduct office for disciplinary action by the university.

My secret condom use

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Cary,

Exactly two years ago my mother died. I went to the hometown to take care of things and then my girlfriend joined me for the funeral. She acted her part great, but there was something in the air.

After the ceremony we went home, and as I got undressed and lay on the bed I was thinking, "Now I can fall apart, and cry and mourn." In that exact moment, my girlfriend approached me and said that when she was preparing for travel to the funeral, she found an opened box of condoms. She was on the pill; I used them for hygienic purposes in our lovemaking that she didn't know about, and she expects me to explain it.

The next three hours is a blur. I finally managed to ease her concerns, but the moment for mourning was lost. And I can't get over it.

My relationship with my mother was a difficult one. Lately I had thought of her as the always demanding monster who took away the best years of my life. And in the moment the monster died, when I was to be free at last, another one took its place and presented her demands.

I didn't cheat on my girlfriend, but it was this moment I felt that that sacrifice on my part was wasted.

A brief history of the condom

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Bill Gates has already put some of his money toward building a better toilet, and now he’s turning his attention to another kind of bodily function. The Microsoft billionaire is putting up money through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in hopes of spurring enterprising inventors to make a better condom.

Though condoms are cheap to make and fairly reliable both for contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, many men do not use them due to a perceived trade-off between protection and pleasure.

Bill Gates wants you to invent the condom of the future

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:20:00 +0000

Sex (as long as it is consensual) pretty much always feels good. Because, you know, it is sex.

But global public health advocates understand that due to cultural stigma, social pressure and generic "it just doesn't feel the same" whining, people still aren't using condoms at the rate that they could be given how widely available they have become.

So with that in mind, the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, put out a call for a better designed, more pleasure-inducing condom. The challenge is to make an experience-enhancing condom that will make men and women go weak in their desire to have protected sex! For the good of humankind!

The problem (emphasis mine):

NYC uses shame, petty insults in new teen pregnancy campaign

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:37:00 +0000

The New York Human Resources Administration launched a new ad campaign this week that uses "straight talk" in an effort to prevent teen pregnancy. The ads feature images of sad-looking children alongside messages like "Honestly, Mom ... Chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me?" and "I'm twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen."

The ads have already been harshly criticized for using these statistics to shame teen mothers rather than educating sexually active young people about where they can access condoms and other contraceptive care. But the subway and bus shelter ads aren't actually the worst part.

As reported by Miriam Pérez for RH Reality Check, at the bottom of each ad is the message: “Text ‘NOTNOW’ to 877877 for the real cost of teen pregnancy.” Text the number and you're directed to a choose your own adventure "game," which includes "scenarios about Anaya being ignored by her 'baby daddy' and shunned by her parents," but no information about how not to get pregnant. Instead, the texts use threats of social isolation, the prospect of losing your boyfriend and petty fat-shaming to drive home the message that teenagers who get pregnant are deserving of hardship and ridicule.

Study: Condoms don’t ruin sex. Really

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:29:00 +0000

Impressionable young people and other sex novices, gather round! There is no longer any reason to let someone pressure you into having sex without a condom. So no more falling for "it just feels better" at the last minute, you hear?

Sex with condoms is totally the same as sex without condoms. Science says so.

A new study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reveals that within a nationally representative study of American men and women, sex was rated as "highly arousing and pleasurable" whether or not condoms were used. Translation: Consensual sex is pretty much always going to feel good. Because it is sex.

Researchers from the School of Public Health at Indiana University reviewed how men and women ages 18-59 rated their last sexual experience and found that the "results showed that men and women consistently rate sex as highly arousing and pleasurable with few differences based on condom or lubricant use," according to the study.

And there was no significant difference found in how easily men reported getting erections while using condoms, either.

The frontiers of Obama merch

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 18:18:00 +0000

Our own Alex Seitz-Wald, while reporting on the ground at the inauguration ceremony, has come across a number of vendors hawking Obama-themed wares. He was particularly struck by this gentleman. "He's holding a very thick stack of cash with many $20s," read Seitz-Wald's dispatch:

Last year, Salon noted that novelty Romney and Obama prophylactics were spotted at a protest in New York. Romney rubbers were nowhere to be seen on the Mall today.

Romney condom, anyone?

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:35:00 +0000

In a cruel turn for sex fans everywhere, and another unwelcome intrusion of politics into the bedroom, Obama and Romney condoms are being handed out in New York.

Videographer Tim Pool snapped this image of the free novelty prophylactics at an anti-Occupy protest, staged by activists from Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity.

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Update: Salon would like to thank the salacious minds that responded to our call out for alternative condom slogans. The Romney condom packet carried the slogan "Great for Any Position" (as a barb at the presidential not-so-hopeful's flip-flopping). The Obama condom read, "Won't break as easily as his promises." We asked readers if they could do any better. Here are a few great alternative suggestions proposed by readers.

Via Twitter:

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Our friends on Facebook also had some delightful suggestions. Suzanne Grace Collins proposed, "Romney condoms, for when you don't want to feel anything." And Ben Ellington had this tasteful offering: "Obama -- Change is cumming."

Best condom on the market

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 14:00:00 +0000

For condoms, the pack you should throw in your cart is the Trojan Ecstasy Ultra Ribbed.

The taboos of talking about sex and everything it entails conspire to make condoms shopping hushed, instant decisions for many people. Doing a little homework and knowing which kind to get is important because drugstore aisle shopping decisions happen in a matter of seconds – not minutes. Who wants to talk to the store clerk about their penis size? Where they’re going to do it? That they’re hoping to last longer?

Those conversations you never have with store clerks, with partners, or even with yourselves about sex, condoms, lube, toys, positions, and pleasure? They’re my daily bread as a sex researcher at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute, and a sex columnist/author of books like "Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction" and "Great in Bed" (to name a few).