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Volume CXXXII, Number 11 |
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Condoms in your mailboxes
TODD BUELL
COLUMNIST
All students received a World AIDS day pamphlet earlier this week. This pamphlet advocated "medically accurate, and comprehensive sexual education." This is an appropriate statement encouraging students who are sexually active to do so safely. However, there was more to the pamphlet than simply paper. There was a "raspberry flavored" prophylactic.
The act of uniform condom distribution offends a number of students.
Though there is no need to proscribe the practice, the campus should realize
that there are a number of reasons why one might be offended upon finding
a condom in one's mailbox and it might be prudent for the group who distributed
the condoms to find a less offensive way of promoting its message.
An obvious reason for offense is religious belief. Most religions treat
sex in a sacrosanct fashion. However, it is not only the most fundamentalist
practitioners of a particular faith who might take offense upon reception
of a condom. There are some who for other reasons disapprove of seeing
flavored sexual instruments dispensed in their mailbox
One friend of mine, who is not particularly religious, said that he was offended by the flavoring of the condom. He felt that having a condom with a taste presented sex in a "fun and playful nature." This decision and that phrasing seriously offended this student's sensitivities.
His sensitivities or others of that nature do not necessarily have to be religiously or morally based. It is a fact that if people had less sex, then there would be fewer STDs and unwanted pregnancies in our society. This would likely mean fewer single mothers, fewer people on welfare, and perhaps less crime, but this is a topic for another article.
More to the point, someone who genuinely believes that sex should be discouraged for these social reasons might be seriously offended to see the seriousness of sexual acts downplayed by a flavored condom.
Some students and members of our community have what one could characterize as a traditional sense of decency and politeness. For example, I have never been comfortable talking explicitly about sex because I remember being told as a child that there were certain words one didn't say "in public." This is one of the few statements from my generally liberal parents that I embraced unquestioningly.
More practically speaking, raspberry flavored condoms, signs that discuss vibrators and vaginas, or sidewalk chalk that says "real men take it up the butt" makes me and I know many other people on this campus extremely uncomfortable.
Though these items are offensive to me and many other students and community members, I do not think our college should be in the business of censoring student organizations. Just as a group wants to distribute condoms to promote World AIDS day and can do so using Bowdoin student mailboxes, so also may the Bowdoin Christian Fellowship distribute pocket-sized bibles in student mailboxes.
The question then returns to prudence. Is it wise for a group to attempt to enflame the passions of the community? Might angering people detract from the meaningful message that a group wants to advance?
In the case of the condoms, the group who placed them in mailboxes probably only wanted to educate and not arouse fury. However, some members of our community were offended to receive a condom in their mailboxes. It might be a better method of communication for this student group merely to use the same pamphlet sans prophylactic and inform those who wish to engage in sexual relations that protective devices can be found in the Health Center.
This would allow the group to propagate its message and remain respectful
to varying beliefs on sex. It would also allow students to focus more
on the perilous condition of our world vis-a-vis AIDS and the need for
"medically accurate sexual education" rather than the "fun
and playful" possibilities of raspberry-flavored latex.
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