Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Let's all come together

For those not living in or around this nation's capital, lemme tell you - DC is troubled. We've got crime by the buckets, plus corruption, foolish jaywalkers, angry bike couriers, those people living in the White House, classical music critics taking e-mail swipes at poor, defenseless Mayor for Life Marion Barry, and, sadly, one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the whole country.

Lovely.

To try to combat the spread of HIV, the District government has been passing out free condoms. It's a nice gesture, but the Chinese-manufactured, paper-wrapped rubbers haven't been getting a thumbs-up (or, uh, anything up, for that matter) from potential users. People are concerned about the easily ripped paper packets rendering the goods useless. You really want to rely on a prophylactic that came out of a crappy, torn paper package? No, thanks! (I'd put more trust in those crazy Polish monster finger puppet rubbers I found in a kiosk in Moscow once.) I'd love to know who the brainchild was on this paper wrapping job -- being environmentally friendly is one thing, but this is pretty dumb. Foil is your friend.

According to this article on WTOP.com, more than 100,000 of the freebie condoms have been returned for a variety of reasons - the paper wrapper, the hard-to-read expiration date, and the fact that these guys aren't exactly locally manufactured. Let's face it, this year in particular I'd pass on Chinese-made condoms. I mean, if they've got factories coating toys with the date-rape drug, can you imagine what could serving as lube on these guys? Yeesh.

But my favorite reason for people being suspicious of the free willy warmers? The tacky design work and slogan!

Yes, it may be that some people are returning free condoms because the graphic design work is cheesy and the slogan is... well... you make the call:

It is Our Nation's Capital.
If you're going to come together, might as well be here...

I understand the importance of the District's efforts to curb the growth of new HIV infections. It's a serious crisis for an already troubled city. But I have to appreciate that some people, no matter how desperately poor - or how desperately horny - are willing to say no to free love gloves because they have a better sense of visual style and marketing language than the dorks who came up with the packaging.

Free Condoms: Zero
Good Taste: One

4 comments:

Sudiegirl said...

The only problem with the slogan is the timing. I have yet to time my orgasms with my partner.

KellytheCulinarian said...

What's so wrong with regular condoms? You would think it would be cheaper to just use the standard from the factory kind.

Sudiegirl said...

Oh - and I forgot to ask you...I need your help with a very special Rancho Sudiegirl Christmas meme.

Come on over and see what I mean...

Anonymous said...

Check out The Great American Condom Campaign (www.condomcampaign.org). We were handing out good condoms - Trojan brand - well before DC ever came up with this program. We even warned DC that the rubbers they hand out were sub-par. Unfortunately, they didn't listen.

GACC now has over 9,000 SafeSites on college campuses nationwide. Each one received a box of 500 Trojan condoms for free to pass out to their friends. We are renegotiating with Trojan now b/c we have already handed out nearly 4,000,000 for free. I don't think they expected that type of success.

Thanks for the story, and keep up the good work.