light & (darkly)

Condoms, status, and sex.

More random photos from London.

So, apparently, the brand of condom you use here (in South Africa) carries with it a huge (no pun intended) status implications. Which is so weird to me… Especially coming from New York where you have to do your best to not see a NYC free condom every couple of feet. I was under the general assumption that a condom is a condom and that it doesn’t matter.

Here, busting out a free government condom is as good as saying you want to become a monk. Even highly educated, compassionate women in stable relationships feel that condoms reflect on the male in terms of affection or status or wealth or whatever. It’s not just something that happens around the slums.

It blows my mind. I was intrigued by this enough to add a “condom preference” component to my survey, but I have to ask you–are you particularly picky about condom brand? Would you actually turn down (or have you been turned down) because you didn’t have the “good” brand?

So strange to me.