So I was chosen to take part in Amplify's Great American Condom Campaign. They take applications from students at universities where condoms are not readily available, and if selected they send you 500 trojan condoms to distribute.
My plan was to contact the Student Health center and the Counselling center in hopes of being allowed to place the condoms in the waiting rooms with information on condom use and safer sex. Since sex outside of marriage is strictly prohibited at my college (grounds for expulsion), they refused to help with my campaign and urged me to get rid of the condoms ASAP so I wouldn't get heat from the administration.
Get this, they equated providing condoms to students with providing clean needles to heroin addicts.
Legally, I think the school can do anything to me for simply having the condoms in my possession. There is no mention of condoms in the Student Handbook or the Student Contract we were forced to sign in order to attend school here. And since I myself am sexually abstinent, they can't expell me.
Any ideas on how I can effectively distribute condoms to students without causing a campus uproar? Or should I just do something drastic and take the heat?
Every year several girls get pregnant because they are having unprotected sex. Plus the school has a significant homosexual population. HIV and Pregnancy tests are even provided at our health clinic.
I've considered just selling the condoms on eBay, or donating them to a local organization, but my intention was to help students at this college practice safer sex and avoid the heartache and shame that comes with unplanned pregnancy and STDs here at school.
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Wtf kind of college do you GO to? Is this common in America?
How exactly would one prove that they were or were not sexually abstinent?
I've heard of colleges not allowing pre-martial sex, but only at schools where you get a degree in bible study. I could never attend a school like that, lol.
I'm not sure how you can distribute them, I mean they will get expelled if anyone finds out. Maybe you can ask to set up a table and get other students to help, and promise to advertise that abstinence is best, but you always need a backup plan. There is nothing wrong with a backup plan.
It's a small private methodist college in Kentucky. When I applied junior year of high school I didn't think the rules would be an issue because I wasn't having sex. Now I'm 21 and it's utterly ridiculous that I have a curfew and can't drink (even off-campus when school isn't in session!) or smoke hookah without fear.
as for proving whether or not you're sexually active...basically it's set up where other students spy on you, rat you out for the "good" of the community and then you are highly encouraged to "confess" so that your punishment will be less. I got tricked into confessing to spiking my drink with whiskey at a party and I know now that I should have lied through my teeth.
p.s. methodist's don't believe in back up plans. They just work toward reaching perfection. ugh.
I think you should work on transferring to a different school.
I think that this totally sucks. I support you so much for trying to make life on your campus better for everyone.
I did just want to chime in that not all methodists or methodist organizations are this strict about any of this business.
The church I grew up in and have attended regularly since I was about 5 years old, has always been very good about conversing openly and realistically about all "vices." In fact, when I was 17 and questioning if premarital sex was right for me and my boyfriend I got support not only from my peers in the community, but also from my youth minister. He gave me the tools to make an informed decision based on the health and psychological impacts of the decision, and sources to protect myself if needed. When I did decide that sex was a good choice there was no guilt, only support.
I just want to make sure that you don't feel that ALL methodists are quite so uptight.
That being said, these one's do seem to suck.
Best of luck on this, and I hope that you can find a way to get those condoms distributed to the people who really do need them!
1) tabling
2) let your friends know that you cant help them out
3) put signs in bathrooms with a secret email address, arrange secret condom exchanges-- get some sympathetic people to help you with this, you can't do it alone!
4) work to change your college's condom policy! giving people condoms doesn't make them have sex, but people who don't get condoms are more likely to have unprotected sex.
you have a big job here, distributing these condoms could prevent unwanted pregnancies, STIs and HIV!
Good Luck and let us know if we can help!
I agree, hell, even if you do get expelled you've saved some unwanted results from unprotected sex, right?
Work it like a drug dealing bizz, i say.
I think it's great that you're doing this (and don't get me wrong, we definitely need these types of programs)...however if there's one gripe that I have with HIV/STI prevention/condom distribution...is how the campaigns are always framed from a hetero/gay male POV. I have rarely seen programs that offer female condoms, barriers, dams, etc. for women who don't have sex with men. I realize that sure condoms are very useful for lesbians and bi-women who may choose to use dildos, but what about the rest of us?
It's a myth that STI/HIV can't be passed from woman to women - yet the CDC still claims on it's website "that there are no known transmissions of HIV from women to women"...despite the fact that there are thousands of lesbians currently infected (and drug use/receipt of blood products and other non-sexual risk factors can't be used to explain away all cases). HIV transmission rates in particular, have never properly been studied in the lesbian population, so it's hard to say for certainty what the transmission rates are. I realize that gay men and hetero partners most likely have higher rates of transmission, however I think excluding gay women from the conversation only perpetuates the myth that HIV and STI's can't be transmitted from woman to woman - something that is totally false.
I would be interested to know if the information materials you were sent says anything about LBTQ women? I think it's important because often it's something that is ignored, and most LBTQ women are not given proper education from our doctors. I remember a couple years ago, I had an appt. with a new gynecologist, and after refusing to take a pregnancy test, she started talking to me about using protection and birth control (specifically recommending that I be on birth control pills) after telling her repeatedly that I don't have sex with men, she sighed and just said, "well, I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't give you any relevant information since I don't know anything about lesbian sex". This is a pretty common reaction from gynecologists...they just aren't educated when it comes to this subject.
But, nevertheless - I still think it's great that you are doing this...it's a much needed service. No one should be arrested for distributing condoms at their college...and administrators are insane if they think that barring condoms will somehow magically keep college students from having sex. (like they can somehow close their eyes to the issue and it will magically go away).
Hi, meeneecat. I often have the same gripe about condom distribution campaigns everywhere (except my school's GQE and gender empowerment centre, of course :) ), but I think that dental dams might just be difficult to get ahold of and / or cost prohibitive. The reason I think that is a justifiable excuse is because it's easy to make a makeshift dam out of a cut condom...so, relying on a single product for multiple uses is a more efficient allocation of funds. *shrug* I also think we need a ton more education about STI prevention for queer women...it seems we get disappeared from so many discussions about sex / sexuality.
I really liked your whole post, by the way :)
At my school they gave out condoms but they put up signs with instructinos on how to turn a condom into a dental dam.
Have dental dams been shown effective at preventing HIV transmission? You might be better off going the turn-a-condom-into-a-dam route. Including instructions on a card handed out with the condoms would make them less penetration-oriented.
(Hm. Have condoms that have been turned into dams been shown effective at preventing HIV transmission?)
I want to say that because of what you wrote here, I tried talking with a group of students who were distributing condoms for Valentine's Day about providing information about dental dams or at least information about converting a condom into a barrier for female oral sex.
The person wasn't really listening to me well though, she thought that since I said the word "criticism" that I was saying that they shouldn't distribute condoms. It took awhile to get it to her that I was talking about providing information about dental dams.
When she understood, she told me I would have to check if the packets had that kind of information (she didn't know, why? And I know about dental dams, what about the people who don't?). And that people needed to get information about dental dams because people are so undereducated about it. What I don't understand is why, considering that their stated goal was to promote safe sex, they wouldn't at least try to make people aware of dental dams or other such barrier methods. They had flavored condoms after all.
Well, I tried.
Hmmm, I like the idea of setting up a secret, underground condom-distributing network if you can get away with it. Would a quiet, word of mouth campaign with your friends' help work?
I find it interesting that your school compared this to clean needle programs. The comparison is not very good in one sense, in that sex isn't illegal and can be safe, but narcotics are always dangerous and never legal. On the other, hand both are examples of people self-righteously wanting to punish people who do "bad" things, even at the expense of their health or life. I don't support doing heroin, but I would never argue that someone deserves to be infected with HIV because she or he is addicted to it. I think this mentality says just as much about the administrators' sense of entitlement to judge others as it does about their fear of sexuality.
Can you ask the organization that sent you the condoms for ideas?
How about leaving them someplace off campus, outside the rules of the school that students often go. Maybe a nearby cafe, coffee shop, or music venue. Those places probably get more foot traffic than the health center anyway.
Great idea! Spread the word via facebook (using an alias and gmail account like ptldfeminist) or word of mouth that there will be a condom give-away off-campus and set up a table in a local park or someplace like that. You may get dirty looks and shamed by locals, but what you are doing is more important. And what you are doing is technically off-campus, so how can you get in trouble?
If you're more daring, you could always try recruiting a few friends to slip condoms under dorm room doors. I heard of someone who did that, attaching a card that read "With love from the Safe Sex Fairy!"
If you do get in trouble, you do risk losing your place at this school, but you also could become an martyr/icon for safe sex. There are many schools out there who would welcome a transfer student who was suspended for doing the right thing.
If you hadn't already contacted people about it, I would have suggested that you leave condoms in bathrooms, on tables, etc. and make sure that no one sees you. But since they know that you're part of the campaign they'd automatically know it was you. :/ Is there any way you could get someone who doesn't go to your college to set up a table or something that's outside the college's boundaries, but still gets a lot of foot traffic from the students?
the only problem with leaving condoms in a place that is not at all sex-positive is that people might be tempted to tamper with them, rendering them ineffective and "punishing" the user.
voxtrollop -- if you need help brainstorming or moral support i'd be happy to help you with this. my email is un.vrai.truc.d.uof AT gmail.com
Ugh. Personally, I think people who poke pins in condoms to "punish" the users should have to pay for the resulting abortion or hospital fees, adoption fees, or child support. I know there is no way to prove that this person did this, but in a perfect world...
...Actually, in a perfect world, we would not have any unwanted pregnancies at all, would we?
Honestly, at my school my group literally passes out condoms on the street, but condoms aren't banned at my school. That might get you in trouble, but it might be worth it. I'm not sure what the penalty would be for something like that. We tape them to a flyer about safe sex and getting consent, or sometimes put them in baggies with candy.(We also give out female condoms and dental dams when we can get our hands on them.)
Please do not sell them on ebay or donate them. People applied for those condoms who didn't get them. You were awarded them so that you could distribute them on campus. If you can't figure out a way to do it without being punished, you could send them to me. My group's source of condoms has recently dried up.
Find a crowd (preferably a lecture hall), yell "Free Condoms" and throw them into the air when people start to look around.
I'd pick up a couple for sure.
And imagine the look on the professor's face.
Get this, they equated providing condoms to students with providing clean needles to heroin addicts.
I think it's a great analogy. Did you hear it from the school administration that's giving you a hard time, or from the organization supplying the condoms?
You might want to do some research on "harm reduction." A lot of charities (including Christian charities) do some kind of it, though it can be controversial. The basic premise is that if it's impossible to fix something completely, it's still worthwhile to make it a little better. So, organizations providing temporary shelter to homeless people, or just food and warm clothing, without fixing the cause for an individual being homeless or for a city having so much homelessness. Free rides home for drunk teenagers. Needle exchanges. Free condoms.
It would be great if there were no homelessness, and nobody got drunk, and there were no STDs. In the meantime, harm reduction saves homeless people from starving or freezing to death. It reduces drunk driving. It reduces transmission of HIV and deaths from AIDS. You know your school, and I don't...you are in a position to know how serious a risk you're taking. But I would just distribute the condoms openly. If somebody from the administration challenges you (I mean a *direct* challenge. Not "you should stop before somebody from the administration hears about this," which might be somebody thinking of an old policy), look them in the eye and say, "Would you rather have people dying of AIDS?" You might also want to say something pointed about that fellow from Nazareth who helped sinners and prostitutes, if you can strike the right tone.
"Get this, they equated providing condoms to students with providing clean needles to heroin addicts."
Oh, I completely missed that part of the OP. I really hope that the OP doesn't mean this as I initially interpreted it. (as in there's something inherently/morally wrong with distributing clean needles to heroin addicts and thus it should not be compared to condom distribution)
Drug policy is one of my favorite topics to discuss...I'm also involved in harm reduction and am well informed regarding harm-reduction/drug policy/addiction/etc...I've known and worked w/ plenty of heroin addicts (among addicts of other drugs, but particularly intravenous drug users). Thus I can say with confidence, a good number of these people would not be here today if it weren't for these life-saving needle exchange programs.
Thus, I think comparing condom distribution with needle exchange, just like Adrian said...is a great analogy. Both prevent disease, save lives and advocate from a "safety first...reduce the potential harm" standpoint.
I seriously hope that the OP didn't mean to put down needle exchange programs, or heroin addicts. Addiction is stigmatized enough as it is and drug addicts, particularly users of "hard drugs"/intravenous users/HIV+/HCV+, are often looked at as "dirty junkie"/"human scum" and pushed to the fringes of society as a result of our inhumane way of dealing with the "drug problem". We shouldn't further perpetuate myths and bad attitudes towards needle exchanges programs that have shown nothing but benefits in the form of reducing transmission of disease and saving lives (all while not encouraging drug use)...
In fact the same basis of argument that Repubs/Conservatives use against needle exchange is also used against condom distribution...i.e. needle exchange will encourage drug use and condom distribution will encourage more sex (both are false) Repubs/Conservatives argue against both programs from moral standpoints as opposed to objectively analyzing results/benefits from a scientific and public health standpoint.
So again, I agree with Adrian...I think the analogy is a good one.
On another note, just because I am passionate about the topic of drug policy and sharing info...anyone interested in an article(s) that will make you question popular assumptions and stereotypes about addiction, heroin addicts, "the dirty junkie myth" etc. I recommend these interesting articles...HERE and HERE
For Harm-reduction/needle exchange info (NYC):
Positive Health Project is a harm-reduction outreach program with a full-service health clinic/needle exchange program/HIV prevention & counseling/mental health/etc. Has programs designed for drug users, injection drug users, sex workers, women, transgender, homeless etc. and advocates on behalf of people who are HIV+ and substance users. (they also do volunteer outreach as well)
I was not putting down clean needle campaigns. Both campaigns are crucial to preventing infection
I was just annoyed that the administration would view adults having sex as the same as someone using a highly addictive and harmful (as well as illegal) drug. That was what got to me. Am I wrong to respond this way?
Sorry it took so long to respond. But yes, I do think it's wrong to judge others for their personal choices and lifestyle, whether it's having sex or choosing to use a particular substance. It all boils down to the freedom to make certain choices about what we choose to do with our own bodies, whether it's the substances we choose to take, or the sex acts in which we choose to engage. I don't know whether or not you were making a judgment about drug use, but it did seem rather condescending towards addicts/drug users (however, my interpretation of what you said could be wrong).
You cite the illegal status of the drug as well as the danger and addictiveness as reasons why you feel the parallels do not work. I don't want to make this too long a post and drive the thread off topic, but I just want to address each one of these points.
First, just because something is illegal, or against the law, doesn't mean the law is right. Remember sodomy was illegal in Texas just until a few months ago, and gay marriage is also illegal in most of this country. The (true) history of drug prohibition, actually reveals that the laws have much more to do with racism, lies, corruption, and a desired monopoly over certain markets by companies, than it does with the nature of drugs themselves.
Regarding the addictiveness of heroin, the truth is it's no more addictive than nicotine and many times less deadly than nicotine...furthermore the vast majority of heroin users, never become addicted. There's an article (linked at the end) that discusses the propaganda and myths surrounding heroin/heroin addiction and how the addictive qualities and dangers have been highly exaggerated.
An interesting fact, is that, heroin is indistinguishable from morphine once in the body, morphine of course being a drug that is prescribed safely, every single day, by doctors for pain relief...of course patients taking morphine have addiction rates that are no higher than the general population, meaning the vast majority do not become addicted. Similarly those taking legal morphine/opiates are not put at risk by the myriad of harmful prohibition policies that those taking illegal heroin must deal with: Anyone who has worked in harm reduction, understands that the dangers associated with drugs are mostly a direct result of prohibition policy, i.e. dirty needles, tainted/black market drugs, highly inflated black market prices for other wise "dirt cheap" products, damage associated with incarceration, poor/inaccurate education, social stigmas that keeps one from getting help, etc. (It's also interesting to note that there have been no known deaths at either a heroin maintenance program or safe injection site, indicating again, that much of the danger is a direct result of poor drug policy)
Most of the public 's knowledge about illegal drugs and addiction has been highly influenced by government propaganda. So, I suggest taking a look at both these articles (at the end). I can vouch for what is said in these articles about the exaggerated addictiveness and dangers of heroin (among the many other drugs whose dangers/addictiveness has been exaggerated, most notably marijuana). Again, I say this as someone who has done harm reduction outreach and worked with many many addicts. It's not that I'm advocating drug use or denying that drug use can cause harm, I just think it's extremely important to have accurate information.
So again, I DO think it's wrong to make moral judgments on someone simply because of their personal choices. Just like humans have always been having and enjoying sex, so have humans always taken mind-altering substances. Neither activity is inherently wrong, yet those who engage in one or both are often similarly condemned and moralized to...And unfortunately because of poor government policy advocated by those who think it's their right to morally judge others; whether it's a ban on needle exchange or a ban on condom distribution, the dangers and harms done to the general public end up increasing as a direct result of these poor policies. So again, I think there are definitely parallels between reducing the harms of drug use and advocating safe sex. So, please take the time to get accurate information...it might make a big difference in how you view the issue.
[A note as to why drug use and drug policy should be a concern to feminists, is the rising number of women being incarcerated for simple drug possession, as well as the many many babies that are, in my opinion, wrongly taken away from mothers each year, after testing positive on a drug test.]
The truth about heroin addiction
Heroin maintenance programs
Is there a local planned parenthood or other such organization. Maybe you could go talk to them, tell them you want to hand them out on campus but can't. Perhaps you could get someone as a proxy to hand them out for you, like just off campus or something.
Or you could hand them out personally from your dorm room. If you said there's nothing in the handbook prohibiting you from handing out condoms, what can they do to you? At that point if they try to get you in trouble, you can argue semantics with them. Ask them where in the handbook it says that you can't hand out condoms.
You have to decide how much trouble you're willing to get into, how much you believe in your cause. Are you willing to make a stand and risk getting suspended? If I got in trouble over it, I'd call the press myself, the news always likes a good controversial story.
I am in a similar situation; I was also selected by the GACC to be a SafeSite and my university does not allow contraception. I cannot distribute condoms or advertise on campus so I am delivering them to parties and I created a Facebook group (under an alias and using a non-school email) to inform my peers of the campaign. I encourage you to try one of these tactics and please, please do not sell the condoms on e-Bay.