l'anthropologue

If you designed your own condoms and packaging, what would be the theme or design of it, to graphically represent sexual interaction and birth control in contemporary society?

On facebook, a friend posted the question ‘why hasn’t nike made condoms yet?’ It was a question congruent to sports figures and sex scandals, as recent as Tiger Woods’ infidelity. My initial, jocular response was “just do it,” though I doubt Nike would advocate using its pithy tagline to promote recreational coitus.

Actually, one could produce a line of condoms thematically dedicated to the major players: i.e., the Barry White, for the bassists whose vocal reverberation sends women into swooning epilepsy; the Benjamin Franklin or the Ghenkis Khan for the seed sewers, both in the bathtub and on the battlefield; or, the Madonna for debauchery under the puritan veneer of chastity.

It seems I jest, but there is a general playful intimacy intrinsic to sex, that a contraceptive’s graphically designed packaging could colorfully convey. Conversely, the caveat emptor being: a visual, playful delineation of sexual behavior would likely shame most Americans from engaging in coitus, like it’s ooo-la-la.

While condoms are dispensable items, why aren’t they graphically packaged in a tell-tale that you’ll soon engage in intimate fun and eroticism. We’re easily excited over the toys at the bottom of cracker jacks or the cheesy sobriquets for Ben & Jerry’s flavors; if Oreo adds more cream in between the cookies, we’ll gum up our mouths and intestines with excessive, Oreo-encrusted lard. All of that—the packaging and added benefits—is superfluous because in the end we urinate or defecate the food item and the packaging goes into the trash.

With condoms, however, sex would emulate Fellini-inspired, hedonistic glory if consumers could choose, from a dispenser, which graphically designed packaging soon encases yours or your partner’s primordial ooze. Perhaps the Japanese held a similar philosophy when they placed condom and panty vending machines around Japan.

The Japanese have placed their kitsch aesthetic on condom production, an intelligent maneuver proving that graphically designed birth control packaging can attract consumers. If porn is garish, then why can’t sexual props also be brightly colored and exude the same playfulness as the act itself? Radical Suzuki, a Japanese illustrator, designed condom packaging with playful characters—frolicsome personifications of sex.

Michiko Koshino, a Japanese clothing designer based in the UK, currently sells them through the convenience store chain, Lawson, and Circle K. I’m unsure of her initial objective for producing a self-entitled brand of condom. But there’s an eminent sensibility to a clothing designer producing condoms, because clothing many times is purchased to exude sexual appeal—to augment our physical aesthetic for finding a mate. She clams that she’s the “first designer to market condoms under her own brand name.” The packaging for one of her condom lines is a chess board accentuated with a british flag, a very high-profile design for something so carnal and ephemeral.

Post-it in past tense:

In college, I recall purchasing condoms from a grocery store, in Athens, Georgia. First I got a wry, shameful look from th clerk and then I had to wait five minutes while she tracked down the keys that opened the glass case of condoms. I suspected they wanted to embarrass people by encasing the condoms, rather than showcase them as an easily stolen commodity. Think about it—if you stand there long enough for an entire grocery store to acknowledge that you’re planning to engage in coitus in the near future, that’s more embarrassing than buying hemmaroid cream or tampons. In America, that is.