Embarrassment about buying condoms is almost a tradition. With the increased publicity about safer sex, and the widespread acceptance that condoms will give you some protection against both sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, that embarrassment is disappearing. Gone are the days when you had to lurk around the men’s toiletry section of the pharmacy, waiting for the other customers to leave, then go through the awkward charade of asking the pharmacist for fifteen dollars worth of shampoo and cotton buds before you could pluck up the courage to ask for the condoms. The fact that you can pick them up off the shelf in the supermarket or the service station, or get them from a vending machine, makes them easier to buy.
One of the world’s biggest condom manufacturers, Durex, has designed a range of condoms targeted directly at sixteen year olds. The bright packaging, multi-colors and familiar chewing-gum flavors see to that. Now this marketing exercise is bound to draw harsh criticism from those who claim that .inning condoms at a teenage market is just giving them the go-ahead to ‘do the business’, so the manufacturers are expecting a controversy, but let’s take a look at the facts.
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