Is it wrong for my campus to hand out condoms to passers-by?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Because they're doing that now. Going down to the student union building to change your class schedule or pick up some forums you need? You'll all get a couple Trojans, plus a flyer explaining the importance of safe sex.

I say no though. Student political and religious groups hand out flyers all the time. Besides, you can always say no.

[minionofmidas]

Yes, it's wrong to give them away. They should use them themselves, right away, where they are.

[TheresNoMoney]

No, it's not wrong. Birth control shoud be encouraged.

[John Dibble]

Yes, because the campus could be better spending it's resources on something more important. In these days of tight college budgets and rising tuitions, handing out condoms is low priority. If people want condoms from the college, they can take the time to go to their college's student health center and get them.

[angus]

Because they're doing that now. Going down to the student union building to change your class schedule or pick up some forums you need? You'll all get a couple Trojans, plus a flyer explaining the importance of safe sex.

I say no though. Student political and religious groups hand out flyers all the time. Besides, you can always say no.

of course.  your school, as does mine, needs the money.  they ought to be selling them.  at a cut rate, of course, maybe buy them in bulk for a quarter apiece and sell them for a quarter apiece, as these are college students.  But if you're going to give away good brand-name rubbers like Trojans, don't blame the Bush Administration for your school's economic troubles.  I'm not saying you have to turn a profit, but there's a better way to promote fun, safe, and promiscuous sex than just giving away Trojans.  hell, try to break even anyway.  Ah, well, at least you're not giving away Durex Ultra-Shiek condoms.

[Richard]

Yes.  I'd much rather have them spend $20,000 on additional bursaries for poor people than spend that money on giving students condoms that they should be buying themselves.

[Giant Saguaro]

It most certainly is. They shouldn't 'give out' anything, least of all this sort of thing, and at the same time they could reduce the fees and tuitions (especially with student bodies growing at many universities) and many of the funds you students pay into these days that are getting out of control.

I've been both student and instructor at this level, and IMO many universities are liberal bureaucracies run completely and thoroughly amok. This is basically a small thing, but an excellent example. Keep forking over the money you can't afford to fork over as a student and in return everything (90% of which you may never use or see) is all free! Wow, what a concept. So there's a building fee, this fund, that fund, the knock-out-the-wall fund, the dinner fund, all the health services funds, and so on, but it's often free for you

Yes, many schools have tight budgets, but often the spending isn't as tight as the budget.

[Emsworth]

Is it a public university? If so, it most certainly is wrong.

If it's a private university, it's obviously their own business, but it's still wrong: the money could be better spent on reducing tuitions, improving classes, or doing academic research.

[angus]

...improving classes, or doing academic research.

Whoa.  research?  instruction?  at a university? 

Now there's a novel idea.  Why didn't we think of that?  Oh, yeah, now I remember, 57.1% of us are still confused about the university's mission.   

Actually, when I was a student we received free condoms for the asking as well.  But:  (1) they were funded entirely by a private organization not affiliated with the university and (2) they were the very cheap black ones, so the didn't cost the organization much, and were more often used for water-balloon fights than for the deposition of bodily fluids.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

If they only give out regular-sized rubbers, and don't provide "magnums," it is unfair discrimination against the third-legged among us.

[angus]

youze guys all think he's kidding, but they actually exist.  I can vouch for it.  One of the most intimidating moments of my life was when I was in college and I got this tall black chick to come back to my apartment with me.  She was really tall and busty and muscular and built like a Brick House.  Anyway, so at some point she's asking whether I have a condom, and when I said I didn't, she said no problem, "I have some in my purse."  So she reaches in and I see her get out this big wad of Trojan condoms.  But they're in green packages.  Green?  wow, that's kinda neat.  I'd never seen the green packages.  Then I noticed how big they were.  Then she breaks it open and this gargantuan piece of latex is exposed.  Dude, you might as well have tried to put a tube sock on a needle.  Somehow we managed to get it on me, but I think I had to fish that rubber out of that deep dark hole about ten times over the following 3 minutes and 17 seconds.  Talk about embarassing.

Anyway, yeah, they do make extra large condoms.  That was in Austin, but I'd imagine they're a big seller in Mississippi.  And Jamaica.  And the northern part of manhattan.  All fine places, mind you, but bring your own condoms if you're like me, as any chick you pick up isn't likely to stock your size.

Wonder what the condoms in Tokyo look like.

[TheresNoMoney]

LMAO, Angus.

Anyway, like Angus said, we don't know who funded these condoms. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was some outside organziation like Planned Parenthood or something like that.

[© tweed]

No.  The cost is minimal, for those bitching about that.  Since they buy them in such bulk it's probably 2 cents a condom.  Not enough money to reduce tuition at all, and they wouldn't do that anyway.

[John Dibble]

No.  The cost is minimal, for those bitching about that.  Since they buy them in such bulk it's probably 2 cents a condom.  Not enough money to reduce tuition at all, and they wouldn't do that anyway.

They still have to pay the people handing them out, and they could still use that money for something more useful. Also, if you go by the attitude 'it only costs x' then you often get that attitude with other unnecessary things and they eventually add up to a meaningful amount of money.

[angus]

No.  The cost is minimal, for those bitching about that. 

well, what else would they be bitching about?

you ever bought a condom?  They're way more than 2 cents.  And even two cents adds up to several thousand dollars when you're supplying them to a large enough school.  And anyway even in bulk they'd be more than 2 cents.  Also, as dibble points out, this doesn't even begin to consider the man-hours expended and the forgone opportunity costs associated with their distribution.

Look, if the an organization, unaffiliated with the state and at its own costs, wants to distribute these, and if they get the permission of the administration, then I'd have not bitch.  and if I were a university administrator and some organization said, hey, we'd like to give out condoms, only on the quad and not in classes or other buildings, only to students who are old enough (18) so the school won't get sued by parents, and expressly for the purpose of promoting safe sex, I'd say no problem.  Bring it on.

[angus]

Then some dumbass student would still manage to figure out a way to kill himself with a condom.  He'd get a Darwin Award.  The university would get sued.  I'd get fired. 

You get the point.

[© tweed]

No.  The cost is minimal, for those bitching about that. 

well, what else would they be bitching about?

you ever bought a condom?  They're way more than 2 cents.  And even two cents adds up to several thousand dollars when you're supplying them to a large enough school.  And anyway even in bulk they'd be more than 2 cents.  Also, as dibble points out, this doesn't even begin to consider the man-hours expended and the forgone opportunity costs associated with their distribution.

Look, if the an organization, unaffiliated with the state and at its own costs, wants to distribute these, and if they get the permission of the administration, then I'd have not bitch.  and if I were a university administrator and some organization said, hey, we'd like to give out condoms, only on the quad and not in classes or other buildings, only to students who are old enough (18) so the school won't get sued by parents, and expressly for the purpose of promoting safe sex, I'd say no problem.  Bring it on.

No, I've never bought a condom, and I know they're more than 2 cents.  I have checked the prices, and A box of 6 if $4 dollars the last time I checked.  Now, 1) 2 cents in an exagerration, and 2) the condoms they buy aren't the good ones, and I'm not talking Trojan with the ridges, I'm talking that they're cheap.  And 3) They almost certainly but them from a company/supplier and not a drug store.  Buying them in bulk makes them cheaper, and in the end, I doubt it costs the school more than $1-2 thousand a year to continue this program.  $1-2 thousand can really accomplish nothing on a university's budget, except maybe lower tuition by about 60 cents a student per semister, and then the students would have less money because condoms cost more than 60 cents in a drugstore available to the public.

I'm starting to rant here, but you get my drift.  The cost is minimal, the cause is practical, and students are going to have sex no matter whether you give them condoms or you don't.

[dazzleman]

I think people ought to buy their own condoms.

I detest this whole nanny-state mentality.  The more you do for people, the less they do for themselves.  Once a university starts handing out condoms, people suddenly get the idea that it's the RESPONSIBILITY of the university to provide 'raincoats' for anybody who wants them.

That's the way human nature works.  Do something for somebody once that you don't have to do, and in their mind it becomes your responsibility.  Next thing you know, there'll be all these clueless left-wing students demanding condoms, and blaming the university if condoms weren't available when they needed them.  It's a huge disservice to society to foster this type of thinking to an even greater degree than it already exists.

[angus]

when you take a ride on Maid of the Mist under niagara falls, they give you a raincoat.  but then, you can argue that your ten dollar entry fee helped fund that raincoat.  Or you could just say, well, the mist is going to be there, whether or not the company provides raincoats, and a cheap little throw-away raincoat is certainly cheaper than the alternative:  mold, mildew, washing detergent, even dry cleaning.  (assuming the anti-dry cleaning crowd doesn't have its way and overturn whatever activist decision gave us the right to dry clean our clothes.)

still, we keep getting back to that ten dollars you paid to ride Maid of the Mist in the first place.  Thus the raincoat is privately funded. 

Wonder if anyone's ever sued Maid of the Mist over asphyxiation caused by the plastic raincoat?

[dazzleman]

Wonder if anyone's ever sued Maid of the Mist over asphyxiation caused by the plastic raincoat?

If not yet, I'm sure somebody will.  In our society, noboby accepts responsibility for their own mistakes anymore.

There was a time that people who made stupid mistakes were embarrassed to admit to them, and buried them, rather than coming forth and blaming others.  Today, many people aren't even embarrassed about the extremely stupid things they do to cause injury to themselves, and concoct an intellectually tortured logic to pin the blame on others.

How long before a university handing out condoms gets sued if the condom breaks during sex, and a person gets pregnant or catches a disease?

[angus]

oh, you're preaching to the choir.  I remember my college and grad school days.  And I fully expect any self-respect college student, straight, queer, or bi, to want to stick his weiner into any thing and everything in sight.  No doubt about it.   And of course I advise each and every one of them to put a helmet on that little soldier before sending him out to do battle.

But that's not what this is about.  It's about unforseen consequences of bad ideas.  Handing out condoms is costly, and the potential bad PR and litigation which could possibly result is even more so. 

I keep thinking of the WKRP in Cincinnati episode in which Herb Tarlek had the bright idea of dropping Turkeys from a helicopter during thanksgiving as a promo for WKRP.  Folks would have free thanksgiving dinner, and remember WKRP fondly.  Hmmmm, did anyone forget to tell Herb, Les, and the copter pilot that (1) turkeys with clipped wings don't fly any better than wild ones do, in fact not as well and (2) a 20 pound blob of flesh can break human bones when dropped on people from high above the city.  Needless to say, Mr. Carlson wasn't too amused at the ensuing medical bills his station had to pay.

[WalterMitty]

youze guys all think he's kidding, but they actually exist.  I can vouch for it.  One of the most intimidating moments of my life was when I was in college and I got this tall black chick to come back to my apartment with me.  She was really tall and busty and muscular and built like a Brick House.  Anyway, so at some point she's asking whether I have a condom, and when I said I didn't, she said no problem, "I have some in my purse."  So she reaches in and I see her get out this big wad of Trojan condoms.  But they're in green packages.  Green?  wow, that's kinda neat.  I'd never seen the green packages.  Then I noticed how big they were.  Then she breaks it open and this gargantuan piece of latex is exposed.  Dude, you might as well have tried to put a tube sock on a needle.  Somehow we managed to get it on me, but I think I had to fish that rubber out of that deep dark hole about ten times over the following 3 minutes and 17 seconds.  Talk about embarassing.

Anyway, yeah, they do make extra large condoms.  That was in Austin, but I'd imagine they're a big seller in Mississippi.  And Jamaica.  And the northern part of manhattan.  All fine places, mind you, but bring your own condoms if you're like me, as any chick you pick up isn't likely to stock your size.

Wonder what the condoms in Tokyo look like.

lol, angus.

great story. 

[TheresNoMoney]

Wow dazzleman, paranoid much?

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Anyway, yeah, they do make extra large condoms.  That was in Austin, but I'd imagine they're a big seller in Mississippi.  And Jamaica.  And the northern part of manhattan.  All fine places, mind you, but bring your own condoms if you're like me, as any chick you pick up isn't likely to stock your size.

Let's not make this a racial thing.  There are plenty of whites out there who need larger than standard condoms.  Trust me .

[angus]

I will just have to take your word for it, since I'm still a virgin in that sense.  I still make the flappy noise when I fart, if ya know what I mean.