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Condoms behind bars
By Melissa Campbell
A condom is a latex sheath worn around a man’s … Getting embarrassed? Want me to stop?
We should be comfortable with the idea of condoms by now. They have been around in various forms since 1000 B.C., when the Egyptians used linen sheaths to protect against disease. Around the 1500s it was discovered that condoms also aided in pregnancy prevention.
Early condoms were hand-dipped from rubber cement, had a short lifespan and were extremely susceptible to breakage. This changed in the 1920s, when the first latex condoms were produced. These lasted longer and were much thinner than their predecessors.
If reading this gets you a little flustered, then you are probably one of those people who put on a pair of sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt when you slip into the local drugstore and purchase a package of condoms — with cash, of course.
That anonymity with which you thrive in that difficult situation could soon disappear. Area drugstores have started locking up their condoms, requiring customers to find a store employee to unlock a glass case so they can select their preferred brand and style. After which, the employee then locks the case back up.
Milwaukee isn’t the only city on condom lock down. Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have done the same. The reason is quite simple: to deter theft. Pharmacies often lock up highly stolen items like razor blades, hair products, cologne, pregnancy tests and now condoms. The decision by some pharmacies to take condoms off the shelves has not gone unnoticed. Planned Parenthood is strongly against the idea; they believe it will discourage condom use, and aid a rise in STD contraction and pregnancy.
“In this day and age, I would think that pharmacies would want to promote safe sex,” said Anthony Staton, 20. “And I think that people already feel weird about buying condoms, so now they have to ask someone to unlock them. It sucks.”
Elizabeth Weber, 25, feels differently about the issue. She understands the need to prevent shoplifting, and believes that young people are the cause of the majority of the condom thefts that lead to the lock down.
“I think it’s all the underage kids who don’t want people to know they are having sex,” she said.
Pharmacies around campus, for the most part, have not followed suit as of yet. Most still have their condoms out in the open. CVS Pharmacy located on Downer Avenue, was the only pharmacy contacted that locked up their condoms (the pharmacy representative said that the lock-up was not a new policy and that it had been always been in effect as a theft deterrent).
The CVS Pharmacy located on Farwell Avenue, however, does not keep its condoms under lock and key.
One store representative from Brady Street Pharmacy said that they keep their condoms out in the open, but some customers are too embarrassed to buy condoms in the front and so they come to the pharmacy counter. The store doesn’t lock up condoms because of the “psychological barriers that customers face when they attempt to buy condoms.”
Joan Kennedy Coffman, director of patient services at Planned Parenthood, feels the same way.
She told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that she has a problem with pharmacies locking up their condoms because it is “creating a barrier.”
She believes that "instead of being humiliated or embarrassed,” people “will have sex without them (condoms)."
Thus far, pharmacies have said nothing about attempting to embarrass customers. They tell the media that their primary reason for locking up condoms is to prevent theft. Alex Braun, 19, however, thinks that there is a better solution.
“I think a better solution is to add magnetic strips to the boxes,” Braun said. “Leaving them out but still preventing theft at the same time.”
Students who want to bypass the entire drugstore process, locked cabinets or otherwise, can find condoms for free. Planned Parenthood offers condoms for free or reduced price at its clinics.
The Norris Health Clinic, which used to offer its condoms five for $1, now has a free condom bowl, and students can still get free condoms at the LGBT Center in the UWM Union as well.
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