If you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a diaphragm and thinks the glow-in-the-dark condom is passé, don’t despair. The style-minded stud and studette can practise both birth control and good taste this Valentine’s Day.
Contraceptives, like clothes, are a fashion statement. And there’s plenty of selection out there with which to strut one’s ass. So what’s the contraceptive of choice for U of T’s trend-setting young couples?
“Pull your chair closer,” says Cian Knightly, a counsellor at U of T’s Sexual Education and Peer Counselling Centre. “We’ll make this casual.”
Knightly wears a red knitted sweater flush with her smile and explains that the latest in anti-fertilization wear is “the patch.” Looking like a square band-aid, it contains a combination of estrogen and progestin that is absorbed through the skin.
Similar to the pill, it’s used on a four-week cycle with one week off, she says. It can be worn on the buttocks, abdomen, upper torso, or upper arm.
Noah Rossman, who wears a black leather jacket and a dashing red scarf, is another counsellor. He says, for condoms, Lifestyle and Durex seem to be popular these days. This is, of course, judging by the chest of free condoms they offer in their waiting area, which seems more like a bargain bin than a Calvin Klein boutique. All styles are popular, according to him. “Ribbed, flavoured, studded, though not like the studs you’d put on your tires,” he laughs.
I pull out of my educational encounter and head to the Condom Shack (729 Yonge St.). Hopefully these people will provide insight into what’s hot and what’s not for this coming Valentine’s Day.
The store’s walls are neatly lined with a rainbow selection of condoms, including a frightening pink studded one. Valentine’s Day chocolates and an intimidating jumbo-sized peach dildo packaged like a G.I. Joe figure can be seen, too. The clerk, Mark Knoess, wears a fabulous sweater.
“You wouldn’t find any of these Japanese brands at Shoppers Drug Mart,” he says. “Kimono Microthin condoms are 15 to 30 per cent thinner than other brands.” But everyone knows Japanese condoms are in and out so much these days their trendiness is wearing thin.
Knoess shows me some of the other big sellers: Slam, from the West Indies, and Sheerlon, made from an exceptionally thin silky-smooth latex. Knoess explains that designer types of polyurethanes—for those allergic to latex—have blown new life into the condom industry. Fashion, however, still doesn’t influence it as much as other apparel industries. “The mandate of this company is to provide safe sex,” says Knoess, leaning back on the counter.
Before I get too involved here, I decide to go check out a more demure source for contraceptive hipness at Planned Parenthood (36B Prince Arthur St.). Jamie Slater, the communications person there, wears an Adidas sweatshirt and an earring in his left ear. He explains that when the counselling service first opened in 1961, birth control pills were illegal, Toronto was Toronto the Good, and abstinence was a popular form of contraception.
“There have been so many changes since then,” he says. Abstinence might not be one of them, though. With the growing popularity of the American evangelical church movement, abstinence is seemingly again becoming fashionable. In some religious circles this method more or less involves an exchange of crucifix necklaces and driving around in a Lincoln Navigator, pumping tons of emissions into the atmosphere to celebrate. This holier-than-thou practice is already trendy at the University of Calgary.
Slater says the pill still remains fashionable, despite all this fervent holding back. And the condom has actually gained in popularity this past decade due to “people realizing that they’re also good at preventing STDs.” However, Depo-Provera, an injectable hormone contraceptive, is the thing to watch for in 2003. It’s proven to be as effective as having your tubes tied, but it won’t stop STDs. “It’s increasingly popular with youth. It’s cost-effective, it’s convenient—it only needs to be injected every three months,” he says. Slater welcomes innovation. “Our philosophy is the more options, the better.”
Talking about contraceptive trends over these past 30 years makes me poke into the History of Contraception Museum, at Janssen-Ortho Inc. (19 Green Belt Dr.). Two businessmen in overcoats sit on black leather couches in the lobby. A Spanish guitar plays on the stereo.
“You’ll find that it’s a totally non-branded museum,” says Simone Philogere, communications director at Janssen-Ortho, a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary that manufactures birth control pills at a dime a dozen. Past president Percy Skuy started the collection in 1965.
Today the museum comprises 11 display cases in a wide hallway with a garden. Friendly Janssen-Ortho workers and a guy with a food cart casually walk through every few minutes. On a TV screen, a lady with an English accent introduces the museum. “And now your tour begins,” she says cheerfully.
Aesthetically pleasing are the display cases filled with intricately carved plastic trinkets. They’re actually intrauterine devices, an outdated contraceptive device common in the early seventies that misleadingly lingered on in health class textbooks until the nineties. A particularly pretty device for one’s uterus is the Dalkon Shield. It looks like a caveman’s etching of a turtle, and even might make a nice set of earrings. The product was defective, though, and claimants were paid almost $3 billion in compensation by the company.
If you’re into the pop-art aesthetic, check out the Violet Crunch chocolate bar wrapper (“50g—10% FREE”), adapted for contraceptive use by some frugal Australians. And the condom made from faux crocodile skin is very cool for Europhiles, too.
Similar in taste is the historically-favoured knotted sheep intestine. Take seven or eight inches of intestine and soak it in cold water overnight. Turn it inside out. Marinate it in a weak alkaline solution. Next, wash it with soap, rinse, drain, and blow it up to test its strength. Finally, truss one end with string, and hem the other with a bright red ribbon. If your date isn’t impressed, you can always stuff it with minced meats and pop it in the oven for thirty minutes for a first-rate British banger Jamie Oliver would be proud to call his own.
If you’re taking art history, the museum has a picture of a painted condom auctioned at Christie’s in 1992 for $6 million. In the pastoral scene that runs along its length, three gentlemen expose enormous erections to a nun, who points to the man in the middle. “Voila mon choix,” the caption reads.
Fans of Canadiana will love a traditional oral contraceptive developed in the “backwoods of New Brunswick.” It’s made from beaver testicles boiled in alcohol. And the Nasallosung contraceptive nasal-spray offers peace of mind to those adventure-types who practice nasal sex.
Sadly, the museum doesn’t have a gift shop, but the keen fashion taste displayed gets my creative juices going. I start thinking that maybe I will add some snake skin to my wardrobe.
