Gallery Carre
NYC’s very own condom
Feb 14th, 2024 by Audacia Ray
Last year, the Health Department asked for vendors to bid on supplying the city with its condoms - and even asked for varieties like glow-in-the-dark (hey, there’s nothing like your high school sex ed teacher telling you there are glow-in-the-dark condoms available at the nurse’s office). Now, the city is developing its very own NYC-branded condom. Augh - our mind just filled with way too many questions (”Will the subway map be on it?” “Will be it rude and nasty?” “Will it be strong and stoic because of September 11?” “Will there be a cobble-stone textured one, for a little Greenwich Village flair, or a crown for a Statue of Liberty version?” “Will it have ‘Come to New York’ written on it?” “Will it be subject to the noise code?” “Is it going to be Snapple-flavored?” “Is Big Apple a euphemism for…”) but then we read on and found out the city was just designing a condom wrapper.
Well, that’s much more boring, but still, some of those questions still apply. The Department of Health wants to raise awareness of how important condom usage is for the public, but of course the NY State Conservative party freaked out. A Condomania employee told the NY Times, “If this is actually going to happen, I think New Yorkers are absolutely going to love it. Of course, we live in a little liberal haven. But one group I think will really go for it are the tourists.” ‘Cause those tourists would love to show their friends how crazy us New Yorkers are!
Tell [Gothamist] your great ideas for a NYC condom wrapped. And you can get free condoms from the Health Department here. The DoH would also like to remind you to bring your own condom on Valentine’s Day. And back in 2004, the MTA nixed a Gay Men’s Health Crisis ad that featured Manhattan draped in a condom…Manhattan does totally look like phallic, though. And did you know that sanitation workers call condoms “urban whitefish”?
[via Gothamist]