Wellness Center conducts condom survey

Aaron Lethbridge / Castleton Spartan
Students say they worry about Wellness Center
condom quality because they don’t recognize the brands

Don’t be silly, wrap your willy. No glove, no love. Wrap it in foil before you check their oil. Don’t be a fool, cover your tool. Wrap your bait before you mate.

These are all common phrases used by sex educators to remind students to practice safe sex.

The Wellness Center has been an outlet for students to practice safe sex by offering condoms at a more affordable price than drug stores. However, sales haven’t been the greatest due to the fact of that the brands offered are unknown brands to the student population.

In response to this problem, Jamie Bentley, coordinator of Campus Wellness Education, created a survey on which brands of condoms students would like to see in the safer sex supply store.

Vidavanh Xapilak, Bentley’s work study student, has the task of refilling the supply each week. Xapilak was the one hearing around campus that students think there is something wrong with the condoms because they are “discounted.”

That ultimately prompted the survey.

“They are perfectly good condoms. I’m just able to buy them at a discounted rate therefore selling them at a discounted rate,” said Bentley.

Bentley works closely with others including helping community advisors like Shania Brown with programs. Brown has teamed up with Bentley in the past for programs such as “Sex in the Dark” and “Sex and Chocolate.”

Brown entered a Trojan contest to win a supply of condoms for her candy and condom bowl that she passes out to residents. She and two other community advisors were three out of 200 people to win.

“I heard Trojan was having a contest so I thought I would go for it. I chose to enter so that I could promote safe sex throughout my building as often as I could. So it definitely helped in winning a box of 500!” Brown said.

The Wellness Center is hoping awareness of their condom brands will ease students’ minds and lead to more being distributed.

“The only condom brand that’s known is Trojan and Durex. Not a lot have heard about the One brand or Lifestyle or any of the other non-Trojan brand condoms we have. And if they do, they often refer to the condoms as the “school condoms,” Xapilak said.

The point of the survey is to find out what brands they should add, to find out why people wouldn’t want to buy condoms from the Wellness Center, and to bust the myth of the condoms being “seconds.”

“We just want to better serve the students, and make sure that they have safer sex supplies that are accessible,” said Bentley.

They keep track of how many they sell and what’s most popular. Trojan and the mixed bag are among the top sellers. But there is a wide variety of brands that most don’t know about including One, Lifestyle, Atlas and Sustain, a brand out of Burlington.

Once the results are in, they will implement the new brands that people want to see and will take away the less popular brands that aren’t really selling.

“We’re looking to change and have more options for lubrication, regardless of what people say in the survey, just to have more options,” said Bentley.

 

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