You can't make this stuff up. The Trojan Company, a major manufacturer of condoms, has gone on the road with a bus tour to promote safe sex (see: Rubber Hits the Road as Trojan Campaigns for Sexual Health in America). The press release announcing the tour makes interesting reading. Below is an excerpt from it with boldface emphasis mine:
...[T]he Trojan Evolve tour will travel across the U.S. raising awareness regarding the poor state of sexual health in America and urging Americans to petition for change. The fact is, this is not a sexually healthy nation, and the Evolve tour is designed to address this head on by inspiring a positive sexual health movement and empowering Americans to change behaviors and opinions about carrying and using condoms. With primetime network television restrictions on condom advertising still in effect, the multi-faceted grassroots effort, which includes a 40-foot long interactive bus and 40-foot wide IMAX-style rollercoaster ride, kicks off its nationwide tour in the hometown of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)....[The tour] will crisscross America through November 2008 inviting people to evolve, by personally pledging to use a condom every time and advocating for comprehensive sexual education in schools by signing the Trojan Evolve Petition. Along the bus tour route, participants can also encourage friends to continue or change sexual health behaviors by recording video testimonials, which will be posted to the Trojan Evolve Web site....
I suspect that this press release was written by some twenty-something copy editor, but I find its upbeat tone mildly irritating. I do have the following comments and questions:
- Having grown up in a different era, I find myself burdened with a different definition for sexually healthy than the one suggested above. I definitely need to be reeducated.
- I am confused by the reference in the press release to the need to "evolve" and that the habitual use of condoms is somehow linked to this process. Biological evolution is the process of change over time in the heritable characteristics, or traits, of a population of organisms. When males are born with a condom in-situ, only then can we begin to talk about condoms and evolution in the same breath.
- I am very much looking forward to seeing some of the Trojan Evolve video testimonials that will be recorded on the bus tour. You can also click on the Trojan-produced video promoting the use of condoms at the company web site to see additional portrayal of the company's evolution theme, but with the young men portrayed as pigs.
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