The war on safe sex in America just keeps heating up - to conservative Bushies' delight.
As Suz Redfearn in the Washington Post reports, almost half of the CVS pharmacy stores in Washington DC keep their condom supply locked behind glass cabinets:
An informal survey found that almost half - 22 of 50 - of the District's CVS pharmacies lock up their condoms; this in a city where one in 20 residents is HIV-positive. Most of those stores are in less affluent areas where the incidence of HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy - all preventable with condoms - are highest.
But wait, it gets worse. If a poor soul actually wants to (gasp!) buy a pack, s/he must press the "Push for Assistance" button (sounding an alarm throughout the store), then wait for a salesperson to unlock the case.
It all sounds very... embarrassing. And turned-off DC shoppers seem to agree:
Sindy Dominguez, 17, of Hyattsville already had a baby, and didn't want another... Three months after her daughter was born, she and her boyfriend went to the CVS pharmacy near their apartment to buy a large box of condoms. They found them locked in a case equipped with a button that read "push for assistance."
They pushed, and heard a call for help for a pharmacist, but no one came. They pushed again. And again.
"My boyfriend said, 'Do you want to just leave?' and I said, 'Yes, let's just go.'" said Dominguez ... "I don't think I'll ever buy them for myself," she said. "That experience turned me off."
A CVS spokesperson claimed the motivation for the policy was to deter shoplifters (predictably, Trojan Enz condoms are among the 50 most commonly shoplifted items). But what the pharmacy chain - the biggest in the DC area - is really doing is helping to stigmatise contraception, and deter shoppers (many of whom are, surely, inexperienced and undereducated adolescents) from protecting themselves against pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
A bit discouraging, no? Perhaps that's the intention - scaring folks straight, dissuading them from anything remotely close to healthy sexuality, and promoting the hackneyed notion that sex is wrong (and dirty, sinful, and only appropriate for modest, married, Christian folks - and only in the missionary position, please).
Not surprisingly, right wing, anti-abortion types are applauding the condom-lockup rule. As Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values, (a Cincinnati, Ohio-based abstinence-promoting group) said in the Post, "I'd rather see them locked up ... It's a lie that condoms prevent all sexually transmitted diseases anyway."
Um ... okay. I don't know where Burress is getting his information. And I don't know his personal stance on abortion, either - but it never ceases to amaze me how the pro-abstinence set (which, generalise if I may, tends to hold hands with the conservative, anti-abortion one) ignores the fact that reducing access to birth control doesn't prevent people from having sex.
Sex will be had, no matter what. And when protectionless sex is had, the need and number of abortions increases, and the pickle just grows and grows. What's next?
