“If it’s not a yes, it’s a no.” Tagline of New Condom Makes Powerful Statement About ‘Consent’ In Sex
An Argentine company, in a bid to highlight the importance of consent in sex has introduced a new condom that requires four hands to open. The “Consent Pack” of condoms was designed by ad agency BBDO Argentina for Tulipan, a company which sells adult toys and condoms.
“If it’s not a yes, it’s a no,” and “Without consent there is no pleasure” says the tagline in the promotional video, along with the hashtag #PlacerConsentido, or “permitted pleasure.”
Another tagline reads: “Consent is the most important thing in sex.”
The pack’s “unique system” requires four hands or two people to agree to open it, by clicking four buttons on the top and sides of the box at the same time.
In a statement to CNN, the executive creative directors of BBDO Argentina, Joaquin Campins and Christian Rosli said:
“Tulipan has always spoken of safe pleasure, but for this campaign we understood that we had to talk about the most important thing in every sexual relationship: pleasure is possible only if you both give your consent first.”
READ ALSO: “Don’t worry, I have condoms.” Post Graduate Student Recounts Scary Encounter With Rapists
According to information gathered, the condom is limited edition for now and being given to bar customers and attendees of events around Buenos Aires. But Tulipan plans to sell it online in the future.
The pack comes after a survey of 30,000 people conducted by AHF Argentina, which campaigns for HIV treatment and services, revealed that 20.5% of Argentine men never use protection, 65% occasionally use condoms and only 14.5% regularly use them.
However, some women have been voicing their concerns on Twitter about the condom. Some have also raised concerns that the product appears designed to “protect men from rape accusations” rather than protecting women from sexual violence.
Holly Baxter, an editor at the Independent, wrote on Twitter:
”I feel like we see this a lot when we talk about consent – products and strategies devised (usually by men) which address the problem of ‘women saying they get raped’ rather than ‘women experiencing sexual assault’. I know it’s an ad agency gimmick but that still matters.
The worrying thing is that this frames consent as a ‘discussion’ and implies that the real issue is that women might make it up/exaggerate after consensual sex. This is a product designed essentially to protect men from rape accusations, not to protect women from rape.”
Jo Grady pointed out that it would be a better use of resources and time to teach people that consent is not “just about opening a condom wrapper together.”
As another, Lily Madigan explains in a Medium piece about enthusiastic consent, “consent isn’t constant.” Madigan writes:
”It can easily change and can initially be given hesitantly. Therefore, it’s so important to check with a sexual partner that they are comfortable with what is going on during a sexual encounter.”
Julia Pugachevsky, sex + relationships and astrology editor at Cosmopolitan, added that the condom was dumbing down the idea of “healthy communication re: sex in a harmful way.”
Pugachevsky rightly points out that putting on a condom does not constitute consent to “all sexual activity”.
Watch videos of the condom below:
En el sexo vale todo solo si se respeta una regla: el consentimiento de ambos para hacerlo. #PlacerConsentido ? pic.twitter.com/RuIjvbL1yg
— Tulipán Argentina (@TulipanARG) March 27, 2019
Este pack es tan simple de abrir como entender que si no te dice que sí, es no. #PlacerConsentido pic.twitter.com/KHWyoFmg7L
— Tulipán Argentina (@TulipanARG) April 3, 2019