Project Condom

Project Condom was hosted last week by JMU Feminist Collective. Full disclosure, I am an executive board member, but let me tell y’all what went down.

To give some background: Project Condom is an event sponsored by One Condom where, like Project Runway, people have to make outfits as a challenge. This challenge is that they have to be made of at least 70% condoms (unlubed and defective, provided by One Condom). Typically, we have several clubs competing, but this year only one other club was able to join us. So we had to change the structure of the event.

This year, we decided to make a whole new script and add a new element: Sex Positivity Week. We decided that each day leading up to the event, we would table around campus and offer games, prizes, and pamphlets about different themes like consent, sexual abuse/assault, and sexual identity. Project Condom itself was centered around promoting better conversations about sex and informing people about safer sex practices while having fun.

So in addition to some cool outfits made of condoms (inspired by the Iconic Pop Songs “Hold Up” and “Milkshake”), we also had information about STIs, orgasms, and safer sex practices. While I didn’t MC, I still participated heavily. I demonstrated how to turn a condom into a dental dam and how to put an external condom on a dildo (while most of the audience put me on their snap stories, thanks y’all).

I also mentioned that you should never flush condoms down the toilet because then you’ll have to explain to the plumber who clears the blockage why you have a clump of condoms in your pipes. One of the MCs graciously thanked me for my oddly specific and clearly personal experience. (At least it wasn’t *my* house).

We had games like condom races where three people at a time tried to see who could get a condom on a dildo fastest. Dick toss was fun, too. We set dildos up across the stage, and the first person to get a ring on the dildo won. The prizes were the best part: we gave away a clitoral vibrator, an anal plug, and 7 huge boxes of different One condoms.

AND we gave away tons of free internal and external condoms, dental dams, and pamphlets about basically everything related to safe sex practices.

We got some laughs, educated people on statistics, gave away fun sex stuff, and we got to play with condoms (I think I’m still getting latex dust off of my clothes).

It’s so important to open up conversations casually and playfully about sex. Forget those embarrassing sex ed classes where you’re scared to put a condom on a cucumber, and forget excluding types of sex that aren’t vaginal penetration! Sex is anything you want, and we should all be safe!

So, make sure you come check it out next year! Who knows what we’ll be giving away!