The Nonsense That Silences Condom Ads

To buy condoms at any of the drugstores in my neighborhood--which happens to include Rush Street, the heart of Chicago’s singles scene, and many of the city’s major hotels--one must stand in line at a pharmacy counter, usually in the company of numerous blue-haired matrons, and either ask for the product by brand name and package size or engage the clerk, usually a young woman, in a discussion about what varieties are available and which might be best for one’s particular needs.

Latex or natural gut? Plain or receptacle tip? Spermicidal lubricant or not? Smooth or ribbed? Party colors? Flavors? Dare we ask about cost per unit?

I’m a grown man and hardly prudish, but I doubt that I could begin, much less complete, that conversation under those circumstances. A 16-year-old boy isn’t even going to try, which is one reason why so many 15-year-old girls get pregnant. That also frightens public-health authorities; teen-age boys who have visited infected prostitutes may be the vehicle that the AIDS virus rides into the schools.

The simple fact is that condoms are an effective means of preventing pregnancy and thereby preventing the personal tragedies and social costs that result when very young girls give birth. Another simple fact is that condoms are the surest protection against venereal diseases, including herpes and AIDS. Unlike other methods, condoms have been around for centuries and are safe, and only a conspiracy of silence prevents their more widespread use.

The chief conspirators, I believe, are the mass media and the Roman Catholic Church. Condom manufacturers say that Chicago is atypical in that it is the last major market in which customers in some areas cannot compare product claims and prices on open shelves. But the entire nation is effectively put in the dark because many newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and networks refuse to accept condom advertisements. (The Times recently decided to accept advertising for condoms.) I cannot think of any plausible explanation for this blackout other than fear of Catholic reaction.

But people--young people especially--need to know that there are effective means of birth control and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, and that condoms are the simplest, cheapest, safest method. The only way that kind of information gets communicated in America is through advertising.

Robert E. Mulholland, director of the Television Information Office, an industry-supported group, explained recently that the networks refuse condom ads because “many groups in this country are opposed to that on moral and religious grounds, and broadcasters have to be sensitive to their feelings.” A spokesman for the New York Times has said that ads for condoms are not accepted because the newspaper is used in schools and such ads would be inappropriate for young children.

Balderdash. All consumer publications and commercial broadcasters in this country pay their bills by selling sex. The New York Times has long been celebrated among connoisseurs of the form for the lascivious underwear ads in the Sunday magazine, where provocatively clad women now have been joined by anatomically correct men in minimalist bikini briefs. In the Times and all other media, including the major networks, sex is used to sell everything from diamonds to jeans.

None of that bothers me much. What bothers me is the blatant hypocrisy of the men who run these organizations, and my strong suspicion that they dissemble because they cannot voice the true reason.

Broadcasters, for example, for many years have ignored the vociferous and repeated protests of fundamentalists and other groups about sex and violence on television and the exploitation of children by commercial-driven programming. These have been serious people mounting serious, well-organized protests. The same people also might fear that condom advertising would lead to greater promiscuity. One would expect that the networks would react to such protests as they have to previous complaints. But they concede without even a demurrer.

On one of those public-television role-playing seminars on constitutional issues, a major newspaper editor said that so long as cigarettes were a legal commodity he would not reject tobacco advertising because to do so would be censorship. He said this not only with a straight face but with some passion. He meant what he said. Yet his newspaper never has published an ad for Sheiks or Ramses.

The networks refused last year to run an ad sponsored by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that did not even mention condoms, or the Pill, or any other product. It simply advised young women planning careers that they had better think about family planning, too. Nothing about artificial means, just the idea of birth control. Rejected.

At the time, an official of Planned Parenthood said that the networks were “afraid of Jerry Falwell and the Catholic bishops.”

Nobody is afraid of Jerry Falwell anymore. And the Catholic bishops are the nation’s only major organization opposed to birth-control products on principle.