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On Valentine’s Day, Free Condoms Celebrate Safe Sex, the City
By Betsy Morais
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 15, 2008
The greatest city in the world has the most utterly sublime traditions for celebrating the holidays.
On Thanksgiving, we’ve got a romping parade, complete with animals singing in a float behind Menudo and a Ronald McDonald the size of an airplane flying high up into the skyline. During the Christmas season, there’s the spectacular glittering tree in Rockefeller Center and pink-nosed tourists looking almost not-bothersome as they glide in circles on the ice skating rink. And of course, on Valentine’s Day, New York pulls out all the stops by designing its very own city condom, heading out on the streets, and encouraging its citizens to “get some.”
This Valentine’s Day, the New York City Department of Health released its second-annual official city condom, suited up in a brand new wrapper. Street teams were sent to busy locations in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan—such as 125th Street, outside the Apollo Theater—to pass out these free Valentine treats.
“The NYC Condom has shown us what a sexy brand can do for safer sex,” wrote Dr. Monica Sweeney, the Health Department’s Assistant Commissioner for HIV Prevention and Control, in a press release.
Since the inception of the New York condom tradition on Valentine’s Day last year, the Department of Health has distributed more than 36 million condoms to titillated New Yorkers. Though the condom itself is still the same, the packaging and ad campaign are new and improved since last year—perhaps like the partners who will be putting the protection to use.
The new wrapper still maintains the subway logo-inspired motif of the old, but has been revamped to enhance the “NYC” on the label. The condom marketing strategy has also been altered. This year, the slogans are “Get Some” and “Put in On” in English, and, the latter in Spanish, “Póntelo.”
The new image was a gift to New York City from designer Yves Behar, who explained in a press release that “Good design can help bring condoms out of the closet.”
The city’s ad campaign also portrays a diversity of gender groups, featuring both gay and straight partners preparing to flourish in the joys of condom use.
Such were sex and the city this Valentine’s Day. But if you realize now that you “got up” this morning without your Valentine from New York’s Department of Health, don’t fret—city condoms are available every day of the year.
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