I never play the stock market. Aside from lacking even a basic understanding of what all those old, bald, white guys are actually doing when they wave those little pieces of paper at each other on the floor, it just scares me too much when companies like IBM lose half their worth in three months. But every once in awhile, I'll be having dinner or drinks with a friend and suddenly wonder why I didn't see "The Next Big Thing."
Snapple, for example. I've drunk it all my life. Why the hell didn't I just buy a few shares last year? Maybe if I had, I wouldn't have to worry about being gainfully employed next year.
Recently, I wondered the same thing about latex, or more specifically, latex of the reservoir-tipped, lubricated variety.
If you think bottled iced-tea was a good investment, just think about jimmy-caps. Trojan, Inc. is even buying full page ads in consumer magazines like GQ and Glamour. "Get Real!" they say, "If you aren't ready to buy a condom, you aren't ready for sex."
Condoms were the "Next Big Thing" about five years ago and there's no end in sight. College students alone could float the industry, which is why it surprised me when Dartmouth decided it will become the only Ivy League institution to suspend free condom distribution to undergraduates next term.
The former chair of Responsible AIDS Information at Dartmouth estimates that the annual expense to the College for the free distribution service was approximately $10,000.
The chance of such a paltry sum actually having a noticeable impact on the College's gargantuan budget is probably about the same as, say, me getting elected Student Assembly president, but lower than the chances a sexually-active college student has of contracting a STD. College students are one of the groups among which AIDS cases are rising the most.
Dartmouth's physical and cultural isolation serves as a natural barrier to some pestilences -- like mall-rats, smog and the Gap (though not for long!) -- but not to STDs. They do exist at Dartmouth, and an increase in unprotected sex, which is all but mandated by the disappearance of free condoms, will only make matters worse. At the risk of sounding like Sally Struthers, for the price of administrators' free coffee, we could at least make available the necessary protection for undergraduates.
So why did Dartmouth really suspend the service? Could it be the hysterics of The Dartmouth Review-type moralists who are still talking about "flavored condoms in the Reserve Corridor?" Could it be that this administration, bastion of politically correct values, has bought the ridiculous notion that condom distribution--never mind the health benefits--sends the "wrong message" to impressionable, young undergraduates?
Probably not. It's far more likely they simply knew they could get away with it. Sadly, they were right. For a mere $10,000, the College has sold the health and welfare of students down the river.
So, Trojan has lost a major customer and Dartmouth students have gotten, shall we say, shafted again. The only thing left to do is run the old ID through the Thayer vending machines and pay the piper $1.75. Perhaps a blitz or two to Dick's House registering disapproval might do some good as well.
Dartmouth is playing a dangerous trading game. It's buying too much stock in hope and wishful thinking and selling our blue-chips in common-sense and prevention. It all adds up to a bear market for safe sex.
But, who knows, maybe condom use won't decline. Maybe the cost of testing and treating STDs won't balloon. Maybe Dartmouth students will stop having sex. And maybe the concern about STDs is just neurotic and unwarranted.
Yeah, right. Get real, Dartmouth.
