The Female Condom Re-Introduction on Valentine’s Day: Women and Gay Men Try a Better Condom

Christopher Carz Adams and Vincent Fuqua of the SFDPH

While a sit-in at City Hall by Marriage Equality protesting
the continued second-class citizenship of lesbians and gays was happening, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) held a press conference on Valentine’s Day Feb.14 at the Civic Center. The department’s gunmetal gray education school bus was parked directly across from the seat of government and the health workers were dispensing the newly designed female condom for women and gay men. Some media members mistook the bus for a sheriff’s department vehicle and gazed into the windows expecting to see recently arrested Molly McKay, Davina Kotulski, Frank Capley, and Joe Alfano with their faces pressed up against the windows, holding up their bound wrists, and with pitiful expressions on their faces.

The earlier female condom was not as popular as expected because there were complaints about its comfort level. Like the redesigned Avanti plastic condom, the new FC2 female plastic condom has a reformulated consistency that is thinner and it does not bunch up. There is an expectation that it will find its way into the bedrooms of women and gay men who would like to use oil lubricants like Vasoline — and the sexual penetrators will be quietly celebrating that they do not have to wear a condom. It is a turnaround that the person being penetrated wears the new condom.

Alert Christopher Carz Adams, who is an SFDPH HIV Research Section outreach worker, joined SFDPH health educator Vincent Fuqua and others to ride to four locations besides Civic Center to engage people and hand out the new condoms in a gift bag. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Sharin’ Dippity Revealed, Pat N Leather, and a novice were in on the educational campaign, and two smiling women in Islamic dress greeted them at Civic Center. Stores in the Castro have the new condoms on their counters, and now is the time for the curious and the sexual avant-garde to try them out.

The SFDPH's "the fc2 for When He's Into You" female condom campaign can be reached at 415.355.2040 and www.fc2sf.org.