Ethiopians embrace coffee-flavored condoms
SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images Soaring HIV/AIDS infection rates and sexual violence have forced African nations to get creative with condoms. You’ve got Pronto condoms, which can be put on in less than one second, before “the mood is halfway out the window.” And then there’s the anti-rape condom, blogged about here at Passport, which has “razor-sharp ...
SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images
Soaring HIV/AIDS infection rates and sexual violence have forced African nations to get creative with condoms. You’ve got Pronto condoms, which can be put on in less than one second, before “the mood is halfway out the window.” And then there’s the anti-rape condom, blogged about here at Passport, which has “razor-sharp teeth [that] fasten on the attacker’s penis if he attempts penetration.”
Now, in Ethiopia, where HIV/AIDS infection rates are above 2 percent, a U.S. charity has developed a coffee-flavored condom. DKT International came up with the prophylactic — which supposedly tastes like a macchiato — after receiving complaints about the smell and taste of traditional latex condoms. Despite criticism from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, in September more than 300,000 of the condoms were sold at 10 cents a piece.
The condoms have also tapped into Ethiopian nationalism, as coffee was supposedly invented there. As one university student put it, “It is about time to use an Ethiopian flavor for beautiful Ethiopian girls.”
DKT has developed similar products for other parts of the world. In China, they offer condoms that smell and taste like sweetcorn. In Indonesia, they offer a condom that smells like the durian fruit (which, incidentally, absolutely stinks, and is probably the last thing anyone would want to smell before business time).
What’s next? Pilsner-flavored condoms in the Czech Republic? Plantain in the tropics? But hey, if it gets more people to have safe sex, why not?
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