# 150,000 condoms to be handed out at the Olympics **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 20, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850 "2012-07-20T13:52:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/21 "2012-07-20T20:06:00Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Don’t they realize that this is going to encourage wanton sexual immorality? And balloon animals. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/22 "2012-07-20T20:21:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You take a few thousand young and very fit people in tight clothes, put them in close proximity to each other, leave them pretty much on their own when they are not competing, and what do you think is going to happen? More than that, these are people who have been unusually dedicated to pursuits that took them, for lengthy periods of time, out of the normal social contexts for people their age. While many of them will get busy indeed during a couple weeks in London, they’ve actually missed a lot of hook-up opportunities before this. Overall, they may well be having _less_ sex than is typical for their age and background. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/23 "2012-07-20T20:54:21Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > I certainly hope there will be recycling bins available! Me too. Just think of the army we can raise with all that super-human jizz and gine juice. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/24 "2012-07-20T20:59:11Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I have a problem with statements like this. If you provide me with condoms, you’re sending me the message that I am expected to use them. Do you feel the same way about the spare tire in your car? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/25 "2012-07-20T21:06:43Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > More than that, these are people who have been unusually dedicated to pursuits that took them, for lengthy periods of time, out of the normal social contexts for people their age. Do we really want to send the message that talented, dedicated, accomplished people should be able to enjoy a bunch of sex with each other now and then? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/26 "2012-07-20T21:13:17Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I’m pretty sure I read exactly the same story at the time of the 2008 Olympics, and exactly the same type of comments followed. This is not new, folks. [And 2010, for the Winter Olympics.](http://voices.yahoo.com/100000-condoms-distributed-2010-winter-olympics-5473585.html)Unfortunately, none of the Canadian or British womens curling team wanted to set a bad example with me. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/27 "2012-07-20T22:48:08Z")
Oh well, if it’s Durex instead of G4S in charge of that particular aspect of safety and security, that should be all right. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/28 "2012-07-20T23:11:53Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I have a problem with statements like this. If you provide me with condoms, you’re sending me the message that I am expected to use them.Some people understandably have issues with the kind of sexuality described in the article—the casual, anonymous hookups and such. I wonder what message mom was sending me when she sent me off to college at age 16 with a brown paper bag filled with 600 condoms? For the record, I appreciated the optimism, mom. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/29 "2012-07-20T23:13:57Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > I wonder what message mom was sending me when she sent me off to college at age 16 with a brown paper bag filled with 600 condoms? You sure she wasn’t just unloading the stuff she wasn’t using anymore? ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/30 "2012-07-20T23:21:08Z")
Ironic. First they report a shortage of security, then they report 150k condoms are being handed out. I wonder if there’s a link? ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/31 "2012-07-21T10:46:02Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I have a problem with statements like this. If you provide me with condoms, you’re sending me the message that I am expected to use them.Some people understandably have issues with the kind of sexuality described in the article—the casual, anonymous hookups and such. If the organisers were truly encouraging the athletes to use them, there would be free six-packs as well. Casual sex between consenting adults is hardly a crime. So the issues you mention that some people have with it is not necessarily understandable. Unless of course the ‘anonymous’ sex is thrust upon them before they’ve even shaken hands - in which case it’s rape, prior to being raped. I bring this up because for a thread dealing with wanton sex, it hasn’t become rapey enough. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/32 "2012-07-21T16:09:07Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > In what way are “we” setting the example? They’re not encouraging the athletes to have sex, they’re providing condoms because they’re going to screw anyway. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I have a problem with statements like this. If you provide me with condoms, you’re sending me the message that I am expected to use them. > [@Marley23](#): > > No, I’m not. It’s a fact that there’s going to be a lot of sexual activity. They’re providing condoms, not telling anybody to use them, keeping track of who uses them or why they are or are not using them. On further reflection: In general, statements of the form “They’re going to do it anyway” (whatever “it” is) really bother me (perhaps more than they should), because they strike me as fatalistic, pessimistic about human behavior, dissmissive of the very idea that anyone might be able to choose not to do “it.” It would bother me _far_ less if you said “_Some of them_ are going to do it anyway”—that’s just being realistic. Along those same lines, it wouldn’t bother me at all—I’d be all for it—if all those condoms were being made readily available on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Maybe I was taking “handed out” too literally, although the OP’s linked article, saying “Athletes will receive 15 condoms each,” certainly encourages such an interpretation. > [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > Casual sex between consenting adults is hardly a crime. No (well maybe in some jurisdictions it still is), but it is something that some people have moral qualms about, either in general or in certain circumstances (like when at least one of the people involved is in a committed relationship with someone else). For those unable to partake in casual sex without going against their own moral/ethical code, I don’t want to make things harder on them than they have to be. ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/33 "2012-07-21T16:49:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > On further reflection: > > In general, statements of the form “They’re going to do it anyway” (whatever “it” is) really bother me (perhaps more than they should), because they strike me as fatalistic, pessimistic about human behavior, dissmissive of the very idea that anyone might be able to choose not to do “it.” It would bother me _far_ less if you said “_Some of them_ are going to do it anyway”—that’s just being realistic. > > Along those same lines, it wouldn’t bother me at all—I’d be all for it—if all those condoms were being made readily available on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. Maybe I was taking “handed out” too literally, although the OP’s linked article, saying “Athletes will receive 15 condoms each,” certainly encourages such an interpretation. > > No (well maybe in some jurisdictions it still is), but it is something that some people have moral qualms about, either in general or in certain circumstances (like when at least one of the people involved is in a committed relationship with someone else). For those unable to partake in casual sex without going against their own moral/ethical code, I don’t want to make things harder on them than they have to be. This doesn’t even make sense. “People unable to partake in casual sex” WON’T. How do free condoms “make things harder on them”? Do you think they’ll cry because other people are having sex? Or will they just go “against their own moral/ethical code” because they have the free condoms that just simply _must_ be used? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/34 "2012-07-21T17:29:08Z")
> [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > How do free condoms “make things harder on them”? They don’t. But the appearance that _everybody else is doing it_ might. And depending on how the condom distribution was handled, I can imagine how it might contribute to that appearance. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/35 "2012-07-21T17:32:53Z")
Thank god for Henry VIII. Otherwise, the pope would put a stop to it. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/36 "2012-07-21T17:58:49Z")
> [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](#): > > Do you think they’ll cry because other people are having sex? What? Are you going to tell me that you have never done this before?😛 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/37 "2012-07-21T18:05:24Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > On further reflection: > > In general, statements of the form “They’re going to do it anyway” (whatever “it” is) really bother me (perhaps more than they should), because they strike me as fatalistic, pessimistic about human behavior, dissmissive of the very idea that anyone might be able to choose not to do “it.” It would bother me _far_ less if you said “_Some of them_ are going to do it anyway”—that’s just being realistic. I’m not sure where you are getting this, and I see nothing pessimistic about it. I have no idea what every athlete or any particular athlete will do, and the people organizing the event and handing out the condoms don’t, either. It’s not like anybody is going to check. But based on history and general common sense, it’s obvious a lot of these people are going to choose to get busy with each other. There’s nothing wrong with providing condoms to take care of that eventuality. > [@](#): > > For those unable to partake in casual sex without going against their own moral/ethical code, I don’t want to make things harder on them than they have to be. That makes it sound like these people are very weak willed. Giving someone condoms doesn’t make it harder for them to choose not to have sex. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/38 "2012-07-21T18:19:03Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > No (well maybe in some jurisdictions it still is), but it is something that some people have moral qualms about, either in general or in certain circumstances (like when at least one of the people involved is in a committed relationship with someone else). For those unable to partake in casual sex without going against their own moral/ethical code, I don’t want to make things harder on them than they have to be. Only in America and the Middle East. Why should a global event happening in London cater to such “moral qualms”? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/39 "2012-07-21T18:37:13Z")
Interviewers usually note that some athletes hold off on their encounters until their own segment of the Games is done with. Others like to get, um, loose beforehand. Either way, I want competitors in top form, whether that’s anticipatory or satisfied. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850/40 "2012-07-21T18:40:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > 😕 > > I don’t know if you’re serious or not, but assuming you are, what is the bad example being set? Having responsible sex? No, the message I was thinking of was something like this: “We realize that you are young and horny..so please don’t get into any embarrassing situations. Now go out and screw like bunnies.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/150-000-condoms-to-be-handed-out-at-the-olympics/628850.md?page=3)