Condoms in the spotlight

MECHAI Viravaidya, the family planning pioneer of Thailand and former Cabinet member and senator known as “Mr. Condom,” once explained why he focused on condom use when he first began to propagate the “gospel” of family planning in his country.

It’s an effective symbol, he said, and people find condoms funny even as they’re embarrassed to be seen holding it. But when he holds up a condom in front of his audiences, or gets schoolchildren to join condom-blowing contests, Mechai believes he shatters a huge mental block and gets people talking—and thinking—about sex, reproduction, parenthood and family planning. He breaks the taboo and erases the stigma—all by holding up a condom.

Fittingly, perhaps, it’s also the condom that seems to have opened (by a tiny, miniscule crack) the door that the Catholic Church has kept firmly shut against any and all forms of contraception, including (or especially?) the condom.

To be sure, grammarians, philosophers, theologians and reproductive health activists will be parsing for months and even years from now what Pope Benedict XVI meant exactly when he told a German reporter that “(the Church) does not regard (condom use) as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.”

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A GOOD friend with close ties to the Church says it was “compassion” that drew the Pope to seemingly loosen the hierarchy’s once-firm opposition to contraception. The condom, especially, was once condemned soundly for being a symbol of “casual sex.” But now the Church seems to have recognized the condom’s role in preventing HIV infection, though Church spokespersons clarify that the seeming endorsement (or allowance) for condom use refers only to protection against HIV/AIDS transmission and not to protection against pregnancy.

But I don’t know. Who can read the minds of men and women while they’re having sex? And why can’t one or both partners seek to prevent a pregnancy even as they’re protecting themselves against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections?

And if the Holy Father, in his compassion, sees fit to abjure the sin of a prostitute (male or female) using a condom, why can’t he find the same compassion in his heart for men and women seeking a balance between responsible parenthood and fulfilled couple-hood? Why can’t he give them a break? –Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer