Condoms are The New Black

No joke, Chanel Condoms, $279 for 12

"The tension between sexual danger and sexual pleasure is a powerful one in women's lives. Sexuality is simultaneously a domain of restriction, repression and danger as a well as a domain of exploration, pleasure and agency. To focus on pleasure and gratification alone ignores the patriarchal structure in which women act, yet to speak of...sexual oppression ignores women's experiences with sexual agency and choice and...increases...the sexual despair in which women live."  Carole S. Vance; Pleasure and Danger: Towards a Politics of Sexuality from Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, P.1. Routledge Press, 1993.

Martin Luther King Jr. and  Coretta Scott King, 1953.

This week, the United States marked the twenty-fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. King was an eloquent "Baptist minister and leader of the civil-rights movement in America from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968." He was a voice of hope, courage and reason and lead a firmly non-violent campaign to end segregation, racial inequality and racism in an America. While African American males were being treated "as less than men," he acted as a fierce opponent against the oppression of the American Negro at the hands of their Government, the law, the FBI, the CIA, the Police and even the American Military.  (1) In his most famous speech on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C in 1963 "We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal. I have a dream."

"I Have a Dream" Speech, 1963

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant leader and spoke loudly and reasonably against racial hatred and bigotry. He was not silenced in the face of violence directed towards him and his family or the Black Community that he represented. He was known, however, to have what people would call "a weakness for women" was rumored to have several marital infidelities.

Now I say this not to discount the work of  Dr. King  or even to speak to the validity of the rumors. I mean simply to examine the concept that "we find it hard to imagine that ordinary human beings with ordinary flaws might make a critical difference in work of social cause."(2) Despite being a great leader and strong voice for the disenfranchised, Dr. King was human and vulnerable to the same temptation as you and I. He is symbolic not only of human frailty and human greatness but of a general human quality that causes us to view people as black or white, good or bad, and forget that while people may be essentially good, they are capable of doing bad things, even to the people they love.The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of this duality:

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and [superman]--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under. I love those who do not know how to live, for they are those who cross over."

Figure A

Figure B

Why am i writing about this in blog that's supposed to be about sex and fashion? Because at the end of the day, i feel that the way we conceptualize icons Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., follows us into our daily lives, into what we choose to wear and into our sexual relationships. Whether we idolize our partners sexually, romantically or both, we have a tendency to paint them as we wish to see them, as an impression. We abstract the fact that although we may love and/or desire them, they are still capable of doing us great harm, not only emotionally but physically. More specifically, men that we trust are capable of being unfaithful, and/or of exposing  us wittingly or unwittingly to STI's. (Sexually Transmitted Infections)

All them men I have been with have been with have somewhere gray,  between dogs and saints. I have had several STIs scares and i question I always ask my self after is why does it take a look back for me to see the mongrel in the angel?

Obama =cool, condoms=cool

Sex is a potentially life beginning as well as life ending activity and yet the morality surrounding sexuality remains steeped in stigma, fear and judgment. Dr. king said "our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," and his words could not ring more true than in the era of AIDS. What I want to know is, if we are actually talking about sex, then why are STIs still so common?

In my country, young women under the age of 25 lead the statistics in terms of HIV infection. That's my demographic. I think that's it's indicative of something very grave within our culture in that young women still don't have a voice. We all get sex ed. Is it perhaps more that we think we are somehow immune? That AIDS and STIs is only something that happens to drug users and within the Queer community? I think it often because is it because we afraid to ask our partners the important questions.

Why is it that 'in the heat of the moment' we give into impulse, privileging desire over reason? You could say that 'that's what sex is about, doing not thinking.' And you'd be right. Rationality and sexuality are seemingly divergent. But I have thought to myself 'hey just a minute now...' before engaging in unprotected sex. I don't care how drunk I've been, or how in love or lust I have felt. I have heard the voice of reason and ignored it. And for what?  Short lived intimacy? So I hereby pledge to myself that the next time I'm in bed with somebody, I will think for thirty seconds about what I have written here, hopefully never expose myself to unnecessary risk again. I am STI free not because of anything I have done.  I am STI free because up till now I have been lucky.
 

The Names Project on the
National Mall, 1996.

So i say that this spring/summer, condoms are the new black.But more specifically,  talking about sex and STIs with friends and with every partner we have before engaging in any sexual activity and about protection is the new cool. Let's splurge this season on exercising our human right to agency in our sex lives. As the fashion world is by nature fleeting and transient, so to is the nature of attraction and romantic love. A condom will fit into the smallest clutch and a conversation about STIs could save your life.


 STIs can and do happen to the best of us. It's time to speak up, to listen and to be heard. I want the shame and the stigma surrounding   STI and talking about sex to end. This is my dream.






Figure A: Painting of Jesus.St. Catherine's on Mt. Sinai in Egypt.  

FIgure B: Self-Portrait, Man with Leather belt. Gustav Courbet, 1845, 1846.

1.Gail Bederman. Grewal Inderpal and Carmen Kaplan eds. Remaking Manhood, Race and Civilization. An Into to Women'Studies: Gender in a Traditional World, 2nd Edition. Houston, McGraw Hill. p. 190.     

2. Loab, Paul Rogat, Ed. The Real Rosa Parks: The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citzens Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear. New York, NY, 2004.
p.291   
3. Ibid, Bederman.   
4. Ibid.,Bederman
5. Ibid, Bederman.

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