With consent at the forefront of modern conversations about sex, one company is highlighting its importance in a unique way. Argentinian company Tulipán has created a “consent condom” that requires four hands to be opened, intending to raise awareness about consent in the bedroom.
“If they don’t say yes, it means no,” the tagline on a video demonstration says. “Consent is the most important thing in sex.”
Ad agency BBDO Argentina created the “Consent Pack” for Tulipán. The box can only be opened if four hands simultaneously press buttons on each side of the box, unlocking the condom inside.
The limited edition condom packages were placed at bars and events around Buenos Aires. The company is also sharing information about the product on social media with the hashtag #PlacerConsentito, or “permitted pleasure.”
They will be available to purchase later this year.“Tulipán has always spoken of safe pleasure, but for this campaign, we understood that we had to talk about the most important thing in every sexual relationship — pleasure is possible only if you both give your consent,” Joaquin Campins of BBDO said in a statement.
The condom is not meant to be a solution to sexual assault, but rather to spread the important message of consent in all circumstances. According to AHF, a global nonprofit organization that provides HIV/AIDS medical care, just 14.5 percent of Argentinian men regularly used a condom, 65 percent said they occasionally use them, and 20.5 percent said they’d never used a condom before.
The Next Web reports that the “Consent Pack” is a direct response to these statistics, hoping to encourage not only consent but condom use overall.
Except, several people have objected the condom might be misused as a means of “proving” consent in rape trials, even if this is not truly the case.
”The worrying thing is that this frames consent as a ‘discussion’ and implies that the real issue is that women might make it up/exaggerate after consensual sex. This is a product designed essentially to protect men from rape accusations, not to protect women from rape”