Trick or What?

Every October, children get geared up designing and making their costumes or simply begging their parents to buy them one from the store. Pumpkins are carved, menacing stuffed scarecrows and witches sit still on front porches and decorations are strung from the trees. How do college students celebrate Halloween? Princess costumes are traded in for sexy bunny costumes and, well, guys still dress up as superheroes. Going door to door to trick-or-treat is replaced with bar hopping up and down the strip. But if you are a student at Brown University, this year you might have received a little extra something for Halloween: a Condom-Gram.

This past Halloween, the local university chapter of Medical Students for Choice, a nationwide organization, decided that a great way to celebrate the spooky holiday was to sell Condom-Grams to the students who might want to purchase one for a significant other or for a friend. Lauren Goddard, class of 2011 and a member of Medical Students for Choice, states, “We were trying to think of fun money-making things we could do.” A fellow university had much success with the sale of Condom-Grams so they decided to try it at Brown.

Chapters of Medical Students for Choice fundraise in order for members to attend the national conference. At the conference, medical students learn about several subjects they are not taught at their normal medical schools, including various techniques used to perform abortions and information on reproductive health. According to Goddard, these training sessions are invaluable because despite the fact that abortions are extremely common in the United States, “you really have to seek out abortion training” since it is not commonly taught in medical schools. Medical Students for Choice hopes to one day alleviate this educational gap within colleges. Students who join Medical Students for Choice do so in order to make “reproductive health care, including abortion, a part of standard medical education and residency training.”

The Condom Gram sale was very successful. Each one was decorated in the spirit of Halloween with witches and pumpkins and spiders made of foam adorning the package. The packages included one condom, a Halloween chocolate and a cute greeting, “Someone is wishing you a safe and happy Halloween – because nothing is scarier than unsafe sex!” The emphasis was on “safe,” of course. A columnist from the school newspaper, Lily Shield (class of 2009) thinks the sale was a fantastic idea since “anything that encourages condom use is always good. I think it’s a really cute and fun way to promote safe sex.” In fact, most students who came to the sale held on the Main Green at Brown University had only supportive things to say about it. Itsuka Kurihara, class of 2011, yelped, “Oh my God, I so want to get one from someone!” Susan Scavone, class of 2012, was excited to send one to a guy classmate who lives on her same floor, “I thought it’d be a really funny joke. He’s gonna get it and be like, umm…”