By Jos Truitt • @jostruitt • 11 years ago

Sports fans to get free condoms at Euro 2012

Fair Play condom campaign from Poland

Image via Thenews.pl

Can you imagine if the US government gave out free condoms at the Super Bowl? That’s basically the equivalent of what will happen in Poland next month, when the country is one of the hosts of Euro 2012, Europe’s annual football tournament held every four years (that’s soccer to all us ignorant Americans). The tournament runs from June 8 to July 1 in Poland and the Ukraine

The National AIDS Centre will distribute 150,000 condoms and information about safe sex to people attending Euro 2012 events in all four host cities in Poland. The leaflets will be printed in six different languages. The campaign uses the slogan, “I play fair, I use a condom.”

I love the idea of associating safe sex with a major sporting event. It normalizes conversations around barrier methods when they’re associated with something in pop culture. It would be hard for Euro 2012 attendees to avoid even a joking conversation about condom use if they’re hooking up at the event, cause the condoms are going to be everywhere. And of course it’s a smart, responsible idea for a government health office to take advantage of a big sporting event for education purposes. It’s not something I can imagine happening in the US any time soon, but shouldn’t that change?

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

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