Condom dispensers relocated indoors

• Source: Global Times
• [08:22 September 03 2010]
• Comments

A man walks past a newly installed condom dispenser inside a public washroom on Chengdu Road in Jing'an district. Photo: Cai Xianmin

By Chen Xiaoru

The city's 1,000 outdoor condom dispensers have been removed, while 80 percent of them have been reinstalled at various indoor places in a bid to encourage more people to practice safe sex, local authorities said Thursday.

The Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission said that the majority of the condom machines, which were first set up around the city in 2003, have been relocated to hotels, shopping malls and recreational venues with the hopes that more couples will feel comfortable buying the products at more discreet locations.

"We found that most people were ashamed to buy condoms on the street in case they were seen by others," Jiang Wei, deputy director of the department in charge of overseeing the project, told the Global Times Thursday. "So, we decided to move them to other indoor locations where people might be more inclined to buy them."

Jiang said that the supply of the condom machines that charge users 1 yuan ($0.15) per item were cut by 20 percent to correspond to demand, which she admitted has been low over the years though she declined to provide figures.

She added that safety concerns were also a motivating factor behind the relocation of the condom machines, a process that began in March. She said that condoms kept in machines outdoors were exposed to varying weather conditions throughout the year, including lengthy periods of sunlight that could potentially affect the quality of the products.

According to Xia Guomei, a professor that specializes in sex studies at Shanghai Academy of Social Science, the move will be particularly beneficial to students and business travelers, who are more likely to frequent the spots where the condom dispensers have been moved.

Zuo Xiaying, a researcher of sexual health at the Shanghai Institute of Planned Parenthood, however, said that the move is unlikely to make a difference to the some 1.2 million transient people in the city who never use protection.

"These people aren't going to start using condoms just because condom machines are placed at hotels and shopping malls," she told the Global Times Thursday.