This has to be one of the worst "it seemed like a good idea at the time" failures in recent memory. Like, remember when Walmart stacked boxes of soda to look like the Twin Towers on 9/11? These are the kinds of ideas that should not even make it to the planning stage, let alone come to fruition.
Take a look at this condom wrapper that was posted on Reddit. What does it look like it says? Did you get the donut was supposed to represent the words "do not," because I sure didn't. I thought it simply read, "Go Further Without Consent." YIKES. Maybe condom wrappers aren't the place for cutesy visual puns?
According to Perez Hilton, the condoms were made by a company called Say It With a Condom. They design "consent condoms" which are meant to "start a conversation about how to ask for consent before engaging in any sexual activity."
A conversation was definitely started, but most of it stemmed from complete confusion. Why did this condom seem to be promoting rape? Many of the commenters on Reddit and Twitter didn't make the connection either, or even if they did, couldn't help but point out how terrible it was.
The condoms have been removed from Say It With a Condom's online store. The company's founder and CEO, Benjamin Sherman, told Us Weekly that they "didn't receive any negative feedback" from the donut wrapper. He explained,
We went through our normal checks and balances with this design. Whenever we create a new campaign we send it out to universities and domestic violence shelters for feedback and we didn't receive any negative feedback. If we're not given the green light, we redesign or just choose a different tagline.
Yeeeahhhh, might want to change that normal design routine, add in a step or two, some more "checks and balances," because wow, no.
