A truck used to promote safe-sex and AIDS awareness recently went missing in Mexico City, and the organization that owns it feared that would be the last they’d ever see of their giant inflatable condom. Happily for Colectivo Sol and the safe-sex loving residents of Mexico, the truck was found intact, but it had been stripped of some of its contents, including the sound equipment - and 5,000 Condoms. Well, at least they can sleep easy knowing that the criminal underground of Mexico City is wrapping it up and keeping it clean? Other uses: Condom-balloon escape from police chase; Impromptu surgical mittens; Gerbil party hat.

One statistic claims that the average person has sex 127 times a year, so with 5,000 condoms, that would take one person about 39 years to go through all of them. Get crackin’, ladrones! Obviously we’re ignoring the obvious possibility that the thieves are simply planning to sell the condoms for a profit, but it’s so much more fun to imagine a massive, underground thief orgy. Getting back to the facts: The truck was only AWOL for three days, but it was sorely missed as it’s been a crucial part of a campaign by Colectivo Sol to educate Mexicans about AIDS prevention and sexual health.

The Condomovil program has toured Mexico since 1998 promoting safe sex practices while distributing 1.2 million condoms to more than 700,000 people, Gomez said. The inflatable condom was used to draw attention from passers-by.

Members of the organization travel around the country, stopping in towns to inflate their giant novelty condom and dress up like drag queens. Because lordy knows those Mexicans can’t be edumacated without colorful prancing transvestites in the background!

Condescension and dick-jokes aside, we definitely see the value in Colectivo Sol’s work. As of 2005, there are somewhere between 99 thousand and 440 thousand people living with AIDS in Mexico, so the more people they can educate about safe sex, the better. Promoting a better understanding of condom use will help prevent both unwanted pregnancy and STD’s like AIDS, and we are all for that. Until the thieves return the condoms or someone else gives Colectivo Sol a grant to buy more condoms to distribute, we recommend looking at this to kill your libido. Happy Buzzkill!

Colectivo Sol
Recuperan al ‘Condomóvil’ [Reforma]
Condom-mobile missing in Mexico [Sun Times]