Bartender, I'll have two beers and a prophylactic: Local bars pitch in to promote condom use
By Corey Ryan
Athens NEWS Campus Reporter
May 15, 2008
A guy and a girl hook up in a bar. The guy asks the girl if she would like to take the action to his place. The girl asks if he has a condom. The guy says, “No, but the bartender does!”
“They’ll laugh about it,” said Ohio University junior Matt Howells, a bartender at the Crystal. “But they are pumped that they got a free condom. It’s funny, but I think they’re still going to use them.”
For the past week or so, 10 uptown bars and O’Betty’s Red Hot have made available multi-colored, lubricated latex condoms for anyone who asks. In return for a condom, bartenders ask for a donation, which goes to the condom provider, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Ohio (PPSEO).
“It’s a place where people are meeting, getting together,” said Tara Ball, development coordinator for PPSEO. “We all know about hook-ups and a lot of the bars feel a sense of responsibility.”
For those not familiar with youth lingo these days, “hook-up,” in most contexts involving college-age people, means a sexual liaison, up to and including intercourse.
The condom movement started when a former employee at the Union contacted Ball before she was appointed to her current position, with the idea to bring back an old strategy of providing free condoms at bars. Now Ball and her intern Genoa Rucker have spearheaded the project, making signs and trying to expand.
Currently, the bars participating are 19 South, the Cat’s Eye, the C.I., Casa Cantina, Tony’s Tavern, the Red Brick Tavern, the Crystal, Pawpurrs, the Pub and the Blue Gator. The results after one week have been varied.
At the C.I., the window sign has already been taken, probably one of the signs provided by PPSEO stating: “Thinking About It? Need Some Protections? Condoms.” Bar representatives said there haven’t been many inquiries about condoms at the C.I., Pawpurrs, the Cat’s Eye or the Pub. Most of the reactions at these bars have involved humor or disbelief.
“I think it’s great,” said recent OU graduate and Red Brick assistant manager Lindsay Reese. “It’s better to have condoms available where everything is happening. There are no grocery stores and BP is closed (around closing time at the bars). Where else can someone get (condoms)?”
Patrons of the Crystal and Red Brick apparently have been taking advantage. Howells said he has been asked for condoms more frequently during happy hour, when the Crystal is not as crowded. Yet, the donation cylinder indicates that those patrons aren’t doing a lot of donating.
All donations go to funding the condoms, Ball said, meaning if people want the contraceptives, donations are going to have to be made.
The Red Brick Tavern had a bartender go one shift asking for $2 a condom, Reese said. “We’ve been through so many,” she said. “We had multiple jars filled.”
For both Red Brick and Tony’s Tavern, the condoms work double time as advertising. While the other nine locations chose to take the free condoms, Red Brick and Tony’s purchased 100 condoms accompanied by a card with the bar’s logo for $20. The rest of the locations received 50 per month, free of charge.
Because sex can be a sensitive subject, there has been some negative feedback in the first week. Reese said one woman took offense at a sign in the window promoting the condoms. Reese could not remember what the sign said, but the owner of O’Betty’s had a Planned Parenthood sign he declined to display.
“Even at O’Betty’s we have our limits,” owner Bob Satmary said.”
Satmary and his hot dog restaurant, the odd location out of the group of bars, decided to participate because of his progressive views and because he said O’Betty’s is a last-chance stop bar goers make before going home.
But Satmary had to draw the line at a sign demonstrating how to put a condom on what he said was a banana (though the banana had two features unique to male genitalia).
“We truly are at a community intersection,” said Satmary, who did not want children seeing the sign and asking questions.
Satmary laughed at the suggestion that an employee change the illustration from a banana to a hot dog.
Hot dog or banana, correct condom use reduces the spread of sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy and correct use comes only with practice, according to the Planned Parenthood Web site.
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