An open letter to Durex condoms
May 15, 2000
Dear Durex condom people:
You assholes have ruined my sex.
How, you ask? I’ll tell you.
As I am sure you are aware, condom manufacturers distribute free condoms to universities in an attempt to secure the brand loyalty of millions of horny youths. I am living proof that this strategy works.
In my early years at university I sampled every free condom I could get my glans on. It was imperative that I find the ideal condom, for I am a man with a unique and idiosyncratic penis. As my skin is extremely sensitive and I have a foreskin that can be difficult to control at the best of times, the subtle differences between condom brands can mean the difference between heaven and hell in the sack.
Those early years were a difficult time. Most condoms gave me an instant rash, and/or felt like sandpaper, and/or wouldn’t keep my foreskin retracted, and/or wouldn’t comfortably accommodate my significantly above-average size. I was losing hope. But then, from the depths of this deluge of inferior prophylactic product, came my saviour: the Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condom.
The Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condom was everything I could ask for in a penile sheath. Its latex was soft and easy on my skin. Its ribbing lightly gripped my shaft, preventing the condom and my foreskin from slipping during sex. It accommodated my significantly above-average size with just the right amount of tension. It didn’t even smell too bad. Let me tell you, with a good hard-on and a Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condom, I was a force to be reckoned with.
For the past three years I have been using Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condoms as frequently as possible, and have enjoyed a spotless record of comfort and durability. Well, except for the time your product decided to rupture in the middle of my ejaculation, reducing my partner to tears and forcing me to endure her taking the morning-after pill and retching on the floor of my apartment for 36 hours. But, in retrospect, that was a minor break in an otherwise glistening personal product history.
In short, the condoms were lovely, the sex was great, and life was good.
Then you putzes had to go and change your condoms.
I can still remember finding the unfamiliar, redesigned box on the shelf. I hoped to God that the condoms inside were still the same. But they weren’t. When I checked the small print on the back of the box, I learned to my horror that you have added Nonoxynol-9 to the lubricant of my favourite condom.
Mere words can not express the anger and betrayal I am feeling at this moment. I have encountered Nonoxynol-9 before. It is excruciating. It gives the head of my cock a rash so bad it almost bleeds. You call it “spermicidal lubricant.” I call it “suicidal lubricant.” For to slap that heinous substance on my member is to embrace death itself.
The logic of this decision leaves me scratching one of my heads in confusion and the other in irritation. After all, you always have—and still do—offer your Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condoms in two distinctly marked boxes: one with plain lubricant, and the other with Nonoxynol-9. So please tell me, why—why—for the love of sweet Mary mother of Baby Jesus up in Heaven, would you decide to add Nonoxynol-9 to both products? This means you schmucks are selling the same product in two different boxes. Have you all gone mad? Or is this some kind of cock-up?
The impact on my sex has been catastrophic. Unable to buy the only condom I ever truly loved, I have been forced to use one of your other products—with heartbreaking results. See for yourselves! I have enclosed a photo of my penis
wearing your useless Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin non-ribbed lubricated condom. Does this look like a happy penis to you? Is it blood-engorged, pointing skyward, ready for hot sex action? Hell, no. Where once your condoms were the spinach to my, ahem, Popeye, they are now the Kryptonite to my Superman. My sex is ruined! Ruined!
You know what? I’m fed up with you fat-cat corporate bastards, sitting in your ivory towers with your focus groups and your market research, making decisions that adversely affect the sex lives of ordinary people. Well, I’ve got news for you. I am a man who won’t tolerate his fucking being fucked with. People of Durex, you are hereby notified that YOU HAVE LOST MY BRAND LOYALTY. That’s right. You and me, we’re kaput. It’s over.
If our relationship has meant anything to you, please send me a few boxes of your original Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated non-Nonoxynol-9-laced condoms, if you still have any around. Then I might get through my difficult transition to another brand with some semblance of human dignity. Or even better, go back to offering your Durex Sheik Sensi-Thin ribbed lubricated condoms WITHOUT Nonoxynol-9, so that good, decent, everyday folk like myself can go back to sending you proper photos of our penises—erect, proud, and sporting your product.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Glen Callender UFA
* * *
June 27, 2000
Dear Mr. Callender:
This will acknowledge receipt of your complaint concerning DUREX SHEIK THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms. For a very short period of time the end flap and back panel of our #246 carton indicated spermicidal lubricant but the product inside was not lubricated with nonoxynol-9. This packaging oversight has been corrected.
Please be assured that only the finest quality ingredients are used in Durex Canada Products. We use advanced manufacturing technology, and rigid quality control to provide our customers with high quality, reliable products.
On behalf of Durex Canada, I apologize for whatever inconvenience you have experienced. Enclosed please find a replacement package of 12 DUREX SENSI-THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms.
We appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention.
Sincerely,
* * *
July 17, 2000
Dear Janie Edmondson, Regulatory Affairs Documentation Manager (U.S. Operations):
This will acknowledge receipt of your reply to my complaint concerning DUREX SHEIK THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms. I am pleased that my complaint was personally addressed by the Regulatory Affairs Documentation Manager (U.S. Operations), and not some obscure bureaucrat.
I am pleased to report that with your reassurance that there is in fact no nonoxynol-9 in your DUREX SENSI-THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms, I have resumed use of this product, and my sex has returned to its previously high standards. I would send you a photo of my penis in its rejuvenated state, but this would, I think, be redundant.
Thank you for the replacement package of 12 DUREX SENSI-THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms. However, I note with a certain degree of perturbedness that although you claim the packaging oversight I brought to your attention has been corrected, the replacement package of 12 DUREX SENSI-THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms you sent me retains this oversight. Perhaps there has been another oversight? I just thought I should bring this to your attention.
That said, please feel free to send me more replacement packages of 12 DUREX SENSI-THIN RIBBED LUBRICATED condoms. Indeed, it would be most gratifying to see your corrected #246 carton. It would make me feel as if I have in some small way influenced the actions of a multinational corporation, and I am sure you will agree it would be in the best interests of Durex that I harbour such delusions.
In closing, I would like to personally thank you, Janie Edmondson, Regulatory Affairs Documentation Manager (U.S. Operations), for your attention to this matter. I wish you and your Durex kin all the best, and if you ever need any help with that “rigid quality control” you mentioned, just give me a call.
Sincerely,
Glen “rigid quality control” Callender UFA •
Originally published in The Peak, May 15 and July 17 2000.
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Letter published in The Peak, May 23 2000:
“Open letter too open”
This letter is in response to Glen Callender’s less than tasteful open letter to Durex Condoms. When I turned to the back page of The Peak this week, my poor eyes were traumatized with a picture of (I am supposing) Glen’s average penis. What angers me is how the Peak staff can consider this letter fit for Simon Fraser University’s reading pleasure. What does Glen’s condom problem have to do with SFU, its community, or education?
I believe in the right to free speech, but for The Peak, at what tacky cost? Glen should seek out better facets to discuss his “penis rash problem,” like actually writing to Durex Condoms, seeing his family doctor, or dealing with it himself by finding a brand of condoms on the shelf that do not contain Nonoxynol-9, or abstaining from sex altogether.
I have no sympathy for Glen, as I have allergies too, to all sorts of chemicals and food. Instead of griping to The Peak and making the SFU population suffer with unpleasant personal details, I deal with it and find alternatives to using those products--allergies are a fact of life. So, Glen, do you think you can do the same?
Your letter was neither intriguing, nor was it humorous. I found it tacky, crass, misplaced, and disgusting. The whole SFU population did not ask to know details about your penis and foreskin, condom use, or medical problems.
As for The Peak, we all know you lack writers and columns in the summer, but I would rather have one less page to read than read something that I feel has no place in our school newspaper--take some pride in what you publish.
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