Methodist-Founded University Celebrates Its 'Condom Fairy'

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You’ve been tipped with cash by the bed-hopping Tooth Fairy, but would you like to find a different kind of booty?

At Boston University, there’s something fantastical flying ’round. For those wanting to swoop into liberated sexual liaisons, a flittering mythical being bears frisky gifts. Students at the Methodist-founded institution can get visited by the vaunted Condom Fairy.

A January 30th BU.edu article explains how the prophylactic fairy took flight.

A long time ago in the Massachusetts town, young men and women hoping to gather and exchange more than ideas were saddled with the embarrassing task of buying sex items at stores. A health clinic offered costless rubbery protection, but publicly digging into the “fishbowl” drew unwanted eyeballs.

At some point, Director of Student Health Services Health Promotion & Prevention (HPP) Katharine Mooney had an epiphany: What if the wave of a wand could discreetly load up students with lubricated latex? BU could employ the magic of mail.

Katharine recalls:

“What we liked about the idea of mailing supplies to students was not only would that be a more convenient option for them, but it could also be a way to share really critical health information and health education. You know, if you’re rushing in to grab supplies out of a fishbowl in a waiting area, you’re probably not going to stop to grab that postcard about STI [sexually transmitted infection] testing, or whatever it might be. So that felt like a chance to combine supplies with really key information.”

Thus, the Condom Fairy program took off. And a short-lived slogan was born: “Now flying wherever flies come undone.”

That was a decade ago. These days, jimmy hats aren’t the only things the Fairy supplies.

[A]pproximately 35,000 orders, and around 175,000 external condoms later, the Condom Fairy is now celebrating a decade of providing BU students on and off campus with free condoms (both internal and external), lube, dental dams, information about sexual health and consent, and more to help make their, ahem, extracurricular activities a little less risky.

Business is booming, safety is surging:

[A]ccording to a recent survey run by HPP, 90 percent of respondents agreed that it was easier to practice safer sex because of the Condom Fairy, with 72 percent saying they actively did so because of the service. According to the same survey, testing for STIs increased by at least 35 percent, and the department observed a 63 percent drop in students who never considered getting tested at all. And for students interested in dental dams and internal condoms—often called “female condoms” because they can be placed inside the vagina—half of them reported they didn’t have anywhere else to access those items outside of the Condom Fairy.
All this to say: The program works, baby.

With the 10th anniversary comes a modern makeover:

[O]riginally, the mascot was a tiny white cartoon fairy repurposed from a stock set of baby shower graphics. Her tone — developed by the HPP team and graduate students in the office — was tongue-in-cheek in order to grab people’s attention, [Katharine] says. As years went by, the department’s feedback from students indicated they wanted characters more representative of actual BU students. The team convened a committee of students from different schools, who selected local artist Nicole Mazzeo to create three new Condom Fairy characters. The result? A trio of gender-, race-, and body-diverse fairies that rolled out in the fall 2022 semester.

Images accompanying the article spotlight the crew:

A white male with five o’clock shadow holding a green wand
A darker-skinned male with purple hair and a partially-shaved head, holding a blue wand
A substantially plus-sized black female holding a red wand

Per program ambassador Chelsea Sibri, it’s all about diversity:

“In working with the Condom Fairy program, I have really enjoyed advising the educational materials for our packaging. The program always centers the perspectives of diverse groups of students when developing initiatives. For these materials, their development has brought up really interesting conversations about safe sex, which I think should be normalized instead of stigmatized.”

The Fairy has really spread his/her/their wings:

[T]he Condom Fairy is just one part of an overall effort. Together with all of Student Health and HPP’s offerings—sexual health events, partnerships with local businesses like One Condoms and Good Vibrations, volunteer opportunities, workshops from the Sexual Assault Response & Prevention Center, and the like — “we’ve really helped BU become a more sex-positive campus,” [Katharine] says.

So goes contemporary college. Kids grow up getting money while they sleep; but in precipitation-prone Beantown, those who sleep together are receiving raincoats. It’s all courtesy of a fairy — perhaps not Tinkerbell, but Kinkerbell.

-ALEX

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