When I first read this convoluted condom message, I thought it was simply saying that you could go further with a girl if you didn’t care about her consent. And that is a BAD slogan for people trying to promote safe sex. Just seemed too different from what you usually hear from safe sex support groups. But I was curious about the donut. Why did they include it? I’ve never seen a donut and thought, man, somebody is getting laid tonight.
The point is, expecting people to READ an image, understand the pun, and connect the dots is too much to ask of anyone these days, ESPECIALLY if you’re making a branding joke about sexual consent. You better spell that shit out in the plainest English. Those are dangerous waters, guys, and 99% of people are going to see this is as some very strange endorsement of pushing ahead without consent. Not worth it.
I wonder how that pitch went?
“Guys, I have a GREAT idea for our condoms. Let’s use a donut pun to stop sexual assault! Everyone will say ‘donut’ out loud when they read this, and then understand our play on words and convert it to ‘do NOT go further without consent.’ Right? Everyone will get that?”
Guy strikes me as somebody who receives texts with emojis and reads the emojis literally, like “let’s get some mugs filled with beer later” or “I just heard a rumor, and now I’m a monkey holding my ears.” Dude, nobody got the pun. And also, it could be read as “DO nut. Go further without consent.” Which is probably worse.
As we’ve seen elsewhere – when it comes to “appropriate times for cutesy little puns,” sexual consent discussions are at the very, very bottom of the list.