As far as design fails go . . . this one takes the, er, donut.
Earlier in September, a Reddit user shared a photo of a condom that was handed out on a college campus. Within minutes the post was flooded with comments. And it’s easy to see why. The shiny white wrapper is emblazoned with an image of a pink frosted donut and the words, “Go Further Without Consent.”
The condom was actually designed to promote consent, using the donut as a pun for “do not.” But clearly the company missed the mark.
“It took me a minute to actually get that the donut was supposed to be part of the sentence, but even after the pun clicked, I just have so many more questions about the brainstorming process behind this,” wrote on Reddit user. “It’s so, so terrible that it’s utterly fascinating.”
And then the Twitterverse got involved. “The people who signed off on this design aren’t qualified to do anything more complex then stare out a window,” tweeted one person. Added another: “What. What is it trying to say? I know what it says, ‘Rape!’ But what did they think it said?”
The people who signed off on this design aren’t qualified to do anything more complex than stare out a window. pic.twitter.com/GldSU2T9RZ
— Gabriel Morton (@gabrielenguard) September 9, 2017
The condoms are sold by Say It With a Condom. According to the website, the customized ‘consent condoms’ are designed to “start a conversation about how to ask for consent before engaging in any sexual activity.”
The product has since been removed from their online store.
“We went through our normal checks and balances with this design. Whenever we create a new campaign we send it out to universities and domestic violence shelters for feedback and we didn’t receive any negative feedback,” CEO and founder Benjamin Sherman tells Us Weekly. “If we’re not given the green light, we redesign or just choose a different tagline.”
Only after the donut condom went viral did they notice the mistake.
“We were like, ‘Wow, you know this could really be interpreted as promoting nonconsensual sex,” Sherman tells Us, adding that he sees this as a teachable moment. Going forward the company will use its large social media following to ask the public their thoughts before rolling out new products.
