The Great Wright State Condom Race | Photo by Aidan Robillard | The Wright State Guardian
The Women’s Center recently hosted Sex Week, a week with lots of different events held to educate students on safe sex. One such event was The Great Wright State Condom Race, which was held on Monday, Sept. 23 in the Cultural Identity Centers.
Event and set-up
Bobbie Szabo, Director of the Women’s Center, has been working at Wright State University for almost two years.
Szabo stepped in to host the Condom Race this year in place of Destinee Biesemeyer. Biesemeyer is the Associate Director of Student Advocacy and Wellness, and also created the event; however, she is currently on maternity leave.
The Great Wright State Condom Race consisted of four “stations,” each of which had a sign listing the station’s instructions and held the necessary materials on each table.
“You will have two people compete against one another at the first table,” Szabo began when explaining the event. “You’re going to ask for consent. You’re going to say it out loud: ‘Will you have sex with me.’”
The first table was titled “Ask for Consent,” and after asking as Szabo described, the students were to pick up a piece of paper with an answer. After they got a yes, they could move on to the next table, “Find an Unexpired Condom” and go through the condoms on the table until they found one that was still good to go.
“Ask for Consent” was also the name of the third table, where students asked their imaginary partner for permission to put the condom on them. Finally, the fourth station, “Put the Condom on the Model” was the table where contestants practiced putting condoms on six models.
“Remember to pinch the tip [of the condom] so that it fits right and it’ll catch any fake ejaculate. These won’t ejaculate, I promise,” Szabo joked. “Run past the finish line, and you are the winner!”
Game participants
Jesus Carachure Jacobo, a freshman international business major, was excited to come out to the event and learn what it was all about.
“It was educational, but it was also kind of funny, because in front of everyone, [it] just feels very awkward,” Carachure Jacobo said.
He joked about how he is a competitive person, so it was unfortunate for him when he got a “no” at the third station, and then had to go back to the first station again to ask for consent from the start.
“It’s good to acknowledge consent between two people,” said Carachure Jacobo. “It can come in various forms, but also, not giving consent can look bad in [various] ways. So it’s important that people know the difference between that.”
Maxwell Bacon is a senior political science major who is involved in various things around campus but had never been to a Condom Race before this year. He was the winner for the first round of the 2024 Condom Race.
“I felt amazing. I’m very competitive, too, so I was happy, but it was very educational. I think this is an amazing event that takes place,” Bacon said.
Take-aways
Mya Radford, a freshman art major, came to the Condom Race and competed against her friend Tania Clark, a freshman nursing major.
“It was more fun than I thought it would be,” said Radford. “I think it was the competition, especially because I know Tania and we’re friends, I was really like, oh I gotta do this! And I still lost.”
Radford shared that the reason she lost is she kept picking up slips of paper that said things such as “I guess so” at the consent stations. She also shared that she loved the inclusion of these slips because they are great examples of things that might be misconstrued as “yes,” even though they do not mean the same thing.
Clark, who won the face-off, shared that she and her friend both learned recently that condoms can expire, and this event was a great way for her to learn more about that and how to find the expiration date on the package.
Jaime Fletcher, a sophomore criminal justice major, did not partake in the race itself, but recorded Clark and Radford’s fierce competition, and shared her thoughts on the matter.
“I think the use of condoms is good,” said Fletcher. “A lot of people have the [fear of] pregnancy, but I think [I] would lean more towards STDs compared to pregnancy. I think…they should be used like anytime, honestly.”
Future of The Great Wright State Condom Race
“So one fault with the Great Wright State Condom Race is that it assumes that a penis is going to be involved with whatever sex the participants might be having,” Szabo stated.
She went on to explain that she understands and recognizes that the current Condom Race is not inclusive of all people due to this assumption. However, she plans to improve this in the future, so that the Condom Race can promote safe sex for all genders and all sexual orientations.
“I had the idea that in order to make it more inclusive in the future, I could [teach] folks how to make a dental dam out of a condom, and then we could put the dental dam on a vulva model or an anus model,” said Szabo.
Szabo stresses the importance of consent and safe sex, as well as using campus resources to get things like condoms and dental dams. The Women’s Center and Student Advocacy both have resources available.
