Condom vending machines have been on campus for about a year and a half. While there are indications that people are using condoms more often (about 40,000 are distributed each year), there were still over 2,500 cases of STDs at the University Health Services last year.

To help prevent the spread of STDs on this campus, it is an objective of the health service to promote condom use for students who choose to have sex, and make obtaining condoms as easy as possible.

Therefore, the health service distributes condoms during presentations in academic classes, residence halls and student organizations.

Condoms are also available at no charge at the Wellness Resource Center (located in the coat check area of the Holmes Student Center).

Students can also purchase condoms for 50 cents a piece at vending machines located in men’s and women’s washrooms at the student center, in the library and in residence halls.

The only sure way of preventing STDs is to abstain from sexual intercourse and other activities which increase your risk of becoming infected.

Another means of preventing STDs is to have sexual relations only with a mutually faithful monogomous partner who is disease-free.

While condoms help prevent disease, they are not 100 percent effective. How you store, handle, and use them are the main reasons of condom failure. Success with condoms, like most things in life, comes with familiarity and practice.

Your first experience with condoms should not be when you’re most concerned with other matters. Catch the drift? Practice opening them, putting them on and getting used to the feel of them.

Women, as well as men, should be comfortable with them before the first time they are used for intercourse.

Some men are opposed to condom use because of reduced sensation. Statements like “condoms are like taking a shower with a raincoat on” or “I can’t feel anything with condoms” are commonly heard.

However, according to a recent survey of 3,300 readers of Consumer’s Reports, nearly 50 percent of the men who reported decreased sensation reported it as a benefit. Condoms allow men to “last” longer.

Finally, while condoms can be looked upon as an interruption, more people have found that putting on condoms can become part of sexual foreplay, and therefore a positive experience.

As we enter the 90’s, short of abstinance or assured mutual monogamy, condoms are the safest things going.