Trojan... Man?

It was late on a weekend night and I was laughing out loud watching Amy Schumer's stand up comedy routine on Comedy Central. I was watching the program as I was sleepily finishing up some homework and a certain commercial caught my attention. It was a commercial for Trojan Double Ecstasy Condoms and it was interesting to say the least.

The commercial shows a couple, the young girl straddling the young guy, kissing quite passionately. The guy reaches into his pocket to pull out a shiny blue square packet. The camera focuses on the package, which reads "Trojan Double Ecstasy." The guy, however, drops the condom on the floor and while trying to grab it knocks it under the couch. The girl is still trying to kiss her distracted partner until she sits up and grabs a double ecstasy condom from her back pocket. She shows it to him and smiles while he bashfully covers his face. They both quietly laugh and resume kissing:

This commercial seemed to fit perfectly into the research reported by Hust, Brown and L'Engle (2008) in their article "Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis of the Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescents' Media." The trio found that sexual health was represented as something funny and embarrassing and rarely a natural part of a romantic relationship. They also concluded that boys are obsessed with sex and sexual performance and that girls, on the other hand, are responsible for teen pregnancy, contraception, and STD prevention (p. 14).

After thinking about this article in the context of this Trojan commercial, I was quite frankly taken aback. I couldn't believe that a commercial for a condom, a form of contraception worn by the male, was targeting girls. It was clear that the guy is supposed to fumble and be unable to provide adequate protection for sex. It was also clear that this responsibility falls to the girl, that she should always be prepared. The subject of protected sex also seemed to be quite embarrassing for the guy, something that he just couldn't figure out and, in the end, didn't have to deal with. This interaction, as Hust et al. found, seemed unnatural- the search for a condom interrupted the couple's passionate kissing and seemed to test the guy's confidence as he bashfully covers his face when the girl pulls out the condom.

While I laughed at this paradox, this commercial for condom that focused on a girl's sexual responsibility, I did see some good in it. As Brown, Halpern, and L'Engle (2005) concluded, the mass media can serve as a kind of sexual super peer for early maturing girls, that girls maturing before their peers turn to the media as a kind of informant (p. 426). For those girls that might be classified as intrigued or in the resistance stage of sexual development (Brown, White, & Nikopoulou, 1998) and turning to the media for answers about how to behave sexually, this commercial does show that women can be dominant in a sexual relationship. With the young girl shown in this commercial on top of the guy, she seems to be guiding the kissing and guiding the pace of the sexual encounter. It is also shown in this commercial that the girl's forethought about protection for sex is okay, that it is actually expected of her not to let the guy in the relationship completely control sex. For these young girls that are just at the beginning of their sexual exploration, this kind of commercial might show them that female does not have to equal passive and quiet.

Same kind of thing with this commercial for Plan B:

Women are shown that, even though boys will be boys, it can be empowering for them to assume the responsibility for contraception and protection for sex. Plan B shows the women as not passively accepting the unknown consequences of unprotected sex or sex where birth control has failed. The Trojan condom commercial does not show the girl as passively accepting the guy's lack of preparation. So while boys might remain obsessed with sexual performance, girls using the media as a sexual super peer might learn from a young age that part of sex is being a powerful and responsible female.

References

Brown, J. D., Halpern, C. T., & L'Engle, K. L. (2005). Mass media as a sexual super peer for early maturing girls. Journal of Adolescent Health, 36(5), 420-427. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2004.06.003

Brown, J. D., White, A. B., & Nikopoulou, L. (1993). Disinterest, intrigue, resistance: Early adolescent girls' use of sexual media content. IN B. S. Greenberg, J. D. Brown & N. Buerkel-Rothfuss (Eds.), Media, sex and the adolescent (pp. 177-195). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Hust, S. J. T., Brown, J.B., & L'Engle, K. L. (2008). Boys will be boys and girls better be prepared: An analysis of the rare sexual health messages in young adolescents' media. Mass Communication & Society, 11(1), 3-23. doi: 10.1080/15205430701668139