Normally bursting condoms aren’t something you want happening. On this particular day, however, it isn’t a cause for alarm. As part of Orientation Week, students gathered in the quad for a sexual health decathlon of mythical proportions: yes, my friends, the Condom Olympics were upon Ryerson once again.
Helping me to get acquainted to the events and their purpose was Faisal, a member of Ryerson’s Spirit Squad, and as a result, a man with a higher calling than most. Dressed in a yellow and blue outfit complete with a cape, Faisal was part of an ongoing effort to spread spirit and goodwill amongst the sometimes-nervous first year horde. “What we do here is really, to get people to meet other people by using a very playful method of sexual education that everyone’s kind of nervous about. It can get very humorous at times, and when you involve water, it gets to be even more hilarious.”
This made a lot of sense. If everyone’s equally uncomfortable, I find people are less likely to have inhibitions that would prevent them from getting a little messy. I mean, if everyone has the potential to get soaked by a condom water balloon or fall down while trying to navigate a hopscotch-like beer-goggle race, why worry about what you look like? Some students seemed to be a little more comfortable with it than others, like when I talked to Karen, a first-year student living off-campus. “I don’t find it very uncomfortable; it’s actually pretty funny. Everyone seems pretty open about it and no one seems that weirded out.”
Methods of learning that don’t involve classrooms have always been good, so I can applaud what the Orientation Crew were trying to do with the Condom Olympics; hopefully the tradition continues on next year, with numerous first-years getting soaked in the process.
