This entry is a part of our World AIDS Day Blogathon.  During this week we share our experiences, stories, and ideas about how HIV affects young people around the world. Join the blogathon .

Today, Campus Women's Coalition partnered with the Gay-Straight Alliance to raise awareness - about HIV/AIDS, about getting tested, and about using condoms. SDSU has a newly built Wellness Center and they recently opened a Family Planning Clinic. From what I've seen of it, it should be able to serve the students' needs much better in terms of family planning than the old Student Health Clinic could. For one thing, they now offer STI testing for a sliding scale fee, as opposed to the $80 or so dollars it cost to get tested my freshman year.

Unfortunately, not many students know about these improved services. I figured World AIDS Day would be a good opportunity to promote the new clinic. I put "Get tested" and the number for the family planning clinic on each and every GACC condom. I discovered that those tabs they make to label manila folders are the perfect size to fit two legible lines of text and fit in the bottom right hand corner of each condom sleeve. It covers the "Free sample" text, but that's really the least important information (significantly less eye-catching than Trojan Intense Ribbed, anyway!).

Based on previous experience, more people will take condoms handed out for free in the Union than any other sort of pamphlet or freebie, with candy being a possible exception. I'd tried handing out condoms and flyers together before and people would take those, but there was always an awkward fumble and a lot of things hit the floor. With the "get tested" label on the condom, handing them out was a breeze and I was still getting a message across. We also handed out AIDS ribbons and had a board set up on our table with statistics about AIDS, transmission risks, condom effectiveness, etc.

It all seemed to be going pretty smoothly... until 11:00. FOCUS, the Catholic group on campus, set up a table right next to ours. This is the third or fourth time that we've been stuck at a table next to FOCUS while handing out condoms. Twice we've even been sandwiched between FOCUS and College Republicans (and the person manning that table was a teabagger who protested a CWC/OfA healthcare rally...) It can't be a coincidence. Tables reservations are assigned by Union employees and one of them makes no attempt to hide his disapproval of us as feminists. He always gives us trouble when we have to get posters approved to hang up or otherwise interact with him. Sometimes he even seems to make up rules to deny our posters (thankfully, his boss likes me and always happens to swoop in and save the day). 

So, anyway, FOCUS was right next to us and, surprise, surprise, they started giving us crap. One of the main advisors was there. He'd once insisted that HIV can pass right through condoms, so we're dumb/bad//naive for giving them out.

Since then, I've discovered a handy retort - condoms are waterproof. HIV is 400x larger than a water molecule. If a water molecule were a football, HIV would be a football field. The guy was 'discussing' our condom distribution with a GSA member out of earshot, so I didn't get to hear what he said, but at least he left fairly quickly after he was done lecturing them. Later, as we were finishing up handing out around 300 condoms, another FOCUS person came up. This time, she talked to me. She'd talked to us before - it's hard to get her to stop talking and it's fairly clear that she's attempting to block us from distributing more condoms. She's given us gems like "Isn't it just sad to not expect abstinence until marriage for everyone?" and "If a person got HIV, the real way for them to show their love would be to not have sex with their partner." She's all about pushing abstinence only, condoms not being good enough, and bringing up that she's "pro-life because all humans have an inherent dignity" even when abortion had nothing to do with it. It seems like she lives in a very black and white world, where everyone can reasonably wait to have sex until they get married - and everyone is straight and wants to get married - and then stay in completely monogamous relationships for the rest of their lives. Oh, and married couples don't need to know about birth control or condoms because the most fulfilling thing a woman can do is be a mother. You're literally empty inside if there isn't a baby in there, didn't you know?! Just... ugh.

We eventually escaped from her and, overall, managed to hand out at least 300 condoms. I hope to distribute the rest at CWC's "Defining Sex" event next week. A woman from Planned Parenthood is going to talk about things like how virginity is defined and how it's very sexist and heterosexist and doesn't even make sense.