So that’s how you wear a condom

6/2/2023 for Seattle Gay News

Have you ever wondered if there was a use for your expired condoms? Western Washington University's Planned Parenthood Generation Action has a solution: turning them into outfits and holding a fashion show to promote safe sex.

On the night of May 24, the club held its eighth annual condom extravaganza in WWU's Viking Union in front of a sizable and excited audience.

"[The purpose] is to promote destigmatizing talking about safe sex with your partner and just speaking about it in general," said PPGA's Celia Hester. "It's supposed to encourage student creativity, and how fashion is such a wonderful form of self-expression, and combining that with empowering our sexuality."

Planned Parenthood Generation Action, a nationwide club with chapters on more than 350 campuses, encourages young activists to stand up for reproductive freedom in their community. Like most other things the club does, the fashion show was funded by Bellingham's Planned Parenthood, which allowed the event to be free and lucrative prizes to be given away to winners: first place won $200, second place $150, third place $100, and the audience choice winner a $75 gift card to Worn Again Thrift, a thrift store in downtown Bellingham.

Pokiness and slayness

The show's theme was "Glitz and Glam: 2010s Icons." "I [chose the theme]," Hester said, "because I think there's a lot of iconic pop stars, like Britney Spears, Ke$ha, and Lady Gaga, who are also all about empowering themselves and embracing their sexuality."

The student designers were allowed to create any type of outfit they wanted, as long as condoms were the most prominent part. The club provided mostly standard male condoms, but it also gave away a few dental dams.

"We had designers and models [meet] ...after people had signed up, and that's when we gave everybody a few [large] packs of condoms," Hester said. "And then we had additional condoms for people who needed more."

"[It] probably took 30 hours all said and done," said dress designer and audience choice winner Olivia. "I spent a lot of time designing the dress. I've never made a dress before, so this is really exciting. It's probably about 650 condom wrappers sewn together and maybe, like, over 150 condoms glued together."

Besides the fact that the outfits could not be worn outside the venue without being met with stares, they were also uncomfortable. Models indicated that the pokiness of the condoms was not the most practical.

The show's first half was dedicated to the student models strutting their dried-out expired stuff down the catwalk to a roaring crowd. At the end of the runway, the judges sat with their scoresheets and the coveted condom crown.

"We've got this fashion show card that we're encouraged to follow," said one judge, Natalie Mote. "[We're judging on the] material they use, 'slayness,' theme, [and] creativity, and then [giving] the overall score. So, we're really going to be looking at... how well the model is feeling. Are they feeling good? Are they feeling covered? Are they working it?"

And the models definitely worked it. Each had their own signature poses, and some even revealed a few props and surprises. One went as far as to reveal that the bottom portion of their dress was removable.

At halftime, audience members were brought up to the stage to taste-test condoms in order to win a gift bag from Wink Wink, a sex shop located in downtown Bellingham.

The condom licking was then followed by drag performances by Mimi Cünt and Alecia Lily, also known as Gare Bruun.

"[I feel] sweaty and slimy," Bruun said after performing in the halftime show. "I'm just kidding. I feel great. I'm glad to perform at a condom show. I think sex ed is such an important topic. ...I was lucky enough actually to have Planned Parenthood come to my high school and teach me sex ed. So, I got to learn about Gay sex in high school, and not many people can say that."

Later, the winners of the show were announced, and the organizers of the event were praised for their efforts.

"I think it was a wonderful event," Hester said. "It was really lovely to see how much of the community was brought together. I mean, there were nearly 200 seats filled. There were the ...drag performers and the people who donated gifts. I was very appreciative of the Bellingham and Western [communities] for that."