While the number and types of emojis seem to be ever-proliferating, there's one topic that doesn't yet have a face: safe sex.
Durex, a major brand of condoms, lubricants and personal massagers, is calling for the inclusion of condom emojis on the world's smartphones to encourage young people to communicate about safe-sex practices. The company, a part of global consumer-products manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser Group, has designed an emoji for an unwrapped condom and one for a wrapped condom.
“Emojis have become a key language used by young people across the globe when discussing sex, and yet this language does not have a way to discuss or even suggest safe sex,” said Karen Chisholm, marketing director for Durex USA. “By creating an official condom emoji, we will empower young people to place condom use and safe sex back at the heart of the sexual conversation.”
Global research commissioned by Durex showed that 84% of 18- to 25-year-olds “feel more comfortable talking about sex using emojis.” Over one-third of the young adults surveyed said they don't care about safe sex, and nearly half said they believe HIV will never affect them or their friends.
Durex is asking 1 million people to use and share the hashtag #CondomEmoji to drum up support for the campaign. The company will include that social-media data with the emoji petition it submits to the Unicode Consortium, a not-for-profit technology company that decides how text and emojis will be represented in software. The submission will be sent on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.
“Of course the creation of a condom emoji will not solve the wider issues of apathy in young people toward safe sex; however, it will be a powerful tool to help give young people a way to discuss these issues in a language they understand and use,” Chisholm said.
