Condom vending machines, anyone?

Eeek! I was watching an old rerun of Just Shoot Me this afternoon, and it was the episode where Finch gets driving lessons from Elliott and a huge, gigantic, very hairy (think cousin It), very sinister-looking tarantula crawls onto Finch's shoulder as he's driving! Good God, if that happened to me while I were driving, I'd be off somewhere lying on the side of the road in a ditch right now! Despite the fact that they never complain about your driving, furry, fuzzy spiders are not good company to have in the car, nosiree. Neither are reptiles. Yeah, there was this one time P'Ying found a gecko plastered against her window holding on for dear life as she sped along the tollway. Being the sympathetic softie that she is, she actually opened the window and let it seek refuge in her car. I have nothing against geckos (they aren't hairy, don't jump at you out of nowhere, and don't give birth to 300 babies at a time like spiders), but I wouldn't exactly let one into my car! But that's P'Ying for ya, she's such a sweetie.

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There was a rather interesting debate on channel 9 last night. There were professors and students from various Thai universities discussing the necessity and appropriateness in having condom vending machines at universities. Yeah, that's right, condom vending machines! As you guys can probably imagine, it didn't really sit well with most of the Thai public. The poll indicated that 70% of the viewers were against the idea whereas only 30% were for it.

The profs who were for the idea talked about these condom machines being beneficial in lowering STDs, AIDS, and unwanted pregnancies amongst university students, whereas the profs who were against the idea argued that it would send out improper connotations and that students go to university to study and educate themselves, not to have sex. One student brought up a rather interesting point: she said that there aren't even any machines on campus selling tampons and pads, so why should there be vending machines selling condoms? Haha, anyway, things got pretty heated after a while.

The thing that intrigued me was that the majority of the students who participated in the debate were also against the idea. Despite the many changes in modern Thai society, they said that we are still a Buddhist and Asian nation and that we can't forget that our ancient traditions and morals still hold a higher priority and significance in comparison to such contemporary ideals and notions. They also drew comparisons between universities abroad (namely, the US) and how they don't even have such machines loitering around their university campuses because of it being downright unnecessary and inappropriate. I couldn't agree more. Take my uni, for example, if you were in dire need of a condom, you could always cross the street and pop by the 7-11 and buy a condom there.

So, what do you guys think? Are you for or against condom vending machines being placed at university campuses?

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BTW, sorry, but I just had to add this : For all the ladies out there, here's a video clip - http://www.waaak.com/sound/malachiconcert.wmv - (3.21 MB, 4:36 minutes) from the Malachi showcase I went to a few weeks ago. You can hear a few clips from some of the songs he performed that night (and that gorgeous, gorgeous voice of his), as well as a few snippets from the interview with Miew where he talked about Thai and Irish people and his ideal kind of girl. Man, what a smoothie, that Malachi. And you gotta love that Irish accent, too!



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