Condoms, while super important, can really stretch tiny student budgets: the average box retails at $12-$24, and in the cold, long nights of winter, the costs can add up fast. Dunedin, however, turns out to be busting with free condoms – so Critic Te Arohi decided to check out where you can fuck on a budget.
As it turns out, OUSA is a big fan of a protected shag. You used to be able to get “Stoppers” condoms at Starter’s Bar, but that’s closed now. Students can still find condoms of varying sizes and brands (often with complimentary lube sachets) at their three main locations: their main office, the Clubs & Socs building, and Student Support. While some cheeky rubbers were also allegedly going to be included in OUSA’s quarantine care packs from the start of the year, they apparently thought better of it as it may have sent “the wrong message” to students in iso. Rough.
On campus itself, condoms can also be sourced from Campus Watch – their commitment to safety clearly extends from the streets and into the sheets, too. Some residential colleges also have them freely available. According to a University of Otago spokesperson, most of the condoms given away by OUSA and the Uni are donated, largely by the good folk at the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa (formerly the New Zealand AIDS Foundation).
Beggars can’t be choosers, though, and they told a disappointed Critic Te Arohi that the higher-end condoms, such as the ribbed kind, are out of the question: “If a student wishes to obtain a different variety of condom, they can purchase at various retailers or get a prescription from their GP.” This presumably includes the flavoured kind, which, by the way, are disgusting.
Outside the main campus, different healthcare providers around town also supply free condoms, with varying degrees of accessibility. Student Health always has a topped-up bowl at the STI self-check station, found straight through their sliding doors. On the other hand, the Dunedin Sexual Health Clinic, being inside the hospital, is probably the least accessible: Covid screening at the entrance means that if you don’t have an appointment, you’ll need to spend a few awkward minutes explaining how you’re just there to rax some rubbers rather than to visit a sick relative.
As far as your bang for buck goes, Family Planning offers the greatest rewards: if you’re under 22 and a NZ resident, you can get a free prescription of 144 condoms by just calling their phone clinic (0800 372 546). For everyone else, it’ll cost you $5 – still cheaper than the $96 or so you’d be spending at the supermarket.
If a phone call is just too much admin, condom donors from the Burnett Foundation Aotearoa also provide their own delivery service. All you need to do is fill out a form on their website, pick one of the four different sizes they have on offer, and it’ll be shipped to you. You can even get them redelivered every few months: like a subscription service, except you’re subscribing to not spreading STIs.
The more unexpected, yet equally fruitful, locations for free condoms included: a gutter on the side of Grange Street (one for those hunter-gatherers out there), the Needle Exchange on Princes Street, and the gay and bisexual Bodyworks club which Critic Te Arohi reported on in 2016 for its controversial exclusion of non-“genetic males”.
Of course, getting the condom is only half the fun. If you’ve got the goods but don’t know where to go from there, the Burnett Foundation (bless their safe sex loving souls) have a plethora of educational resources on safe sex available on their website. This includes a rather graphic video tutorial on the proper application of a condom, in case you never learnt how to slip it onto a banana at high school. Happy free-loving, breathas and breathettes.