The Condom Column That Shook Higher Education
From the Vault: safe sex, student journalism, and the wild ride at Southern Miss
📝 Gloryous NonFictions: The Condom Column That Shook Higher Education
From the Vault: Safe Sex, Student Journalism, and the Wild Ride at Southern Miss
Some essays arrive with a thesis statement. Some arrive with a paper trail. And some arrive from the vault wearing lipstick, carrying a pharmacy bag full of condoms, and asking why everyone in authority suddenly got so nervous.
This is the safe-sex column I wrote for The Student Printz in 2006 — one of the articles that helped spark an international free-speech controversy after Southern Miss’s then-president, Dr. Shelby Thames, attempted to expel me and dissolve the student newspaper.
He failed. I graduated with honors. And yes, by graduation, he shook my hand and said, “It’s been a wild ride, hasn’t it?”
It certainly had been.
In This Vault Piece:
A 2006 student newspaper column about condoms, safer sex, and practical public health
The “Bag O’Condoms” experiment that probably did not need to become a campus scandal, but here we are
A look back at shame-free sex education before everyone had the language for it
A reminder that fear is not education and shame is not healthcare
A small, funny artifact from a very strange chapter of Southern Miss history
One woman, one student newspaper, several condom boxes, and a wildly disproportionate administrative response
⚠️ Content Advisory:
Discussion of sex education, condoms, STIs, safer sex, university disciplinary threats, censorship, institutional overreach, and public controversy. Written with humor, but rooted in real events.
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Personal essays with jokes and receipts
Free speech stories with actual consequences
Sex education without shame
Campus journalism drama
Feminist humor and lived experience
Southern university scandal with a raised eyebrow
“You cannot make this up” nonfiction
Practical advice wrapped in personal storytelling
Essays about the strange places where public health, power, and pearl-clutching collide
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From the Vault
Dear Readers,
I originally published this article in September 2006 in The Student Printz’s Pillow Talk column while working with Opinions Editor Adam Chance and Executive Editor David McRaney.
This piece, along with another column I wrote about oral sex, became part of an international free-speech controversy after the University of Southern Mississippi’s then-president, Dr. Shelby Thames, attempted to expel me for writing them and attempted to dissolve the student newspaper for publishing them.
He failed.
I graduated with honors that same school year.
Dr. Thames died on April 17, 2026, at the age of 89. His life and career were much larger than the collision point where our stories met. He was a scientist, professor, administrator, former president of Southern Miss, and a major figure in the university’s polymer science legacy. He was also, for one very strange chapter of my life, the man who decided my sex columns represented a threat grave enough to justify trying to remove me from the university and shut down the student newspaper.
History is rarely tidy. People are rarely one thing.
I will always be grateful to his daughter, Dr. Dana Thames, and his wife, Shirley Duff Thames, for what I was told was their defense of me at a family Thanksgiving dinner when my name came up less than fondly. Because that story was told to me off the record and secondhand, I will leave the full tale where it belongs: in the glorious category of Southern family lore. But I will say this much — any version of the story involving the women at the table withholding food from the menfolk until justice improved is one I find spiritually nourishing.
By the time I graduated, Dr. Thames seemed to have come around, or at least softened. When I crossed the stage, he shook my hand — the softest hand I had ever touched — and said, “It’s been a wild ride, hasn’t it?”
It had been.
At the time I wrote this column, most “safe sex” articles I encountered relied heavily on scare tactics. They offered fear, but not much practical guidance. While there are undeniably serious risks associated with sex — assault, STIs, unplanned or unaffordable pregnancies, emotional harm, and misinformation — I believed then, as I do now, that leading with fear alone is counterproductive.
Shame is not healthcare. Silence is not education. And pretending people will make safer choices because someone scolded them loudly enough has never struck me as a particularly effective public health strategy.
So I wrote about condoms.
Cheerfully. Practically. With jokes.
Naturally, civilization trembled.
I’ve lightly revised this piece for clarity, updated a few facts, and restored some of the humor that strict word counts once forced me to leave on the cutting room floor. The spirit remains the same: sex should be consensual, informed, joyful, safer, and as free from shame as humanly possible.
I’ve been taking some time to rest this week after a migraine and some truly theatrical back pain, so we’re opening the vault instead of returning to the storytelling brownies today. My goal is to return to Those Damn Brownies next week.
In the meantime, please enjoy the little condom column that apparently endangered higher education in South Mississippi.
With love,
Glory
The Condom Column That Shook Higher Education
From the Vault: safe sex, student journalism, and the wild ride at Southern Miss
By Glory Fink
Married people use ’em.
Single people use ’em.
Even gays and lesbians use ’em.
Let’s use ’em, let’s use a condom.
With sincerest apologies to Cole Porter.
In this column, we’ve already mentioned the thrill, terror, and awkward logistics of talking about sex in public. We have approached foreplay and the fun that can be had there. Now, dear readers, we are ready for the main event: The Safe Sex Extravaganza Show.
Covering all the bases of “safe sex” in one column is like covering the entire history of humankind in a two-page essay. Someone is going to yell that you forgot Mesopotamia.
So today, we are going to start with one of the cheapest, easiest, and most widely available forms of protection: condoms.
First, abstinence will get its due. Abstaining from sex is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and the sexual transmission of STIs. Of course, some people would argue that abstinence is not always easy, especially for those of us who enjoy kissing, touching, flirting, breathing near attractive people, or living in bodies with nerve endings.
If you are aiming for the most cautious possible approach, then yes, we are talking about avoiding sexual contact and the exchange of bodily fluids for sexual purposes. This includes the obvious things, and depending on what risks you are trying to avoid, may also include being thoughtful about kissing, sharing sex toys, or doing anything else where bodies and fluids decide to throw a small, poorly supervised party.
In my original draft, I made this point by joking that truly extreme abstinence might also mean no exchanging bubblegum, cigarettes, or bites of pie, spaghetti, or whatever else might carry a dramatic little speck of saliva. I stand by the ridiculousness of that image. Nothing says romance like refusing to share dessert because you are conducting a public health seminar at the table.
But the larger point remains: STIs do not just happen to “that other guy” or “that girl down the hall.” They happen to ordinary people, including charming people, responsible people, married people, single people, queer people, straight people, people with excellent hair, people with bad credit, and people who genuinely meant to make better choices but got distracted by mood lighting.
Condoms are not magic. They do not protect against everything. They work best when used correctly and consistently, and they reduce risk rather than erase it. But they do help protect against pregnancy and many STIs, including HIV, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. They are small, portable, widely available, and significantly cheaper than diapers, medical bills, or the emotional cost of pretending you “just forgot” to have an adult conversation.
In 2006, I wrote that a quick search around town found brand-name condoms selling for as little as forty cents apiece. In 2026, prices vary quite a bit depending on brand, style, store, and whether you are buying a tiny emergency box at a gas station or a bulk pack from somewhere sensible. But the basic point remains: compared with the possible consequences of not using protection, condoms are still a bargain.
Now, not all condoms are created equal.
This is important.
Condom manufacturers, despite what I assume are their very best efforts and several deeply awkward focus groups, have not yet produced one perfect condom that fits every body, every preference, every sensitivity, and every sexual situation. Bodies vary. Sensations vary. Materials vary. Some people need latex-free options. Some people prefer thinner condoms. Some people like texture. Some people would rather negotiate with a raccoon in a parking lot than use a condom that smells like a tire fire and broken promises.
So what is a safety-minded person to do?
Experiment, of course.
Back in the day, around the time dirt was becoming the hottest new thing in planet coverings, my blushing new husband and I thought all condoms were basically the same. We had “our” brand. We also hated “our” brand.
This was not a sustainable arrangement.
Finally, one night, when I actually considered going to sleep instead of having sex because I did not want to use another one of those detestable condoms, I had an epiphany.
Why were we acting like we had been legally assigned one condom brand at birth?
We hurried to the pharmacy and bought every type of condom we could find. Ribbed. Thin. Latex. Non-latex. Lubricated. Extra lubricated. Comfort fit. Ultra-sensitive. Things in boxes that looked like they had been designed by either NASA or a bachelor party committee. We even bought the internal condom, but that is a column for another day.
Then we took our bag full of goodies home to conduct what I can only describe as safe, sexy science.
We created the Bag O’Condoms.
This was not merely a bag. This was research. This was marriage enrichment. This was public service with better lighting.
Every time we had sex, we tried a different kind of condom. Afterward, we each wrote down our likes, dislikes, observations, and overall rating from 1 to 10.
One meant: “I would rather go to sleep than use this terrible condom again.”
Ten meant: “I would like to make out again immediately just so we can use this wondrous thing one more time.”
For science.
For safety.
For the future of humanity.
Please note: no humans were harmed during the course of this experiment. Several rubber trees may have filed grievances.
When all the boxes had been opened and the data had been collected, we analyzed our findings. To our surprise, our top two choices were brands we had never seriously considered trying before. We would never have discovered them by listening to advertisements, staring at the shelf in panic, or assuming the most familiar box was automatically the best one.
That is the thing about condoms: the best condom is not necessarily the one with the loudest commercial, the coolest package, or the most confident name. The best condom is the one you will actually use correctly, consistently, and without silently wishing a sinkhole would open under the bed.
So conduct your own safe, sexy science experiment.
Talk to your partner. Read the box. Check the expiration date. Use lube when appropriate. Do not use oil-based lube with latex condoms. Do not double up condoms, because two condoms rubbing together are more likely to break, and that is not teamwork, that is sabotage. If you have a latex allergy or sensitivity, look for non-latex options. If something hurts, burns, slips, breaks, or makes you dread sex, try something else.
Condoms are not a punishment. They are not an admission of mistrust. They are not a moral failing wrapped in foil.
They are a tool.
A small, crinkly, sometimes hilarious, often lifesaving tool.
And if using one means you and your partner get to have more relaxed, more responsible, more joyful sex, then my dear reader, that is not ruining the mood.
That is setting the mood for success.
Now go forth, be kind to your body, be honest with your partners, and let me know what your favorite love glove turns out to be.
Optional tiny source note for the bottom
Updated factual framing based on current CDC, HIV.gov, WHO, and ASHA sexual health guidance: condoms reduce, but do not eliminate, the risk of pregnancy and many STIs when used correctly and consistently; current ASHA estimates suggest about 1 in 8 people in the U.S. has genital herpes.
https://www.cdc.gov/condom-use/index.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/condoms
https://www.ashasexualhealth.org/herpes/
Bonus! Current status: unavailable due to extreme kitten snuggling
interesting isn't that the word condom begins with "con" as in "controversy">"conflict"> and "Constantinople" . . . and ends with dom . . . which is pronounced like "DUMB"! . . . just noticing . . .