Caleb Gustin has a strong passion for sexual health and they are an Emergency Room Nurse who also live streams for O.School, teaches in the Seattle school system for a women’s non-profit, and is a drag queen!

Caleb purchased custom condom wallets as a “signature calling card” for their drag persona, SisteRNurseJoy. SisteRNurseJoy is a Catholic nun who is passionate about many things. She stands for self love, joy, laughter, comprehensive sex education, reproductive justice, and queer acceptance.

The wallets have SisteRNurseJoy’s logo and the phrase “Serving doses of Joy, Acceptance, Sex Education, and Queer Fury in the PNW!” When asked about how they use the condom wallets, Caleb said, “I use these condoms as business cards within the sex education community, as a form of outreach to queer people and youth at clubs and bars, and as a merchandising option for myself in order to support all of the work that goes into drag as a performance art. I hand them out, sell them, and even hear stories from people who have used them during their first sexual encounters!”

Caleb’s passion for sexual health was very apparent in their responses. They chose these condoms specifically because they start a conversation. You wouldn’t ever expect a Catholic nun hand out condoms and speak about safe sex, right? Caleb finds it to be very powerful to be handing out these condoms to people when they would least expect it. Since Caleb is a nurse, they also mentioned that they support free reproductive healthcare and making sure people have what they need when they need it.

Custom Condoms As Promo Products

Caleb explained that Say It With A Condom is helping with their promotional goals “by getting my face into the hands of people who might not normally hear of me.” Caleb continued by saying, “Womxn deserve autonomy over their bodies and their reproductive happenings. I hope to be just one small action in the long term goal of reversing the tide of history towards one that values and respects womxn from all walks of life. While I’m at it, I plan to have a little fun, curse a little as a nun, and maybe even save a life outside of the emergency room if only one queer kid somewhere else in the world decides that life is worth living and loving their queer self is the secret to finding joy in this life.”

Clearly, both Caleb and SisteRNurseJoy are having a blast handing out these custom designed condoms and starting these unexpected and educational conversations! Check out SisteRNurseJoy’s Twitter, Instagram, and website! Both Caleb and SisteRNurseJoy are available for lectures, panels, comedy, and performances.  

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Brandy described the office as a resource center for students that provides education that encourages students to make low-risk decisions. Their purpose is to empower students to make informed decisions regarding their health and wellness by providing evidence-based education, inclusive resources, and non-judgmental support.They have a number of professional staff in the office as well as student peer educators who do a lot of the outreach and implementation of events. Some of their services and events for students are:

• • Health Huts: Monthly awareness/tabling events that focus on a different health and wellness topic each month
  • Gotcha Covered: Volunteer-based condom distribution program
  • Be Wise Party Packs: Party packs for students who live off-campus and throw parties
  • Stress Less Fest: Stress relief events held fall and spring semesters; the week before finals week
  • Safe Spring Break: Programming the week before spring break; topics usually include sexual health, alcohol, sun safety, and travel safety
  • Tobacco Cessation: Free tobacco cessation classes
  • Peer Financial Coaching: Free one-on-one financial coaching sessions, led by a trained peer educator; focuses on making a budget, credit, saving money, etc.
  • Sexual Assault Awareness Month
  • HIV testing: Free, rapid HIV testing for students
  • Free products in the office, including internal and external condoms, lubricant, bandaids, dental floss, chapstick, hand sanitizer, and more!

The Student Wellness Center was founded in 1992 and has evolved over the years. The professional staff members tended to be generalists and were able to educate students on a variety of topics, but in 2017, they hired a Program Coordinator for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs, and also a Sexual  Violence Prevention Program Coordinator. Now their staff members are able to focus on a specific topic, and give more attention to student needs.

Brandy mentioned that she doesn’t think their office would be as successful without the partnerships that they have. They currently partner with a number of offices on campus such as Counseling and Psychological Services, Student Conduct and Community Standards, Resident Education and Development, Fraternity and Sorority Life, and Women Helping Women who are on-campus advocates. They are working on building stronger off campus partnerships, but they currently partner with Caracole, which is a Cincinnati AIDS service organization, and the Cincinnati Health Department to offer and promote STI and HIV testing.

Brandy explained that their biggest challenge is physical space. “This makes it difficult to do day-to-day work, as well as to grow. We don’t have any private space, which is a challenge with meeting with employees, student workers, and students who have private questions.” But Brandy also said that they’re making the most out of their situation, by being intentional with their programming, and by doing what they can with their space. She also noted that their staff tends to get along really well, because they’re always working so closely together.

When asked about their biggest success, Brandy said, “Our peer educators. We couldn’t do 75% of the outreach and the work we do without them.” They’re active on social media, and do a lot of outreach by doing presentations, events, and tabling. She continued by saying, “They’re great representatives for our office. I think I’m most proud of them!”

Say It With A Condom is amazed with the outreach they’re doing to get their students involved and educated about health and wellness! Check out their website here, or their Twitter and Instagram!

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Say It With A Condom connected with Motoko (Mo) Kitazumi, the Intercultural Services Coordinator in the Multicultural Dream Center to hear more about how they utilized the condoms they purchased from us a few years ago. Mo said that they purchased SIWAC’s traffic light consent condoms, and LGBTQ Pride condoms.

Mo discussed how her campus is not currently having “the sex talk” and the consent condoms were a start to that conversation! The consent condoms specifically were used as giveaways at events, handed out during tabling, and used as general promotion during the campus’ sexual assault awareness week. Mo continued on and mentioned that it sparked a different conversation than what they were expecting- it was brought up that by just handing out condoms, they’re assuming what students might already know.

Students come to college with different levels of sex education based on what their families taught them, what they learned from friends, and what they were officially taught in school. Each family is different, so those conversations aren’t ever going to be the same, and each school district has different policies and expectations of what they’ll be teaching the students. When they finally get to college, everyone’s level of knowledge is different, and the university takes some responsibility of educating the students as well.

The Multicultural Dream Center purchased these condoms as a conversation starter, and that’s exactly what happened! Mo said that conversations were started around whether students even knew how to properly use a condom, if they knew what consent was and how to get it, and other general sex education conversations. This actually helped the Multicultural Dream Center start to plan Sex 101 events specifically relating to different identities and how there are different perspectives and nuances when different identities are involved.

Mo said that the LGBTQ Pride condoms were used for tabling, National Coming Out Day, and their Lavender Cording Celebration. With the condoms they purchased, there were multiple designs, and students began a quest to “collect them all!” Mo said that this was great marketing for their office, as students would come into their office asking for the other condoms they haven’t already collected.

They also recently purchased Custom Condoms as well! Mo mentioned that the design matches their brochures in the office, and is all part of a new marketing campaign to get students to learn more about Intercultural Services.

The Multicultural Dream Center at California State University Channel Islands has taken unique opportunities to start new conversations on their campus, and get students excited about these educational conversations. Check out their office and other initiatives here!

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On their website, they say: “At BGSU, we hope to create an environment where such behavior is unacceptable and cannot exist. The Office of Residence Life also plays an important role in stopping sexual assault on our campus. As such, the office has been, and will continue to engage in several pro-active initiatives.”

They’re collaborating with the Wellness Center handing out these condom wallets filled with condoms to any student who goes to the Wellness Center or asks their RA for one. Along with handing out these condom wallets, they’re hosting different events and workshops throughout the academic year to educate students even further. A couple of these events include one about how to address sexual violence on campus, and another is about healthy relationships and consent.

To get students more active in the campaign, Stephanie Brinkman, the Coordinator for Recruitment and Communications in the Office of Residence Life said, “We had vinyl mustaches created with the slogan on them and placed them on mirrors in our residence halls, Student Union restrooms and rec center (gym & locker room). We had them cut…so when taking a selfie, the mustache was legible when lined up over the upper lip. We hoped this would be a fun way students could share the message without having to “ask” them to share.”

When asked why they chose to do this campaign at the time they did, Stephanie explained, “Campus partners created a spring semester sexual assault awareness campaign. Each campus partner picked a month to do their part in educating the campus either through an event or some other avenue. Residence Life did a series of educational events inside the residence halls throughout the month of February and then kicked off the “You Mustache For Consent” campaign at the end of February rolling into March. All of the educational messages, mustache stickers, etc. will be up for the remainder of the year. We felt doing a branded campaign in the halls would have a lasting impression beyond all of the training they students went through during the month.”

While they haven’t surveyed students to see what the exact impact has been, Residence Life has received almost 24,000 impressions on Social Media in just the first three days of rolling out the campaign! Stephanie explained, “Because of the ‘fun’ play on words, we did consider some people may think we weren’t taking this seriously. The fact that the play on words made you think a little before you understood the message, added another layer of education and was more memorable.”

We love what BGSU has done to get students interested and involved in these important conversations about consent! Check out their website and information about their other programs happening here.

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Say It With A Condom recently discovered KONSNT on Twitter and was inspired by their mission to promote consent culture. They support charities and non-profit organizations that educate about consent and as well as survivors of sexual assault and trafficking. They currently support Project Consent, Consent Crew, and RAINN, but they’re hoping to build their network of organizations.

KONSNT was founded in February of 2018 by Roberta Lindal. She is a survivor of sexual assault and when asked about starting the clothing line, she said, “I decided to launch KONSNT because I, like many other women, have summoned the courage to raise my voice. I have so many females in my life that I care about: my sister, my mom, my friends, and little ladies who are too young to know what sexual harassment is, and I hope never have to experience it. My goal is to educate, and cause people to question their actions and beliefs of what’s ok.”

Roberta Lindal

Roberta has taken on a big project by starting this apparel line: she runs the social media account, creates the designs for the products, develops the website, and does all of the community outreach herself!

Later this year, she is hoping to bring KONSNT to music festivals to spread the message of consent where drug and alcohol use may be involved. Roberta says, “As many as half of all sexual-assault cases involve alcohol. This Vice article outlined the issue of sexual assault and rape at music festivals, and I think there is great opportunity to educate and raise awareness at these festivals to ensure the environments are safe for women.”

No major success comes without its challenges, however. Roberta shared with us that her biggest challenge has been overcoming her own fear of speaking out about her own experience with sexual assault. It’s amazing that she has been able to overcome that fear to help others and bring such an important message to the public, but unfortunately, it’s a fear that affects many survivors.

These statistics explain why survivors may choose to not report their harassment or sexual assault to police, but there are many other reasons why they may not choose to discuss it openly as well: fear of being shamed or blamed, they don’t want friends or family to know, they were friends with or were dating the perpetrator, they didn’t think it was “serious” enough, or they didn’t even realize that what happened to them was considered sexual violence.

The last piece of information that Roberta wanted to leave with readers is this: “I want women out there who have experienced sexual assault to know that they are not alone. I want people to know that I do believe we can change the status quo and the statistics around rape and sexual assault and that the first step is talking about it.”

And we couldn’t agree more. Say It With A Condom stands with survivors of sexual violence, and we work hard to promote a culture of consent as well. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and you need support or assistance, go to RAINN or call 1-800-656-4673.  

Check out KONSNT’s Twitter account, their Instagram account or their official website.

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