Cellphone ringtones for safe sex

Sexy boyfriend sent me another story to blog about. Thankfully this one was far less depressing than the last one.

I kind of love it!

In India, a ringtone just launched which features the word "Condom" sung in multipart a cappella harmony. The country has approximately 2.5 million people living with HIV, and this ringtone is part of a "three-year ad offensive aimed at making condom use there more socially acceptable."

The larger campaign for condom use includes ads on television, radio, and film, and print and outdoor media. The HIV-prevention messages are expected to reach an estimated 52 million men and it's being promoted with the line, "jo samjha wohi sikander" or translated "The one who understands is a winner."

An ad promoting the ringtone shows a man at a wedding holding a cell phone and becoming embarrassed when it starts ringing "CONDOM!" However, people around him treat him as someone smart and responsible.



From the article:

"Ringtones have become such personal statements that a specially created condom ringtone seemed just the right way of combining a practical message with a fun approach," said Radharani Mitra, creative director of the BBC World Service Trust India.

The campaign is funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The National AIDS Control Organization is also using the ads to support its condom promotion efforts.

The ringtone, which can be downloaded both via SMS or the Web site, has reportedly been downloaded more than 60,000 times in the last 12 days. And trust us, it's much better than that other safe-sex ringtone: "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off."

** If you link to the article, you can hear the ringtone in unedited form if you scroll to the bottom of the page...