Protection Connection, a University Health Center program that launched in February, has already distributed over 5,000 condoms via its Hot Spots in the EMU. The program aims to reduce the stigma around talking about sex, as well as promote protection against sexually transmitted infections.

“Let’s be real, people are having sex,” said Kaleigh Jodice, a junior PPPM major. Jodice works for the health center distributing condoms to Protection Connection hot spots and residence halls.

Students are just not always having the safest sex, research shows. One in four college students is estimated to contract a sexually transmitted infection, said Adria Godon-Bynum, the manager of health promotion at the health center. That number increases to one in two adults, attending college or not, among people 25 and younger.

“We’re over 18, and we’re in college. I think having the supplies makes it known that it’s not something weird that we can’t talk about,” Jodice said, regarding the two hot spots in the EMU that house free internal and external condoms, lubricant, dental dams and love gloves. “Having the supplies on campus shows you’re allowed to have pleasure and do things for fun and that’s okay.”

In addition to the hot spots and delivery service, Protection Connection is hosting an event on Tuesday with Planned Parenthood to discuss communication about sex in relationships. The event will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the EMU and will feature a build-your-own safer sex supply kit. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so the event will shed some light on the issue as well.  

Protection Connection aims to increase awareness about STIs and encourage the use of protection, said Godon-Bynum. “There’s a unique set of risk factors that college students experience that increase their risk for STI contraction, including substance misuse and abuse, having multiple partners, a lack of understanding of the risk involved and things like that,” she said. “So knowing that we have what we would consider a high-risk population, we felt like we needed to start looking at ways we could help reduce the incidents.”
Hot spots are located in the EMU by the bathrooms near Falling Sky, near the Fishbowl restrooms by Chipotle, in the Student Rec Center near the cycling studio and supplies are also in the Duck Nest and the LGBTQIA office, according to the health center’s website. The hot spots were installed during week 6 of winter term this year.

“As long as people are taking them, even if they don’t need them that day or that night, even if they’re taking them because they think they’re funny or they want to show their friends, it’s normalizing it in a way that might help somebody in their community access them in the future,” Godon-Bynum said.

The delivery service, which is also new this year, allows students living in residence halls to select which kinds of supplies they want through an online ordering system. The protective supplies are then delivered in discreet packages to their dorm mailbox.

The hot spots have proven to be popular. From their installation date to the end of winter term, the Hot Spots have distributed:

• 5,270 external condoms

• 3,539 lubricant packets

• 531 internal condoms

• 516 dental dams and

• 248 love gloves

The hot spots are filled every weekday, which is more than the Protection Connection team had anticipated, said Gordon-Bynum.

“The need and demand and volume is definitely higher than we were anticipating, which speaks well of what we’re doing,” she said.

Something like internal condoms, for example, may help women feel more in control of their use of protection during sex, said Hannah Hamling, a senior PPPM major that also works for Protection Connection. “The internal condoms are cool because you can leave them in for a long time,” while going on a date or otherwise, she said.

“It just increases female autonomy,” added Jodice.

The program’s coordinators said they are collecting data on the use of the hot spots and delivery service and will use that information to expand the program in the future, potentially to Fraternity and Sorority Life houses and other student-centered areas on campus.

For Jodice, the program’s inclusivity is one of the highlights: “We’re just trying to create a community for everyone where they can have pleasure and not have to worry about diseases or pregnancy as well.”