News

Brazil Unveils its Official World Cup... Condom?

by L. Turner

We've got to hand it to the Brazilians. They know how to party. That's why it wasn't a huge shock when caipirinha-flavored condoms showed up at the World Cup. For those of you who aren't familiar, caipirinha (kai-per-een-ya) is a a Brazilian cocktail made with the country's white rum, cachaca, along with lime or lemon juice, sugar, and crushed ice. Those are not exactly the sorts of ingredients that sound great for a condom (our vote: latex, which we strongly suspect is also part of the condom), but it's still pretty creative!

The condom has an interesting origin story, just like you do. It was made by Karex, the world's largest condom maker, which says its track record includes developing "various types of condoms which differs in terms of shapes, sizes, textures/surfaces, colors, flavors and fragrances." So we're not dealing with an amateur here.

The massive condom order was placed with Karex by none other than a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, DKT International, whose mission is preventing unwanted pregnancy and HIV infection. Not to rest on their caipirinha-flavored laurels, the condoms do double-Brazilian duty: On the inside, they look like a Brazilian flag, with yellow and green stripes that show their country pride. Seriously.

Here is an awkward pic of what the actual condom looks like:

Daniel Marun, who heads up the DKT organization's Brazil branch, told The Wall Street Journal that special events like the World Cup require, well, special measures.

Major sports or cultural events attract a great number of people and garner much attention, providing a good opportunity to spread a pleasurable and fun safe-sex message.

The organization's distributed more than 2.1 million condoms at the Cup so far, WSJ reported. Also involved in trying to promote safe sex in Brazil: The United Nations. For months, the organization's been publicizing its Protect the Goal campaign, a worldwide effort to cut down on HIV infections during the lead-up to the Cup and the event itself. WSJ noted that the UN distributed 2 million condoms all over the world as part of the campaign.

Brazilians and soccer fans seem to be liking the flavored condoms — the first batch DKT sent to Brazil sold out in about two weeks. And some fans seem to be taking it to the next level, if that's even possible with multicolored, cocktail-flavored condoms:

OK, that's gotta be Photoshopped.