Political Machines

DUDLEY HOUSE members must not be very creative. House committee is joining with the Undergraduate Council to install condom dispensers in house laundry rooms. Of the house committees so far to consider the proposal, only Dudley's has declined to sign up. Dudley is a non-residential house, it was decided, so the machines wouldn't serve any purpose. But why not? Passion knows no boundaries of time, location or context. Or, it seems, of wash cycles.

In truth, what this university really needs to install in house laundry rooms are change machines. For all the use to which they can be put, condoms do not come in very handy when launderers are a quarter short and dryers decide to take two cycles to dry clothes instead of one. That aside, is it really necessary to stockpile, survivalist-like, condoms in house basements across campus? The answer is no. Questions of taste and aesthetics aside, a proliferation of prophylactics across campus can only heighten AIDS hysteria while doing little to combat spread of the disease.

Discussions of the allegedly urgent need to get the machines in the houses usually are informed by a sneaking delight at the ability to talk about condoms and sex under the guise of serious conversation. (Admit it. Condoms are funny.) This is perhaps the only positive aspect of AIDS, that it has encouraged more open and free discussion of such hitherto hushed-up matters as homosexuality.

Like all freedoms, though, this one has been abused by some to further their own, selfish ends. Take condom manufacturers. All of a sudden it's acceptable for condoms to be advertised on television and in full-page newspaper ads. Johnny Carson can make jokes about them and get laughs in Middle America. AIDS hysteria has been a Trojan Horse, if you will, through which the marketing gurus of the prophylactic industry have boosted public acceptance and sales of their product.

PUTTING CONDOM dispensers around college campuses is part of their strategy. But their ready availability all over the Square aside, there is no need for them on this campus. First, the medical evidence is fairly conclusive that if you're not an intravenous drug user or a homosexual, you're very, very unlikely to contract aids. Most students at Harvard are neither.

Researchers at Berkeley found that of women who had more than 100, condom-less sexual contacts over the course of a year with AIDS-infected partners, only one-third contracted the disease. In a longer study the same percentage held up among women who had sex more than 600 times with infected partners. Since 1 percent of random males carry the AIDS bug, a woman thus would have to have 60,000 encounters with different American men to have even a one-third risk of catching the disease.

So far as the spread of AIDS is concerned, then, condoms only are essential for homosexual men engaging in anal intercourse. Even then, they're no panacea. There's a very good reason why before AIDS hit condom use was on the decline as a birth control method: it wasn't a very good one. At a minimum, many studies have shown, condoms do not prevent pregnancy in one out of 10 couples who rely on them for a year. Some estimates go as high as 20 percent.

Much of this may be attributable to misuse of condoms, but such misuse is endemic to them. And the technical problems of condom use are only heightened when used by homosexuals engaging in anal intercourse. The chief AIDS epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control told The New York Times this summer that condoms fail more often during anal than vaginal intercourse because the former is likely to involve "trauma" that may rip or pull off the condom.

THERE ARE still some caveats even if the practitioner of "safe sex" manages to avoid such trauma. Industry and government studies demonstrate that the AIDS virus cannot penetrate latex condoms. Other studies, though, underscore the susceptibility of latex condoms to rapid deterioration when exposed to heat, light or oil-based lubricants. (I know of no studies examining the effects of genuine cowhide on latex.) And earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration ordered three major condom manufacturers to recall 100,000 condoms after spot inspections found many with excessive leaks.

"Natural" condoms, made of lamb intestine, are another story altogether. Researchers believe they may contain microscopic holes through which the AIDS virus can be transmitted. The point is very well summed up by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop: "If you use a condom for protection against AIDS the way you use them for birth control then you are in danger."

Efforts already underway to stymie the sexual spread of AIDS may have rendered moot the need to widely disseminate condoms. Educational programs in the gay community and elsehwere are turning AIDS into less and less of a sexual disease. A recalculation of New York City's AIDS statistics in October found that contrary to prior (and popular) belief, the disease is killing far more I.V. drug users than homosexual and bisexual men.

Previously it had been thought that 55 percent of the city's AIDS dead were homosexual men and 31 percent I.V. drug users. Under the revised statistics, it turns out that 53 percent were I.V. drug users and only 38 percent of gay men. Only in San Francisco do the majority of AIDS cases involve homosexuals. If they don't know by now what they have to do to stay alive, nothing anyone can say is likely to help. And condoms aren't of much use on dirty needles.

Similarly, it's hard to believe the vast minority of Harvard students engaging in homosexual sex need condom machines in their houses to heighten their awareness of the need to practice safer sex. There is no reason, other than peace of mind and routine birth control, why heterosexuals need condoms. Nor is there any reason we need condom machines installed all over campus. Unless, that is, a cheap, prurient thrill is all we're after.