I went to the HandiMart to buy some condoms in the evening. It was around 7pm. There were few people in the store. I found the condoms in the second aisle. There are various kinds of medicines, notebooks, pens, and other grocery stuff besides condoms.

They have six different kinds of condoms: non-lubricated, lubricated, large size lubricated, shared sensation lubricated, ultra ribbed lubricated and spermicidal lubricant. The packages are not really easy to figure it out that is the condom; thus, I assume that children or those who are not interested in cannot find those. Prices range $1.69, $2.09 and $2.49 for three of each. It is not expensive. Non lubricated one is the cheapest and ultra ribbed lubricated one is the most expensive.

In order to get the real information, I asked an employee several questions.

My first question was how many times people come to buy the condoms. I assumed that it will not so often. He answered two or three times a day, and they usually come in the late evening like 2 am. According to the employee, ages who come to buy those are quite various; kids like 10 years old come to purchase, and at the same time, elderly like 70 years old also come to buy from anywhere around the States. But most kids seem to be ashamed of and hesitate to buy condoms, he added. Since I wondered how he feels about buying condoms, I frankly asked him. He just said it is great. He seemed to evaluate it very positively.

When I was paying money, one old man, probably around 50, who was in line for the register told me (since I had 6 packs of condoms), 窶弸ou are playing around!窶� It was so funny for me and totally fine by me, but I explained him and cashier that I am doing a research on condoms. They seemed to understand it, but I think his words show the honest reaction for the condoms among the everyday people. It definitely has some negative connotations. Using condoms should be considered positively rather than not using them, but some still think it somewhat not good or not necessary.

In comparison with the situation in Japan, the condoms are sold in the convenience stores in the same isle as the groceries. Prices are mostly the same or kind of cheaper in the United States. However, we cannot find various types of condoms; we probably could see just one or two kinds of condoms in the convenience store. It was kind of interesting and surprising to me that I could get six different kinds of condoms.

When I worked as a cashier at one convenience store in Japan, quite few times people came to buy it in spite of the fact that I was working at the night time. Basically, I didn窶冲 care what kinds of people bought it. What I needed to do is just to get money from the shopper; however, since most of them came to buy as a couple, I sometimes speculated something about their relationships unnecessarily just for the jokes for conversation.

I also sometimes join in the free condoms campaign at Coe. Every Friday, one of the student organizations which my friend participated in gives out the condoms to students for free. The organization itself works to promote and get sexual awareness on campus. Since it takes place at the very front of the cafeteria, and almost all the students see it, this activity is quite well-known on campus. But their reactions vary from one another; some are willing to take one or two, some just ignore us, some take more than five or ten very happily. It is so funny to watch their reactions. What is seen commonly in their behavior is that they show curiosity and laugh mockingly at the sight of us. We also give out some special condoms: the flavored condoms. I had never heard of it in Japan, and I have never used it before, so I don窶冲 know how it feels actually. There are so many various flavors such as banana, strawberry, lavender, and so on. This kind of activity will be so strange and difficult to carry out in Japanese colleges because most people would consider that it should be done secretly or they might hate to be witnessed getting condoms. I have no idea if I should do this in Japan. One American student pointed out that it is interesting that people don窶冲 hesitate to purchase the condoms in the convenience store; on the other hand, people don窶冲 get condoms in publicly on college campus. I totally agree with that. Maybe I would feel in the same way. It was interesting.