So, I was having a chat with my nephew the other day. He’s getting to that age, you know? Full of those awkward questions and trying to play it cool. And it just popped into my head, completely out of the blue: what’s the actual situation with buying condoms these days? I remember when I was around his age, it felt like you needed a secret password and maybe a fake mustache just to get near them.
This thought kind of stuck with me. So, I decided to do a bit of my own, well, let’s call it ‘field research.’ Nothing too serious, mind you. I wasn’t about to start interviewing store clerks or anything. My ‘practice’ was pretty simple: next time I found myself in one of those big pharmacies, the kind that sells everything from prescriptions to potato chips, I just made a point to be a bit more observant. While I was browsing for, say, some shampoo or maybe a pack of gum, I just casually glanced over at that particular aisle.
And you know what? There they were. Just sitting on the shelf, like any other product. No big flashing signs, no glass case needing a key, no stern-faced gatekeeper demanding to see ID. It wasn’t like buying booze or cigarettes, where they’re super strict about age, and rightly so.
I actually saw a couple of younger folks, looked like they were in their late teens, pick up a box. They added it to their basket with a few other everyday items – a soda, some snacks. Went to the regular checkout. The cashier scanned it, bagged it with everything else, and that was that. No fuss, no questions asked. Nobody even blinked.
It really got me thinking. We have so many rules and regulations for so many things. You need a permit for this, you have to be a certain age for that. But with this, something that’s pretty important for being responsible, it seems way more straightforward. It felt less about a hard-and-fast rule being enforced at the till and more about, well, access. Like, the main thing is that they’re available if someone makes the decision to get them.
My takeaway from this little observation? The real challenge probably isn’t whether a store will sell them to a young person. It’s more likely the personal hurdle of actually going in and buying them, especially when you’re young and self-conscious. And honestly, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It puts the focus more on personal responsibility and making informed choices rather than just navigating a rule. Just an observation from my end, of course.
