Having taken a quick look around the Alice website here at Columbia, I'm struck by exactly how much of it deals with sex and (in many cases particularly simplistic) sexual information. This was only reinforced today when I saw their booth at Lerner Hall, in which they had a 'guess the number of condoms in the jar' competition, and were handy out that party favor of the naughties, free condoms.

Free condoms have to be one of those dividing lines between the social liberal and the more doctrinal conservative. I can understand every practical argument in favor of giving out condoms for free: there are externalities at work. Prevention of disease in any population lowers risks for everyone--for that matter, there's even a free-rider problem in that people who do practice safe sex are lowering the risks for those who do not. And indeed, maybe that's a free-rider 'issue' more than a 'problem.' The economist in me understands the solution.

But I've never taken a free condom from a health service, and I just can't bring myself to do so. Sex is or should be a voluntary, pleasant activity engaged in between two [1] consenting adults, and it is a purely optional part of life. There's something distinctly ungallant, if not unromantic, about expecting a bureaucracy or student organization to subsidize my sex life. I don't think I can make a consistent stand against nationalized health care and at the same time think this should be free.

Call it a Chestertonian conceit, I suppose, but there is a point where economic man should yield to some principles, and a good starting point is that if the general public shouldn't be financing my affairs, that should include affairs of an intimate as well as economic nature. In any event, I felt it a pleasant irony that the 'guess the number of condoms in the jar' raffle was for a t-shirt, since the obvious prize was the jar of condoms itself.