Condoms and Scouts

[SixImpossible]

13yo ds1 has a Scouting task to create a pocket-sized survival kit. Each Scout was given a little empty tin without any instructions. We had a dinner table discussion about this, (including dc2&3) during which I suggested condoms as water-carriers. Cue general embarrassment, disbelief and hilarity.

Yesterday ds and I bought a packet in Boots. The only thought that went through my head at the time was that modelling buying condoms without any embarrassment was a good thing to do. But now I'm having second thoughts. Is there going to be a thread next week where a MNer complains that condoms were brought to the Scout troop her 10yo attends?

Can you imagine the smell of a boiled condom...Second someone trying it and reporting back.

Maybe water balloons instead if you think your son might be embarrassed?

Glad it wasn't just me boaking at the thought of spermicide flavoured drinking water!

Thinking about it, I have never used a condom for anything other than it's intended purpose.

Have I led a sheltered life?

Do the girl guides or whatever it is take loads of condoms when they go camping too does anyone know?

Ds isn't embarrassed. I was just a teensy bit worried that mums of other, younger, Scouts would think it inappropriate. I'll happily discuss most things with my dc, but I know other people don't feel the same way.

I know un-lubed would taste better, but we just went for the cheapest. 'Extra-strong', as it happens. .

I've also used condoms for covering a wound dressing (which was a sanitary towel) to stop it getting covered in muck - I was in the middle of the jungle, days away from anything approaching a hospital, worked brilliantly. It's amazing what you can fit in just one condom too.

I recognize that some people are weirdly embarrassed about condoms or tampons etc but they have many legitimate other uses so it would just be a ridiculous fuss. To be prepared you need to start viewing things as kit - how can my environment provide useful items/how can I use what I have in a different environment?
There's no point being coy about something so useful and that are openly displayed in shops.

It's so divorced from sex anyway, essentially we ascribe embarrassment to things - a wad of fibre, a latex cover - things that would probably have been invented and named differently with no embarrassment factor for outdoors if they weren't already available and it's a good lesson to think of things as what they are and so how they can be used in all sorts of ways, not just the instructions on the box. No different to using bin bags as waterproofs, empty drinks cans for water, fish hooks or sharp edges or shoelaces for splints, repairs or traps.
Observation and quick thinking should be encouraged and you are modelling more than one good lesson.

A treatise on 101 uses for a 9 inch Dragon dildo would be inappropriate but condoms are just good sense.

Am I the only person who is wonder what even 3 uses for a 9" Dragon dildo would be, let alone 101?

My boy is 12 and a scout. I would have no problem with him seeing this in a kit. I would love to see the scout leaders reaction... Will ask her on Tuesday :)

One of the explorer scouts came in to show the beavers his emergency kit. Glad he hadn't included condoms and tampons as we have some lively little horrors and I am a volunteer who wouldn't want to deal with their questions ;)

Honestly? I wouldn't, and certainly not without checking with the Scout Leader first. There is a vast difference between a 14 year old Scout and a 10 year old - there are kids at ten who are only just learning about the mechanics of sex (hell, some of them still believe in Santa). No point in assuming the role of the adult who informs all the children about condoms when there might be parents who don't want you to assume that role. You have to respect that.

Our Guide leaders had condoms in their first aid kits 30 years ago. Cut the end off to make a tube and you have emergency support for a sprained ankle or wrist, plus if you get a nasty graze on arm or leg, a condom stretched over keeps it sterile. Also keeps a dressing on.

We knew about the water-carrying thing, but it was the stretchy, sterile aspect that we used them for.

I have actually worn a condom on a hurt wrist; lightweight, but definitely supportive.

Tampons are actually fairly useful in the construction of Molotov cocktails as well, although I'm not sure if that's precisely an emergency situation

I completely agree with what SirChenjin says. I don't think it's a good idea.

Yes, as a poster upthread said, sanitary towels are used to this day as dressings. In my day I used to use Dr Whites and my husband had to have nose surgery which entailed blood loss. I collected him only to find him wearing an undersize sanitary towel looped over each ear and blotting under his nose. I'm sorry to say that I fell about with laughter and made him cross.

I saw someone only last week wearing a nose sanitary towel.

If the younger ones don't know about sex why would they even know a condom is anything other than a handy water carrier?

They may not know about sex at 10. 10 is the age (up here) that Living and Growing covers the mechanics of making babies - and one of my friend's sons (10) genuinely does not even know about sex, let alone condoms. I might not agree with that, but that's the way she's raising him. It is not your place to introduce them to condoms at that age (for whatever reason) - and certainly not without the OK from the Scout Leaders.

DS says that the youngest Scout in the group is in Y6, and at school with dc2, so I know that he will have had the Puberty talk (they do it in Y5). And, if dc2 knows about condoms, he probably does, too.

Have you asked the Scout Leader if they are happy for you to send him along with condoms?

DH is one of the Leaders!

Well, if the Leaders (and the District Commissioners) have OK'ed it then you will be covered if any parents complain.

Strawberry condom squash weeps

I've learnt all sorts from this thread, never mind the 10 year olds.

Nobody has formally OKed it. DH didn't think that there was any issue.

Yes. I'm sure your son's scout troop of 13 year olds will handle a condom being there with the utmost maturity.

But it is useful. :)

I think you really, really need to double check this with the other Leaders and DC. I can think of 2 parents in my circle of friends, for example, who would not be at all happy for their 10 year old children to be introduced to condoms in this way (one for cultural reasons, the other 'simply because').

I have a 10 year old and a 14 year old at scouts.
The 14 year old would find it funny and tell me all about it.
I imagine my 10 year old being confused and upset if everyone was laughing about it there as he wouldn't know what it is - year 5, hasn't done sex Ed yet. I've told him the basics but not gone as far as condoms. At ten he's very much a little boy and has never asked and so doesn't need to know.