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On November 23, Beijing's Haidian District Bureau of Health distributed free condoms to students at seven universities, but the well-intended measure of the AIDS prevention campaign met cold responses at Peking University and Tsinghua University, China's top two universities.

Students' overt disdain for condoms in these schools raised the following question: Is the on-the-spot free distribution of condoms an inseparable part of the AIDS prevention campaign?

AIDS has been a hotly discussed social issue in China in recent years and been accompanied by anti-AIDS activities. Condoms are for private life, and such privacy is bestowed with a more mystic flavour in China where conservative attitudes towards sex are deeply rooted and prevalent.

The distribution of free condoms in public settings seems to put people's private lives in the public spotlight. Publicity, though well-intended to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, should not be done at the expense of personal privacy.

The stereotyped view that public service takes priority over personal privacy is prevalent in our social life, on-site condom distribution takes the advantage of that.

This kind of publicity not only attracts criticism but also leads to doubts about its real effects. Take on-campus free condom distribution: accepting a condom in such a public setting could be unsettling for most young people.

Students are exposed to many acquaintances on campus, so it is quite embarrassing for them to take condoms, thus exposing their sexual desire to their peers.

College students are always a focus-group of public opinion. If they take free condoms in public, they are actually inviting public attention on their sex life as well as praise for their openness, both of which are a cause for concern. To avoid their private life being pried into, most students choose to shun offers of free condoms.

We have to better protect people's privacy simply for the sake of achieving a better outcome in the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign. The public welcomes diversified sex education measures.

 
Editor: Catherine