The New York Times - June 19, 2005
Claire Dederer

The black screen gives way to an image of a young couple strolling in slow motion through an urban vista. They're dressed for a date: She's in a glam little sweater and high boots, English-major curls tumbling around her face; he wears a pinstriped jacket over holey jeans, an artsy guy but clearly not broke. In a gesture of modern chivalry, he hands her a white earbud from the iPod he's carrying. As she listens, a smile of surpassing sweetness and sexiness spreads over her face. She gazes up at him, all cheekbones and auburn hair , a younger, randier Cate Blanchett. Their fingers intertwine against the backdrop of their crotches. The Trojan logo appears, and a voice-over tells us: "Pleasure you want. Protection you trust."

It's a 30-second spot, but I swear by the time the thing was over, my husband was ready to run off to Paris with the female half of the couple, their suitcases filled with iPods and condoms. "It's so romantic!" he said. And it is. Which means that it fits right into the world of prime-time advertising, where sexuality is smooth, sunny and above all, normal. In this world, Cialis-primed old folks eye one another lustily; lithe models pitch female contraception as if it were fancy shampoo.

Except that "Forty Percent" isn't romantic, really. When you think about the adorable couple within the framework of the statistical prologue, things turn dark. If 40 percent of people with H.I.V. don't tell their partners, which of these two cute daters is positive? Which one isn't telling? Or are they both negative, protecting themselves against each other like characters in a modern-day O. Henry story? All this confusion comes from the fact that the AIDS-awareness message is, God forgive me, a Trojan horse. The commercial gives us text telling us to worry about H.I.V., and images telling us to go have sex right now. And in television, image trumps word. The ad's real message is "Buy more condoms!"

Despite the healthy sex lives constantly (one might say exhaustingly) depicted in prime-time advertising, this particular message is still not acceptable. There's nothing illegal about selling rubbers on prime-time TV; the networks have chosen to censor themselves.

I suspect that what actually discomfits the networks is teenage sex. Condoms are the official birth control of adolescence, one of the few forms of contraception that kids can get their hands on without adult intervention. An ad more openly telling people to "Buy more condoms!" might be perceived as an ad condoning teenage sex, which would bring down a right-wing firestorm. To get around this, the ad makes a cursory nod toward teaching H.I.V. awareness. "Forty Percent" is a sad document. To get around what looks to be a cynical network policy, Trojan has been forced to make a cynical ad.

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