Unprotected thinking

As inevitable as the stench of marijuana at a Raffi concert comes the predictable stink over another inane controversy: A new condom commercial has raised some hackles amongst those who no end of hackles to have raised.

The new commercial, which was rejected by the fuddie-duddies at CBS and Fox (Fox? Fox had taste issues with something?), was described thusly by the New York Times:

“(W)omen in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs. One shuffles to the men’s room, where, after procuring a condom from a vending machine, he is transformed into a head-turner in his 20s. When he returns to the bar, a fetching blond who had been indifferent now smiles at him invitingly.”

The tagline: “Evolve. Use a condom every time.”

Apparently, the ad's creators were home-schooled, because they didn’t get the particulars of evolution right: We didn’t evolve from swine (at least most of us didn’t). And “fetching blonds” will give the cold shoulder to a pig, but will happily cozy up to a piggish guy with a condom? Man, the dating scene is brutal.

At least Seth Rogen has a new excuse he can use for knocking up Katherine Heigl: He only watches Fox, so, stoner that he is, he didn’t realize that such convenient protection existed in the world.

Fox, in rejecting the ad, told the advertiser, “Contraceptive advertising must stress health-related uses rather than the prevention of pregnancy.”

“It’s so hypocritical for any network in this culture to go all puritanical on the subject of condom use when their programming is so salacious,” media critic Mark Crispin Miller told the Times.

How about this approach next time: “Warning: Unprotected sexual activity could result in the creation of a broadcast network standards-and-practices executive, which could have adverse results for much of humanity?”