The picture is of a locked grocery store case, containing the store's collection of condoms, pregnancy tests, and lubricants. The reader assures me that there is not an age minimum or legal restriction on buying such things in hir area, and that a number of similar grocers in the area do not lock up this sort of merchandise. But this one does.
Assuming that the decision to lock this case was made to reduce thefts of these items (as opposed to actively trying to make it difficult to buy these items because sex-shaming), and assuming that the concern about thefts of these items was based on actual data collected over time rather than an unfounded assumption that the sorts of people buying condoms are more likely to be thieves than the sorts of people buying Tylenol...
...assuming all that, it occurs to me that if we lived in a society that didn't treat sex as dirty and bad and inherently damaging and didn't treat sexually active people (especially sexually active teenagers) as public property to be shamed and audited and lectured, then maybe we wouldn't also live in a society where some people are willing to steal a two dollar box of condoms rather than letting the cashier and the people in line see them purchase such a thing.
Just a thought.
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