Talk about a bundle of love.
A Brooklyn Heights woman has started selling safe-sex gift baskets in hopes of teaching teenagers about using protection (and having fun) — without having to actually talk about it with them!
“This all started because my 18-year-old daughter asked me for an Easter basket,” said Kate Linn, whose company is called Unmentionable Things. “I thought that an 18-year-old on her way to college needed something a bit more practical than chocolate bunnies.”
By practical, Linn means a nifty leather, wire or whicker basket filled with condoms, pregnancy tests and, of course, Liquid Silk.
“It’s really a lovely lubricant,” Linn said. “You know, the number one cause of condom breakage is insufficient lubricant.”
Linn’s “unmentionables” come in several styles to fit all budgets (and, frankly, your teenager’s voraciousness).
There’s “The Sophisticate” ($155) a faux-leather box filled with 40 condoms, 10 lube packs, five feminine cleansing cloths, three pregnancy tests, three bottles of lubricant, and a travel pouch that holds just enough to get you through the weekend.
A cheaper option is “The Essential” ($105), which offers the same products, with some shrinkage.
There’s even “The Mister” ($105), which bills itself as “the basket for the guy who cares” (if you define “cares” as “always has condoms on hand”).
All baskets include a copy of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” the Boston Women’s Health Care Collective celebrated compendium of how everything works on a woman. Linn includes the book — which can cost $30 in a bookstore, but will save millions in future psychiatric bills — as the cherry on top.
“I’ve been concerned with how little sex education kids seem to get,” she said. “I didn’t know what my daughter knew or if she’d even seen condoms. And ‘Our Bodies’ is a classic.”
Now, here’s the part of the story where the writer typically calls up some anti-sex activist to talk about how giving condoms to teens only encourages them to use them. But this line of inquiry is so played out at this point that this writer prefers to just let Linn answer the criticism pre-emptively.
“Yes, some say the only safe sex is abstinence, but abstinence makes no sense,” Linn said. “We know that teens are having sex. So our job is to make sure they know what they’re doing and are doing it safely. Studies show that birth control does not encourage sex.”
The good news is that her daughter loved her basket from “Unmentionable Things.”
“She e-mailed me to thank me,” Linn said.
But what of the chocolate?
“I sent her a real Easter basket, too,” she said.
For info, visit www.unmentionablethings.com.
Reach reporter Gersh Kuntzman at gkuntzman@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4504. But do it before Dec. 23!
