Condoms, lubricant, and other sexual products are now available in the new vending machine at El Camino College.

If only that was true.

In today’s day and age talking about sex is not as uncommon as it was years before.

We’ve evolved tremendously since the 1940s where even mentioning the word sex was morally unacceptable and would reward you with faces of disapproval.

When it comes time to do the act, it might be difficult for some to get access to safe sex products like condoms.

Since sex is becoming more of a normal thing, ECC should be able to have a vending machine or two to sell adult products for students and even faculty. This would definitely help students have safe sex instead of unprotected.

“Compared with older adults, sexually active adolescents aged 15–19 years and young adults aged 20–24 years are at higher risk of acquiring STDs for a combination of behavioral, biological, and cultural reasons,” according to cdc.gov.

In recent years, new types of vending machines have been installed in colleges including UC Riverside and UC Davis. These vending machines however do not sell items such as chips and drinks but instead sell condoms, lubricant, and personal healthcare items like pads and tampons.

Community colleges including Antelope Valley Community College have also installed condom vending machines in their men’s and women’s bathroom according to an article by the LA Times.

Sex has become a normalized topic of discussion, not only on social media but also in podcasts including “Why are People Into That?” The host Tina Horn explains the podcast as it focuses on the reason for why people are into the fetishes that they are into on her podcast’s website.

Safe sex is extremely important because without protection, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have become more prominent in recent years.

“In 2017, there were 1,069,111 reported cases of chlamydial infection among persons aged 15–24 years, representing 62.6% of all reported chlamydia cases,” according to the cdc.gov’s Sexual Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2017 report.

ECC offers free condoms and other materials at the Health Center, however students might not have the information available to them. New students may not even know where the Health Center is located.

Other reasons might be that students and faculty might be embarrassed to walk in and ask for the items.

Debbie Turano, Senior Clerical Assistant for Facilities Planning and Services said that there were no plans to install any adult vending machines.

At least one adult vending machine should be installed on campus, more specifically, inside or near the Health Center. The reason being is that it’s one of the common places where students usually pass by as well as it being easily accessible.

It would be easily accessible for anyone who may need any products and would most likely remove the embarrassing factor of buying things like condoms or lubricant.

ECC offers free condoms inside the Health Center, but why can’t ECC do something like UCLA’s “Love Station,” or UC Davis’ “Love Lab” where a member pushes a cart containing not only condoms but also products such as lube and plan B according to UCLA’s Health Education and promotion website.

ECC should have an option for students to buy condoms and other things instead of having to go to the Health Center and have that awkward conversation just to get what they need.