Safe, responsible sex in Indonesia

In a recent casual chat with Sumi about sexual health in Jambi- a daily topic of conversation for us but this time sparked by the approaching World HIV/AIDS Day- the issue of teaching women the importance of condoms and how to use them came up.  She explained how PKBI uses dildos to demonstrate how to correctly put a condom on.  So then I mentioned how in the U.S., sex-ed teachers sometimes use a banana for simulating the real thing in demonstrations.  Her reply to this bit of information shocked me into disbelief when she said that they also used to use bananas but later found out that method had given the wrong impression when it was reported that village women were putting condoms on bananas right before have sex with their unprotected husbands!!  Yes, the condoms were on the bananas while the couples were doing it.  I felt like I had heard this as a joke somewhere before so I interrogated her as to who she heard this from and when it was supposedly happening.  It was in fact just 3-5 years ago and she heard it directly from the concerned women village leaders.  While Sumi attributed this behavior to the lack of general education in Sumatran villages, I can also somewhat understand it since women are much more familiar with the bananas that abound plentifully rather than the male anatomy.  Thankfully this potentially problematic behavior was corrected and PKBI Jambi has purchased a collection of dildos to prevent future miscommunications.