Articles

COED MAGAZINE
SPRING 2007
BY JULIA ALLISON

Name:  Mike Harrison
Age: Old with a British Accent
School: Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK – degree in Chemistry, Phd in Polymer Chemistry
Official Title: Senior Principal Scientist for Trojan
Cool Title: Condom Tester

How, exactly, does one test condoms?  Just put ‘em on and see what happens?
No.  The main stability test involves unrolling the condom onto a specialized post and forcing air into it until it expands to 40 liters in size.  Then you measure the pressure when the condom bursts.

So basically you make condom balloons?
Yeah.

What happens after that?
We give the condoms to live consumers in a market research test – they use them four times and then report back.  The fit, the feel, was it a pleasurable experience, was it a negative experience?

What if the guy was just bad in bed?  Would you still blame the condom?
Umm …

How long does it take to develop a condom?
For a simple condom at least 12 months.  For the more complicated it can take 4-5 years. We have a lot of brainstorming sessions.

Those must be fun.  What’s the best part of your job?
It’s great to help the consumer get the protection and pleasure they need – we’re really providing a public service. It’s quite serious business; condoms are a class two medical device.

Uh-huh, right, right.  But do you get free condoms?
Er, yes.  More than I could ever use.

What do people say when you first tell them what you do?
They don’t believe me.

Do they ask for free condoms?
They never think to ask that straight away – they’re more in shock.  They ask later!

What’s the most popular Trojan condom?
The number one seller in the states is Trojan ENZ – in the light blue box – it sold 46 million last year.

That’s a lot of safe sex.  Or hopeful men.  How many different kinds of Trojan condoms are there?  Do you have them memorized?
Not really … I know them by color. Trojan’s been around for over 90 years, and there are over 30 types, I think.

What’s your favorite?
Warm sensations.

Not Magnum?  Are the magnum condoms really bigger or is that just to make guys feel more manly?
Only the Magnum XL is actually bigger. Regular Magnum condoms can be worn my any man as the base is the same size as any condom.

Busted!  What’s the smallest condom?
I’m not sure that we have a small condom.

You should.  Do you guys take into account the average penis size?
We have a company that runs large clinical trials – they have a condom measuring kit – which measures the length of the erect penis and the girth of the midpoint.

If a guy says “oh this condom doesn’t fit me, it’s too small,” is he lying?
Well … latex is pretty stretchable.

I knew it.

CONDOM QUICK FACTS
-    Total condoms sold (all brands) last year: 317 million
-    Total Trojan condoms sold last year:  217 million
-    Earliest known condoms were linen sheathes fashioned by the ancient Egyptians
-    Some of the odder innovations include condoms made from tortoise shell
-    Latex condoms were first introduced in the 1800's, thanks to Charles Goodyear's invention of rubber vulcanization

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COED MAGAZINE
SPRING 2007
BY JULIA ALLISON

The Official Intelligence-Pulchritude Fairness Equation usually works like this: you either get beauty, or you get brains.  You don’t get both.  And you certainly don’t get to go to Yale and simultaneously be a professional model.  That just pisses people off.

But if, for some reason, fate screws up and violates this principle, definitely write a book about it.  That’s what Robin Hazelwood, Yale ’92, did, in her why-bother-to-veil-this roman a clef, Model Student: A Tale of Co-Eds and Cover Girls.

The novel – which resulted from Hazelwood’s inexplicable belief that modeling was “much darker and more pathetic than it’s typically portrayed” – features such shocking (shocking!) topics like drugs!  Eating disorders!  Skeezy older men hitting on nubile younger women! (um … Gia anyone?)

I sat down with the (obviously) statuesque Hazelwood, who was “surprised at the extent that people – even at a school like Yale – were intrigued” with her unique extracurricular. Ultimately, she explains, “Yale and modeling kinda negated each other.”  Tough life, eh?

Here, her thoughts on a few model-slash-student issues:

On modeling while in college:  “Before I went to Yale, I was like, ‘Ohmygosh, I’m entering this intellectual bastion – at lunch people are going to talk about Proust and Nietzsche.  No one can know you’re a model!’  The secret got out, of course.”

On sacrifice: “I did sacrifice – I wasn’t really drinking a lot of beers around the keg.  I mean, I would go to parties but I would be, like, drinking water.  That was sorta lame.”

On trying not to intimidate people: “I bent over backward to be super nice and self-deprecating and I definitely dressed slobbily.  I wouldn’t even look in the mirror in the bathroom.  I felt like everybody was watching me like ‘She’s so vain, she actually stared at herself in the mirror!’ And I wasn’t telling people I was jetting off to the Caribbean or Tahoe.  It just doesn’t go over that well, you know?”

On collegiate jealousy:  “Girls told me that their boyfriends had said I was hot.  I would feel bad – their boyfriends were jerks!  I guess they were thinking I was a bitch for being the one their boyfriend said was hot.  That was a weird dynamic.”

On being the dangers of hawking tampons:  “As a model, you think twice about doing a feminine product commercial, but I was leaving the business so I didn’t care how it might affect my reputation.  It never occurred to me that it might affect my reputation at school too!  Playtex ran that commercial constantly. I would have guys coming up to me in the hallway saying, ‘Umm, I saw your ad on television.’  They would turn all red and stammer, so I would say, ‘Oh. For Playtex.’ And they would nod, relieved that they didn’t have to utter the T word.”

What the modeling world thought of Yale:  “No one cared!  In modeling, you can’t really win going to school.  The fact that it was Yale or any school didn’t really matter.  The whole time I was modeling it was just an incessant drumbeat to get me to quit.”

On men: “By default, I got the more aggressive and obnoxious guys because they’re the ones who have the confidence to ask me out.  The jerk comes up and monopolizes your time – so even if a nice guy was going to take a chance, they’re not going to.  Then there are the Model-Fuckers – they chase after you down the street and hand you their card – they’re like ‘Call me, Call me, Call me.’  And you’re just like, ‘You’re such a loser.’”

Name-dropping Yale out of desperation: “‘I’m a model’ is a polarizing statement – people are either like ‘Really?’ and they ask a lot of questions or they become disdainful.  And the latter would immediately start talking to me in monosyllables.  So sometimes, because I didn’t like to be talked to as if I was four, I found myself dropping the school.  Just so they would talk to me like an adult.”

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