Durex wants to make a condom emoji

Since emojis are generally family friendly (and no longer racist!), Durex is taking an altruistic approach citing its own research that 84 percent of 18 to 25 year olds say it’s easier to talk about sex using emojis than text and a third of the same age group say they won’t contract sexually transmitted diseases.

“Emojis of this sort will enable young people to overcome embarrassment around the discussion of safe sex, encourage conversation and raise awareness of the importance of using condoms in protecting against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV and AIDS,” said Durex’s marketing director Karen Chisolm in a statement.

The climax of the campaign is to get the Unicode Consortium to approve its condom emoji on Dec. 1, which is World’s AIDS Day. Even if it does pass approval, the process usually takes a year or more before new emojis appear on phones.