Condoms Sexy? ‘People Are Like, Wow!’
It is important to Ben Wilson, the man in charge of the condom brand Durex, that he chews the condoms he sells. He likes to consider their flavour, to know the sensory experience of a customer engaged in oral sex, and to think about how it could be bettered. He makes other people sample them, too. In a car on the way to the Durex condom factory on the outskirts of Bangkok, as traffic vibrated in the heat along the highway, he told me with pride about the time he had laid out rows of bananas and condoms for a gathering of senior executives at Reckitt, Durex’s parent company. “I said: ‘If you want to work on condoms you need to put a condom on that banana and taste it.’” Freshly promoted, Wilson is Reckitt’s global category director for intimate wellness, overseeing all the company’s sex-related products, including Durex condoms, lubes and toys. Sandy-haired, rosy-cheeked, nearing 50, Wilson has a [...]
