Johannesburg - Global sexual well-being brand Durex wants to spur on the creation of the world’s first safe-sex emoji.
The condom maker says it has launched an international campaign calling for the emoji ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.
Durex wants the emojis to generate greater awareness around safer sexual practices.
The company says its research of 16-25 year olds showed that a third of respondents claimed not to care about safe sex. Further research by the company revealed that nearly half think that HIV will never affect them or their friends, said Durex.
As a result, Durex has called on people to use and share the hashtag #CondomEmoji to drum up support as part of an official submission to Unicode on December 1. Unicode is a non-profit that helps develop standards around the representation of text in all modern software products.
Durex said it “hopes one million users will let their voices be heard” to spur on the creation of the emoji.
The company also said in a statement that emojis help young people talk about sex.
“Research conducted by Durex reveals emojis play a vital role in young people’s conversation around sex with 80% of 16-25 year olds finding it easier to express themselves using emojis and over half of respondents regularly using emojis when discussing sex,” said the company in a statement.
“84% of 16-25 year olds said they feel more comfortable talking about sex using emojis,” the company added.
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