Sexecutives wanted

Durex is looking for Australian men and women for a new unpaid position: Condom tester.

Published July 9, 2007 6:30PM (EDT)

Talk about memorable summer jobs. Durex Condoms is hiring for a new unpaid position in Australia: condom tester. Yup. It's trying to find 200 male and female adult Australians to volunteer to test products for the illustrious award of "professional prestige," a pack of Durex sex products, and a chance to win 1,000 Australian dollars, reports the Washington Post. In their applications, reports the Post, people must specify why they would make "expert" testers. And we thought the Broadsheet letters section could get explicit...

If you check out Durex's actual Web site, there's a bit more detail. An opening page asks people what their ideal job would be (Scarlett Johansson's masseuse? Jessica Alba's body makeup artist?) and then suggests that they apply to be a "sexecutive." To be more specific:

"You must have a strong desire to improve your current sex life by bed-testing a number of our passion-enhancing condoms such as Pleasuremax, Extended Pleasure or FetherLite. To apply, simply explain why you think you're right for the position (missionary is acceptable) and you could be eligible for the employee bonus of $1,000."

In a clever move, Durex also offers people the opportunity to nominate friends as official Durex condom testers (perfect for a work e-mail account) and is posting some of the funniest entries each week on its Web site.

My only quibble is that despite the fact that the contest seeks both men and women, the site is geared toward the heterosexual male, both in the suggested dream jobs and the scantily clad, red bra-wearing nurse/vixen featured prominently on the page. It takes two to use a condom, and chances are that regardless of sexual orientation, the second half of a condom-using couple probably isn't into girls.

Putting that aside, though, a note to Australian Broadsheet readers: Don't say we never did anything for you.


By Catherine Price

Catherine Price is an award-winning journalist and author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food. Her written and multimedia work has appeared in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, O: The Oprah Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Mother Jones, PARADE, Health Magazine, and Outside. Price lives in Philadelphia.

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