Students shy away from Greek insignia condom business

After a year of striving for success, College senior Jonathan Gottfried and Wharton senior Mike Graves have pulled out of the condom business. Bringing a whole new meaning to "The Trojan War," Gottfried and Graves planned to sell a line of prophylactics with a Greek twist -- condoms tucked into wrappers with different fraternities' letters printed on them. Although the condoms proved more effective than Trojan condoms when tested by the Food and Drug Administration, Graves said, the two did not even begin production because Sigma Chi fraternity and several other national fraternities threatened to sue. Fraternity headquarters denied Gottfried and Graves permission to use the Greek letters. When the students made plans with a Malaysian factory to go ahead with production anyway, they were threatened with lawsuits, Graves said. "A lot of it had to do with licensing and the fact that it was a sensitive issue," Gottfried said. "A lot of fraternities are headquartered in conservative areas." Graves agreed, adding that the lack of a license was only part of the reason fraternities were so quick to threaten litigation -- since many fraternity headquarters were appalled by the idea of having their name linked with condoms. Fraternity members on campus had mixed reactions to the condoms. Some said they would have liked a personalized prophylactic to pull out of their wallet when the occasion arose. "Personally, if I was getting any sex I would use a condom with my fraternity's name on it," said College junior Joe Parisi, a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. But Wharton junior David Dwares, a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, said he is not "flamboyant" enough to want to use a Greek condom. "It's not particularly offensive but it's not my style," he said. "But I definitely would not have been up in arms if I saw AEPi on a condom wrapper." Graves said, however, that he did not plan to market the condoms toward members of the University's Greek system. "It's so cheesy?I wanted to give Penn people the benefit of the doubt," he said. "Every state school was a target." Although Gottfried and Graves lost money in manufacturing 1,000 "sample" condoms for an FDA approval test, Gottfried said he does not completely regret the backfired business venture. "It was definitely a learning experience," he said. "We were just trying to make some money -- I still think its a pretty good idea."