
Share
5th April 2016
03:29pm BST

Raising awareness of sexual health and encouraging responsibility is no bad thing - and Hero launched its campaign by calling its "STI matches" names like Chlaramydia, Herpez, Johnorrhoea and Stephyphilis.
The initiative seemed to initially make an impact - according to the company, the profiles received hundreds of matches, and while "some cottoned on early, thinking it was a really clever idea...others invited Chlaramydia out to dinner."
However, two STI profiles in particular seems to have backfired badly on the company. Entitled "Aydes" and "Aidy", the profiles - since deleted from the company's site - were pounced on by HIV and safe sex campaigners for making fun of people living with HIV or Aids.
What's more, the symptoms listed for "Aydes" - including a reference to "an inevitable, premature death" - have been slammed as misinformed and inaccurate.
Some have called the entire campaign "harmful and stigmatising", arguing that "the outdated notion that only slutty people contract STIs is precisely the thing preventing us from combatting them properly."
https://twitter.com/nicheholas/status/717251274018717698
https://twitter.com/troyesivan/status/717207806747742209
For its part, Hero Condoms has since stated that its aim was to "get people talking and thinking about safe sex", while there has been no word yet from Tinder as to whether or not Hero violated the dating app's terms and conditions with the STI campaign.