New Thai restaurant promotes safe sex (From Oxford Mail)

New Thai restaurant promotes safe sex

11:00am Thursday 8th November 2012 in Bicester

A NEW Thai restaurant with a sexual health theme has opened in Bicester.

Cabbages and Condoms has opened in Chapel Street to raise money to promote sexual health in Thailand.

The restaurant – the first of its kind in the UK – is one of a chain of six restaurants in Thailand and all its profits go back to charitable causes in the country.

Wilas Techo, from Thailand, has been trying to tackle the issue of sexual health in his country since 1974 and is one of the men behind Cabbages and Condoms.

He said: “People are still embarrassed to talk about condoms. One of the challenges since I have been doing this has been to desensitise people about the issue. We have to make people understand that condoms are made from the same material as a lot of other things.

“Before we opened, some elderly women got angry with the fact that we had used the word ‘condom’ on the restaurant.

“At the beginning people in Thailand were shocked, but we want to change people’s attitudes.”

The name of the restaurant stems from the idea that people might buy condoms at the same time as something as mundane as cabbages.

Restaurant manager Charlie Watcharakun said: “We have had good feedback.”

Although the chain’s restaurants in Thailand hand out condoms with the bill, the Bicester restaurant is taking a more restrained approach with a series of leaflets customers can take home instead.

Town mayor Dan Sames, who went to the restaurant’s grand opening, said: “I don’t have a problem with it. The restaurant supports a social enterprise company so it is all for a good cause. We shouldn’t be so prudish.”

Comments are closed on this article.