Column: What if we talked up masks the way we talk up condoms? Sex educator has some ideas.

What if we treated masks like condoms?

Chicago-based sex researcher and educator Kim Cavill posed the question on Twitter Wednesday as public health officials grapple with how to encourage the use of face coverings amid enormous spikes in new coronavirus cases across the United States.

“‘If you don’t wear one, you could die,’ doesn’t work for condoms and it won’t work for masks,” Cavill tweeted.

She continued: “What works for condoms: 1. Condoms are a good way to reduce risk while you & the people you’re with have fun. 2. Wearing a condom is a really great way to show the person you’re with how much you care about them. 3. Wearing a condom makes you look like you know what you’re doing.”

She continued: “4. Condoms can make the time you spend with others more enjoyable because you don’t have to worry about risk and can focus on having fun. 5. Wearing a condom is easy! There are different types and styles you can try to figure out what you like best.”

And: “6. If you haven’t worn condoms before, it’s not too late. You get all the benefits when you start using them, no matter what choices you made in the past.”

All true for masks!

Intrigued, I gave Cavill a call.

“The principles of public health are very, very consistent,” she said. “It’s just the specifics that change. And we know that ‘do or die’ messaging works for a few people, but most people need some other sort of convincing. They just do. You have to appeal to people’s other motivations, rather than just the motivation to not die.”

She compared scare-tactic mask messaging to abstinence-only education.

“We keep creating these policies that tell people, ‘If you don’t have sex, you’re not at risk!‘” she said. “But we know that’s only effective for about 15% of the population. The way human psychology works is that we hear a message like that and make ourselves the exception to the rule. ‘Oh, that might be true for other people, but that’s not true for me.‘”

Certainly we should be discussing and promoting the evidence that wearing a mask can protect you and the people around you from the spread of COVID-19, Cavill said. But we shouldn’t stop there. She’d like to see messaging that appeals to people’s egos.

“Masks need to be a sign of competency,” she said. “This is how you show that you care about your own kid or your co-workers. This is how people will know you’re a good person. That you’re prepared.”

Cavill would also like to see masks made free and easily accessible in multiple public places.

“If you’re mapping out access, the more barriers you can remove from a person and the behavior and the thing you’re wanting them to do, the more compliance you’re going to get,” she said. “Make them low cost or free and put them where people are.”

She points to public health initiatives like Alaska’s 2016 Say It With a Condom campaign, which curbed the state’s sexually transmitted disease rates by distributing free condoms with a variety of funny, edgy messages on the packaging. (“Latex wingman,” “Drill safely” with a drawing of an oil rig.)

The best messaging, she said, avoids shame, blame and fear, and acknowledges -- celebrates, even -- our need for human intimacy. That goes for sex, but it also goes for socializing with each other in public.

And in certain times and certain places, masks -- like condoms -- make that human intimacy and socializing a heck of a lot safer.

Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.

hstevens@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @heidistevens13

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