Haphazardly collecting innocent products — aspirin, Big League Chew, deodorant — is a tactic often used to conceal the true motive of this convenience store visit.

The paranoia, embarrassment and fear involved in buying a box of condoms is a tradition more American than eating a hot dog at a baseball game.

Sweaty palms grip the tiny box of wickedness. Wandering the aisles, waiting for the line at the register to thin out becomes an art form acquired by most young adults — as does buying in bulk. Haphazardly collecting innocent products — aspirin, Big League Chew, deodorant — is a tactic often used to conceal the true motive of this convenience store visit.

When the moment of truth finally arrives, the box is timidly slapped down. Both the patron and register clerk work together to hastily mask the sinful transaction taking place. Eye contact avoidance by both parties is maintained.

Numbers blurted out, cash exchanged, increase in heart rate and plastic bag in hand, the evildoer makes an escape through the auto-sliding doors. This is the purchase of condoms in America. This is sex in America.

Anyone who has ever been trapped in the dreadful situation of watching a movie with their parents, only to have a sex scene pop in, can attest that Americans do not enjoy talking about — nor acknowledging the existence of — sex.

When this unpleasant situation occurs, a few actions have been known to take place: 1) Parent and child become postmortem stiff and don’t speak a word until the obscene re-creation of human procreation is over or 2) The scene is either fast-forwarded or shut off.

Sex is something we cram into the dark outskirts of our civilization. Traveling through the empty countryside, little windowless shanties with signs reading, “Truckers get off here,” serve as reminders that only in this lonely landscape does sex exist.

We giggle with disgust at these outposts of barricaded desires and secretly wonder what lies on the other side of the tinted entrances.

Despite our conditioned aversion, sex is our favorite leverage tool in persuading someone into buying a product. Hamburgers — dead flesh used for caloric replenishment — have as much to do with sex as toilet paper, although there are some strange fetishes lurking about.

A few months ago, Paris Hilton was involved in a scandal about her scantily clad appearance in a Carl’s Jr. commercial endorsing their new “Spicy BBQ Six-Dollar Burger.”

Sex is mutated into suggestive images shoved in American faces when the corporate contingent wants them to purchase a burger or a beer. But when it comes to displaying the actual act of sex — often a positive experience for both involved — it’s handled like footage of someone being shot in the face.

Wait, I take that back. The previous statement is false — images of horrific violence are tolerable. Television shows, like any of the “CSI” shows, display the darkest side of humanity — and hide our most beautiful moments of caring often found in sex.

From this, one can infer Americans do not blame society’s woes on the plethora of violent images being pumped into their living rooms. What is more disconcerting to our society is Janet Jackson’s nipple. Surely, seeing the human form produces mass murders by the dozens.

While sex is considered the unspeakable subject by most Americans, it’s that very mentality that makes sex in America better than anywhere else.

In dark rooms, at late hours, behind closed doors, under the covers, while Americans sleep easy, the nemesis known as sex transpires. Two bodies find each other under the oppressive eye of American ideals and say, “Fuck it.”

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