2013-04-01
Explanation
This comic plays on the ambiguity of the phrase "use a condom." A teenager angrily tells her mother: "I don't KNOW how I got pregnant! You told me to use a condom if I want sex, AND I DID!" The flashback panel, labeled "Earlier...," reveals how the girl interpreted this advice: she's shown at school by the lockers, offering a condom to a boy and saying, "Hey, I'll trade you this condom for sex."
The joke is a deliberate misunderstanding of the parent's safe-sex advice. The mother meant "use a condom during sex" as a contraceptive method, but the daughter interpreted "use a condom if I want sex" as meaning the condom is a form of currency -- something to be exchanged in a transaction to obtain sex. It's a play on the word "use," which can mean either "employ as a tool" or "utilize as a resource/bargaining chip." The humor also touches on the perennial awkwardness of parent-child conversations about sex, where vague or euphemistic phrasing can lead to catastrophically wrong interpretations.
The votey shows someone being asked "Do you have birth control?" and responding "Oh yeah. Tons of it" -- implying they have stockpiled condoms as trading currency rather than understanding their actual purpose, extending the main comic's joke about fundamental misunderstanding of contraception.