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A giant pink condom has been erected in Sydney�s Hyde Park as part of a campaign to promote HIV awareness. The 60 ft tall obelisk has been sheathed in the pink condom-shaped cover as is part of the Aids Council of New South Wales (Acon) �I�m ON� campaign to encourage safe sex among gay men. The 157-year-old heritage-listed obelisk will be covered for a week and packets of condoms have been strewn around the structure, bearing the message: �Test more + treat early + stay safe = ending HIV�. Some have criticised the decision to erect the giant condom in a park where children are playing, but the stunt has yet to experience the kind of backlash recorded over the giant inflatable �sex toy� sculpture in Paris, which was meant to depict a Christmas tree. Acon is a health promotion organisation that focuses on HIV and Aids, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health, and its chief executive Nicholas Parkhill has said the visible icon in a high-traffic area was deliberately chosen to �turn lots of heads and raise a few eyebrows�. Mr Parkhill said the need for gay men to �stay safe� by using condoms it at the core of the organisation�s strategy for eliminating HIV transmission by the end of the decade. �We won�t be able to achieve this goal unless gay men use condoms when they�re having high-risk sex with causal partners, particularly in situations where are partner�s HIV status isn�t known � it�s that simple.� Mr Parkhill said that while 44 per cent of gay men in the area report always wearing a condom when having sex with casual partners, research from the University of New South Wales� Centre for Social Research in Health shows the number of gay men not always using a condom during casual encounters has increased by around 20 per cent in the last 15 years.