Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Safer Sex, Coming To a Bus Shelter Near You
filed under: Design for Sex, State of Sex Ed, Smart. Safe. Sex. by Melissa Gira
Sexerati is a bleeding (Pan Am-esque) heart, you know. While visiting the offices of Better World Advertising yesterday in downtown San Francisco, we couldn’t help but be struck by how much hotter and smarter public health campaigns around safer sex are — and more effective — when introduced by the likes of the Healthy Penis.
Better World is also behind the indie-cred-filled ‘Buck Syphllis’ campaign (just look at that t-shirt), and the controversial ‘Homoboy’ posters that, while promoting HIV prevention for men of color who have sex with men, were also criticized for their portrayal of bottoms as “bitches.” Riding the line of honest community engagement that doesn’t pander or patronize and in-your-face messaging worthy of framing in your bedroom is a tough one, and we’re glad to have such great designers (oh, for their bank of Cinema Displays) and sexual health and rights activists on the cause.
Follow along on our tour in the Sexerati Flickr pool. (And heck yeah, add your own images of smart sexual health messaging to the pool, pls!)
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On a related topic, this past summer, the city of Providence invested several million dollars in a campaign to raise awareness of not just condoms, but the pill (and specifically the morning after pill), in an effort to combat the rise in teen pregnancy.
It was refreshing to see, in a New England city no less, billboards at bus stops reminding people that if the condom breaks, to see a pharmacist for a morning after pill.
I genuinely hope the campaign actually had a beneficial impact, aside from the general humanitarian reasons, to show that sexual AWARENESS is more effective than trying to cram abstinence down the throats of teens.