Video: Online Soap Opera Series Teaches Safe Sex

A series of mini soap operas will attempt to teach safe sex practices through 20-minute episodes. The series features unprofessional actors and writers to appeal to “urban” young people. Explains Rachel Jones, a teacher at Rutgers’ College of Nursing in pastoral Newark, New Jersey:

“Women who watched the first pilot were getting upset, angry, exacerbated. Women really saw themselves in that video. We’re really resonating with urban contemporary themes that we believe are relevant to women.”

Such news makes us feel irritated, perturbed, exprimated. The effectiveness of these episodes in getting their message across to young women is currently being tested with the help of a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. New Jersey, says Jones, has the highest proportion of women afflicted by AIDS in the U.S, and that she continually saw women continue to engage in unsafe sex practices, even when they were aware that HIV and STDs could be transmitted through sex:

“I had very bright, wonderful patients who would come to me again and again with sexually transmitted infections. We have to normalize condom use.”

You can watch the 43 minute-long pilot episode — which follows the sordid tale of Toni, Mike, and Val “the other woman” erie — here. The videos aim to:

The fight against HIV/AIDS begins with RESPECT for women and SISTER POWER. Please enjoy and send us your thoughts.

True! But any sort of sex education primarily begins with an appreciation and respect for your own body, regardless of gender, age or sexuality. You can do your part by carrying condoms in your purse and refusing to sleep with anyone who 1) won’t wear one or 2) refuses to get tested regularly. It just takes a cheek swab.

Cell phone soap operas deliver safe-sex message [Yahoo]