Using sexiness to promote safer sex around the world

Condoms are on our mind after posting that job listing for a designer at Sir Richard's Condom Company, so a new Fast Company article on using eroticism to promote safe sex in developing countries perked up our ears.

The Pleasure Project, the non-profit behind new ads which celebrate sex instead of using scare tactics, operates under the motto, "Putting the sexy back into safer sex."

It's a great example of choosing to focus on the positive in order to change minds, and it's a very direct approach -- using sex to sell safer sex aids. The Fast Co article comes with surprising data, too.

Dr. Lori Scott-Sheldon of Brown University and the Miriam Hospital recently led a meta-analysis of educational, psychosocial, or behavioral interventions eroticizing safer sex. The analysis looked at the outcomes of such interventions: knowledge, attitudes, intentions, frequency of sex, and condom use. Dr. Scott-Sheldon and her team reviewed 19 studies and 36 interventions that used eroticism to promote safer sex among 5,000 “emerging adults.”

“It was really appalling that, after looking at 20,000 studies, we could only find 19 that explicitly employed eroticism,” said Dr. Scott-Sheldon. She acknowledged this limits the value of the findings, and also shows how much more research is needed, especially for at-risk populations.

We'd much prefer wordless, erotic commercials over the campy or sexist fare Trojan brings to the table.