Here’s a story about a public health intervention that:
1. Appears to have reduced the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.
2. Especially by encouraging people to have a check-up.
3. Appears to have been fairly inexpensive.
4. Involved no coercion.
The Bay Area Reporter offers a story about a costumed character who promotes sexual disease control (sort of like Smokey the Bear encourages people to prevent forest fires). But the particular costume would scandalize many people. Read the whole article before you make up your own mind.
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My only thought is wondering why it takes a costumed character to teach male adults what they should have learned easily already. That this stunt is “effective” is rather confounding.
Compare this to the years-long campaign to get women to have mamograms or the current campaign about getting tested for some virus (sorry, forget the name) that has been linked to cancer in the female reproductive system. The primary differences are:
A) Men in general are less serious about stuff (or perhaps are allowed to be, or perhaps are expected to be, or perhaps are required to be – whatever interpretation you want)
B) Basic biology (and the worldwide history of phallic symbols) makes a cartoonified male sex organ much easier to produce (and find acceptable) than a female one
Basically, this sort of thing is the norm in the medical community – it’s only notable because it’s targetting men instead of women or being gender neutral.
What about those people who are offended by these cartoons?
“What about those people who are offended by these cartoons?”
Don’t you know that only evil EVIL conservatives get offended at this sort of thing? And that offending those people only shows that you’re doing the right thing?
Offending LIBERALS (or Islam), now, THAT’S a serious offense.