Science: Health: Sexually Transmitted Disease
STD Simulation   (+5, -5)  [vote for, against]
Teach Safer Sex through Experiential Learing!

We have all been through that health class where they tell us to use condoms and practice safe sex so we wont get Sexually Transmitted Diseases.(at least all of us in the USA have).

A similar pitch is made to prevent pregnancy where teens care for eggs or flour bags to help them learn what its like to care for a baby or be pregnant. The intention is that kids will think " gee this is no fun I will be careful."

I propose applying this same type of education to teaching kids about STDs. Doctors would develop a pill or group of pills which would simulate the unpleasant effects of certain STDs(itching, burning, lesions, malaise, fatigue etc) upon taking them kids would develop these unpleasant but not dangerous symptoms and perhaps develop visible signs of these illnesses for a time before returning to normal. This would help cement the idea that safe sex is a good thing.
-- jhomrighaus, Mar 06 2007

you could teach them maths at the same time by injecting them with something that multiplies the size of their dick.
-- po, Mar 06 2007


//injecting them with something that multiplies the size of their dick//
You've been getting the emails as well?
-- methinksnot, Mar 06 2007


I spend an hour a day deleting them, snotty.

how are you btw?
-- po, Mar 06 2007


Good, busy. You?
-- methinksnot, Mar 06 2007


//Doctors would develop a pill or group of pills....// (a) This is surely close to magic? (b) [medical] doctors generally don't develop pills, they prescribe them (c) I don't think many "educators" will be very comfortable with prescribing drugs to give all their students lesions (d) there are probably 12 reasons why this would be illegal, aside from being impractical.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2007


By the way, [po] you're making a big mistake deleting them. Mine is now 13 feet long, and I paid for it all by investing my winnings from no less than 12 international lotteries in this scheme organised by a Nigerian banker.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2007


Somehow I don't think [po] is the target demographic.
-- Texticle, Mar 06 2007


I think one of the most effective sex education classes that I saw in high school was a slide show of the effects of STD's in all of their grossness. If one could simulate these effects on a student (or large group thereof), many students would think twice before exposing themselves to that risk permanently. [+]
-- Hunter79764, Mar 07 2007


In Dalian, China, there is a 'bungee tower' by the sea, with an arm jutting out from the top of the tower, so that you can bungee over the water.

In the base of the tower, there's a fossil museum. It has fossils of sea creatures and some bigger dinosaurs, with information about their likely era, habits, etc. The connection between bungee jumping and fossils is not made clear; perhaps the dinosaurs became extinct because of mass splattage, due to a lack of sufficiently strong bungee ropes?

Anyhow (getting to the point), as you browse through this fossil museum, you turn a corner and SPLOINK! Meeting your gaze are a dozen or so information displays, with memorably explicit posters showing the effects of various sexually-transmitted diseases.

In some ways, the unexpectedness of it all gives it a bigger impact, but also makes it seem slightly surreal. So... the dinosaurs died out due to having unprotected sex while bungeeing?

We asked the owner of the bungee tower about it, and he said that schools often take their pupils to see the fossil and STD exhibits, which must make for a wonderfully weird class excursion. "Well children, these sea creatures here lived 200 million years ago, and if you follow me around the corner now... yep, here's what will happen to you if you go round having sex willy-nilly. You'll end up looking like <points> this or <points> this. Or if you're particularly unlucky, you might even catch <points> this. So, behave. Now, who's for a bungee jump?"

By comparison, your approach seems simple and sane. [+]
-- imaginality, Mar 07 2007



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