University Video game will Teach girls to say "No" to sex.

Started by Wolfy, July 27, 2010, 03:22:03 PM

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Wolfy

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/orange_news/072610ucf-developing-virtual-game-about-sex

Apparently this game is being developed with Tax Payer dollars to teach girls how to deal with peer pressure and to "Just say no", and apparently includes motion capture technology for use in a simulated enviroment.

o-o..What are your thoughts, oh mighty Elliquiy?

HairyHeretic

It's supposed to be, according to article, "helping to teach pre-teen girls how to resist peer pressure when it comes to sex". Pre-teen?

While I doubt it will do much good, pre teens shouldn't be sexually active to begin with.
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Oniya

'Shouldn't' being the key term there.  We're getting ads over here about talking to pre-teens 'early and often' about drinking and drugs.  Getting the message to them about respecting their bodies in other ways really can't hurt.
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Mathim

I think something that doesn't cost 434,000 dollars can be effective too, so why spend that much when it could be far cheaper to just have some experts put their heads together first? I'd have liked to have seen some research to justify that kind of expenditure before actually engaging in its creation.
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Pumpkin Seeds

Well, also if you teach them early then the lesson should be there when they get to be a teenager.  I don’t really see how this is a bad thing.  Teaching girls at that stage of their life to resist peer pressure for sex will hopefully avoid more unwanted pregnancies and pressured choices.  As for the amount of money, that is a small budget considering the magnitude of the social campaign.  The research about children and video games is already there and this game is being developed by professors, probably the people that would be involved in such a think tank.  They will research the effects of the game shortly after its creation.

Mathim

All I know is, if there was a vote on whether to use that method or not, I'd sure have voted against it unless I saw explicit data to support the effectiveness of this kind of thing.
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Chevalier des Poissons

From a country that has an average age of girls losing their virginity at the age of 11, I say please, bring this game here. We are in a serious need of it.
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Dirigible

Quote"What's radically different about this one one person controls many characters by jumping into the skin, " said Charles Hughes, UCF Computer Science professor.

An “interactor,” or a person controlling a character, jumps into the scenario by wearing a motion-capture suit. Infra-red lights shine down and hit markers. Those markers control the movement of the character.

:o

Man, this doesn't sound like a Just Say No training program, this sounds like a paedophile simulator. Control via motion capture may help with kinaesthetic learning, but these are primarily social skills they're trying to teach; actually having the girls act it out seems creepy as hell.

Lachesis

While I do applaud the effort and believe it is needed, I hope that someone is also out there doing a companion game aimed at the BOYS on how to 'just say no' as well. Our society's attitude of "boys will be boys" and girls have to be the ones with the control is ludicrous. Yes, girls have to live with more serious consequences of their actions, but in this day and age of being put on a sex offender list for life and paternity tests, boys need to be made aware of the seriousness of their actions as well.
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cassia

My thoughts are that the players who take it seriously are the ones who don't need the lesson, and the ones that could use the game are going to be ignoring it or making fun of it. Well-intentioned, but I do not think it will be effective.

Alzire

My thoughts are that it would be better to teach others (not always boys) not to pressure those girls into sex.

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Lyll

I find good the idea, basically it gives a kind of "social" sex education (I mean not the biological process, but the acceptable behaviour/attitudes), it helps the prevention of becoming the victims of a not only illegal, but unequal and abusing relationship, and it might be able to reach enough well the group of age in focus, because the program developers chose the form of a video game. However I'm not sure that it will be too efficient, because the sexual abuse of children, the paedophilia and the criminal cases what are related to it, seem to me a more complicated issue, but the education, telling about the dangers is important anyway. Even if it's probable that who would need the most this kind of education will miss it the most too. If there is only one or a few children who avoid this situation by its help, it's worthy already.

But it's shocking a bit, I have to admit sincerely, because I still think that giving a similar education about norms of the acceptable forms of sexual life/attitudes would be mainly the task of the family, and the responsibility of parents, and its lack won't be probably compensated by video games. I know, I know, it's better than nothing, and lately the young people (pre-teens too) just get and reach too easily too many kinds of (confusing) information about sex, so they can become victims even if their parents act as responsibly as they can. But it sounds a bit as we would "dehumanize" a process what is firmly related to a theme what is one of the most human and intimate ones. Well, I'm surely naive and old-fashioned... so many technocrats lately. Anyway, welcome in the XXIth century.
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LIAR

I think better sex education teachers would be more influential than a video game.

PanicAttack

I doubt videogame aimed at girls to make them not give into pressures for sex is quite the right way to go. Like has been said, better sex education would work better and the game (or at least its message) would just be ignored by its target market.

Red Baron

So am I the only one who laughed when they saw an image from the game?



Quote from: cassia on July 27, 2010, 11:40:30 PM
My thoughts are that the players who take it seriously are the ones who don't need the lesson, and the ones that could use the game are going to be ignoring it or making fun of it. Well-intentioned, but I do not think it will be effective.

I think that sums it up pretty well. If kids still act they way me and my friends did there will be a lot of people just choosing all the "wrong" options for the hell of it.

Hunter

Quote from: HairyHeretic on July 27, 2010, 03:30:40 PM
While I doubt it will do much good, pre teens shouldn't be sexually active to begin with.

It might help if they stop with the sex education classes in late elementary/early middle school.   (Mine popped up in 7th grade.  Do the math.)

Oniya

Unfortunately, with puberty arriving earlier and earlier (I've heard reports that make me consider giving my little one an overview, and she's 9), it's important to inform kids about what's happening to their bodies.  I can easily imagine the trauma of a girl starting her cycle without having any information whatsoever - all of a sudden, you're bleeding and it won't stop!  While boys don't have symptoms that would suggest that an ambulance is needed, I suspect there would be a lot of embarrassment for a boy starting to have what we politely called 'nocturnal emissions', if he isn't aware that he's not peeing the bed.

Unfortunately, too many parents aren't comfortable talking about these things, and leave it to the school to do it (or even worse, they don't fill out the permission slip and then they don't talk about it either!)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Lypiphera

I think social taboo also plays a large role in the problem. The taboo of sex, of not being able to talk about sex because its 'rude' is making it impossible for girls and boys to get the right information. I grew up in a household where 'mummy taught other ladies how to have babies' (she was an antenatal teacher) and from a very, very young age I would ask questions about things but instead of being told fairy tails about storks or all those other birds and bees stories parents tell young children to cover their own embarrassment I was told a limited, safe, child friendly version of the facts which was then expanded upon as I became older and better able to understand the mechanics if you will.
I personally, don't feel this would encourage children to have sex at a young age because there is a difference between knowledge and action, just because you know something doesn't mean you will do it and when you know facts you are better prepared to make your own judgement about things :D


Most of us were born without the internet in the home, it was something that came along when we got older but imagine growing up with unlimited access to all that porn / erotica etc? While many parents are getting a bit more internet savvy and using net nannys i think its safe to say a large majority of parents aren't technological capable enough and things still slip through the net. Children are getting a very distorted view of sex - that everyone is doing it, that everyone is doing it that way, that its always like it is in the movies etc and I think this is really adding to the rise in underage sexual activity - the need to fit in, be grown up, ('become a woman') be glamorous is very much rooted with this 'ideal sexual act' we as a society are portraying.

This taboo subject that cannot be talked about combined with an almost limitless way to find out a lot of misinformation about said subject is, i feel, at large to blame for many young people getting too involved too soon!

JohnWolf

I would love for that sort of approach to work, but at the same time I feel like a video game wouldn't really help. For one thing, even young children are fairly adept at distinguishing between video games and real life, and I can't help but get the feeling that the "saying no" mentality established in the video game wouldn't actually carry over to real world social interactions... I agree that the real instilment of confidence, ability to say no, etc. needs to ultimately come from teachers, parents, and most importantly, peers- there need to be counter-currents of peer pressure that at the very least make it "okay" to say no to sex.

Merlyn

Plus I could see it having the ability to backfire.  Instead of teaching the girls to flat out say no, it could end up making them see along the lines of saying no being a game.  Making it seem less like a reasonable option and more like a joke.  And/or making boys just think it's more of a game, or challenge, to try and get them to say yes.
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