South Carolina: Game Shows Life's Hazards of Sex

Service Over Self is ready to launch a comprehensive health program in Georgetown County high schools covering reproductive health, family life, pregnancy prevention, STDs and HIV/AIDS. Middle school students will learn about reproductive health, pregnancy prevention and STDs.

"The school board approved a program by SOS two years ago for use in the classrooms in high and middle schools," SOS Executive Director Amy Brennan said recently. "State law requires schools to provide at least 750 minutes of instruction on reproductive health and pregnancy prevention."

A game of "R.I.S.K." ("Real Issues of the Sexual Kind") will be used in the classrooms to depict a day in the life of a Georgetown County teen. Participants play characters who either choose to have unprotected sex, use drugs or alcohol, or abstain. Over the course of participating in the game, a player taking risks with sex, alcohol or drugs will have the same chances of getting into trouble or catching an STD as a teen taking the chances in real life.

If two characters engage in protected sex, they are each given the end of a white piece of yarn to hold. If they engage in risky, unprotected sex, the yarn is red. Bad choices made under the influence of drugs or alcohol become evident as the maze of red and white yarn leads from one participant to another. They can follow the trail of a red string from one infected player to another.

State law does not allow discussion of alternate sexual lifestyles except in the context of STD education. The local school board has also said the curriculum cannot discussion of abortion. Still, the scenarios are frank. At the end of a game played for community leaders and volunteers last month, one person was diagnosed with AIDS. All those holding a red string leading to her had put themselves at risk.

Back to other news for November 17, 2003