Young people are to be targeted with a new safer sex campaign intended to combat a dramatic surge in sexually transmitted infections among twentysomethings. The Department of Health has pledged to spend £2 million during this year's office party season to address the less desirable outcomes of drunken festive fumbling.
Advertisements based on a Lottery theme will be targeted through magazines, clubs and pubs at a generation which appears to be ignoring the safer sex message drilled home in the AIDS-conscious Eighties. National Lottery organisers Camelot have approved the initiative.
Proposals viewed by Government officials include the legends, 'The Lottery changed my life', a reminder that many common sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as hepatitis B and herpes can have long-term consequences. 'Look what I picked up in the Lottery,' says another advert which will point out that eight sexually transmitted infections have no apparent symptoms in carriers.
'How do you know if your partner has an STI?' asks another proposed advert, with the answer: 'You don't.' The campaign will also include radio advertisements with the slogan: 'To enter the sex lottery, just sleep with someone without a condom.'
A source close to advertising agency DLKW, which won the contract for the campaign, said: 'These ads are intended to help normalise and destigmatise condom use in particular. They need to help people negotiate the "condom moment" without embarrassment. The tone needs to be positive and realistic and lighthearted and not be seen as authoritarian and patronising or desperately going for street cred.'
Sexual health campaigners have complained for years that attempts to popularise responsible sex among the young have been either heavy-handed or 'naff'. The first Government campaign to combat HIV and AIDS, launched in 1986, was criticised for featuring tombstones.
Officials behind that campaign later complained that the then Health Minister, Norman Fowler, had been surprised to hear about the practice of oral sex and had apparently been unable to pronounce the word 'vagina' correctly.
Fowler was not the only public figure who undermined Aids awareness during the Eighties. Pop star Bob Geldof was also bitterly criticised for suggesting that using a condom was like 'wearing a raincoat'.
One in nine British adults have had a sexually transmitted disease at some point in their lives. More than 1.2 million people visit genito-urinary medicine facilities - often known as 'clap clinics' - every year.
Diagnoses of STIs among those under 20 have soared by a third since 1995. In 2000, almost one per cent of 16 to 19-year old girls had been diagnosed with chlamydia, which has been linked to sterility.
A spokeswoman for Camelot said: 'Initially we were worried that the campaign would confuse people. However, it's an important issue being tackled at an important time. We're now very comfortable about it.'
