Choose Your Own Adventure: Sex Edition

People often make bad choices and are left to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives — but what if you got a do-over?

Condom, No Condom is a choose your own adventure style series of videos about a guy who fancies a girl at a party. Before he even gets there he has to make the decision about whether he wants to buy a condom — in front of his boys. A series of events unfolds and he either uses the condom or not, either way he faces the consequences.

[Video Safe For Work]

The British series has come under fire for it’s “pornographic” scenes showing the couple have sex.

“It is grossly irresponsible of the NHS to present a graphic portrayal of unbridled lust in which a young woman is depicted as no more that a sex object and then to tell young men that they have ”made the right choices’ simply because they have used a condom,” the director of the Family and Education Trust told The Daily Mail.

Below is one of the scenes causing the controversy [Not Safe For Work]:

The series is engaging and portrays sex in a way that teenagers will relate to (through popular culture if nothing else). This is a good way to ensure that the message actually reaches its target audience.

If the NHS had made a complimentary video featuring a woman buying a condom many of the concerns about a the girl being portrayed as a “sex object” would have fallen on deaf ears.

As it is, the series stands alone and the questions remain.

Are the videos too sexually explicit for teenagers?
Is the woman treated like a sex object?
Does that even matter if it helps an important message reach its audience?