September 9, 2009 | Sex & Society

Safe sex ad goes too far

With the slogan 'AIDS is a mass murderer' and images of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein, it is no surprise that a series of German safer sex ads are getting a lot of attention, and not all of it good.

The ads, designed to be shocking, feature a straight couple in the midst of a steamy sex session. At the end the man looks into the camera; it's Hitler. Stalin and Hussein are featured in the posters that accompany the campaign by German AIDS charity Regenbogen e.V.

HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust's policy officer thought the ads were in bad taste. "One in four people in the UK with HIV doesn't know he or she has it, so anything that could increase stigmatisation and discourage them from coming forward to be tested isn't helpful," she said. "The dangerous thing about [the advert] is there doesn't appear to be any accompanying public health message as far as encouraging people to stay safe and use condoms."

The ad company behind the video, Das Comitee, disagreed: "We asked ourselves what face we could give to the virus, and it couldn't be a pretty face," creative director Dirk Silz explained. "The campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of Aids back to centre stage, and to reverse the trend of unprotected sexual intercourse."

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