STUDENTS NOT DAUNTED BY AIDS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992                   TAG: 9202220122
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
STUDENTS NOT DAUNTED BY AIDS
Virginia college students are still saying yes to sex and no to condoms - in big numbers.
Traditional AIDS education - mixing factoids on the disease with promotions of condom use - has been almost useless in encouraging abstinence or safer sex on campus, college AIDS educators said Friday.
"We believed that if you gave reasonable people reasonable amounts of information, they would behave in reasonable ways to reasonably reduce their risk," said Dr. Richard Keeling, director of the University of Virginia health center. "But all of the guidance that people have been given has resulted in very little change in behavior."
About three-fourths of college students in the state are sexually active, according to a 1989 study by the Medical College of Virginia. Though 96 percent knew using condoms would cut their chances of getting AIDS, only 25 percent used them regularly.
"A lot of men refuse to use them," said Hildegard Owens-Richardson, AIDS education specialist at Norfolk State University. "It's not macho, it's not cool, but the main reason is they don't know how to use them. You'd be surprised at how many men have never used them and don't know how."
Keeling and Owens-Richardson spoke to 120 colleagues from across Virginia. The seminar, held by the State Council of Higher Education, confirmed frustrations many have voiced individually about the lack of tangible results.
It also offered a new approach to AIDS education: Instead of stressing details about the disease and how to prevent it, educators should focus on building students' self-esteem and honing techniques in social situations, like late-night pillow talks.
"We have transmitted the information so thoroughly that the average college student in Virginia who's confronted with this says, `Yeah, yeah,' " Keeling said. "The typical reaction is not that's it's horrible or terrible, but that it's boring. They've heard it before in high school. What's new?"
It's not changing their behavior, he said, because students, with their fragile self-images, are being swayed by ads and commercials that say the opposite thing.
He showed dozens of slides picturing half-naked couples in tight embraces. The message was clearly: Say yes. Of 20,000 commercials aired every year, he said, 14,000 have sexual references. But fewer than 175 mention abstinence or birth control.
Keeling said a key to promoting self-esteem was a campus "support group" of students to counteract the pressure to have sex.
Virginia Commonwealth University has one called Project SAFER. A team of eight "peer educators" performed a medley of their skits Friday.
Junior Alanna Melkulcok portrayed a drill sergeant inspecting a line of soldiers placing condoms - mostly incorrectly - on bananas. "You've got enough air bubbles there to make Jacques Cousteau happy," she lectured one.
Senior Tom Kaufman suggested responses to 10 common lines against condoms, such as "It's too small for me." He blew one up to the size of a party balloon, prompting howls of laughter, and asked: "What are you going to say now?"

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB