“Why Do You Keep Sexy Safe” Colorado Safe Sex Campaign

Kailie Hartman
The Paw Print

Between 2009 and 2011, the birth rate in Colorado dropped 14 percent for women aged 20 to 24 years. This means that Colorado’s unplanned pregnancy rate is dropping. Beforeplay.org’s campaign “Just Talk About It” is helping give out relevant and accurate information regarding contraceptives, STD’s, pregnancy, and basic sexual health.
The new campaign is targeting Colorado college students and is called “Why Do You Keep Sexy Safe?” The goal is to encourage students to post selfies on Instagram or twitter with there own personal reason for keeping “sexy” safe. The campaign will go on for five weeks with weekly drawings for $50 Visa gift cards for students that participate and use the hashtag #SafeIsSexy. Beforeplay.org is hoping that students’ start talking more and spreading the word about safe sex and methods used to prevent unwanted pregnancies or STD’s. The campaign gives young adults a place to normalize conversing about sexual health; it’s a safe environment where “It helps spread the word that there are all different reasons and ways people keep it safe. By getting involved students promote healthier behaviors and spread reliable, positive information”. Greta Klingler works at the Colorado Prevention Services Division; she is the Family Planning Unit Supervisor and has helped with the new campaign. Klingler said students wanted to have conversations about sexual health, but were embarrassed and didn’t know how to bring it up. “Not being able to talk about sexual health issues creates a barrier to being healthy and making good choices.” Klingler understands how awkward talking about sex can be; her advice is to start at Beforeplay.org. There are tips and information on the site to bring up safe sex to peers and family.
There are more and more options coming out for guys and girls, “young women in Colorado are choosing the most effective birth control methods like IUDS and implants more and even switching off more common, but less reliable methods like pills.” This increase in contraceptive use is helping Colorado’s unintended pregnancy rate to go down as well as the abortion rate. There is still a lot of improvement left in the conversation, as STD rates remain the same.
Beforeplay.org recognized that there were a lot of resources targeting high school age teens, but not very many resources targeting young adults. Late teens and twenty’s is where the most unintended pregnancies occur, therefore this organization is working on producing more resources and information for college age students. Students should make informative decisions to maximize health and do what is best for them.
Beforeplay.org has an English and Spanish site that launched in February 2010. The “How Do You Keep Sexy Safe” campaign reaches all across campuses in Colorado and the organization attends 250 events and activities such as Rockies games, community fiestas, and pub-crawls, reaching thousands of young adults in Colorado.