'Birth Control Brigade,' New Contraception-Focused Video Game, Aims To Educate Teens

With various contraceptives on the market, from condoms to rings and patches and pills, men and women have a whole arsenal of ways to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Now there's a new video game that takes that "arsenal" literally.

Dubbed "Birth Control Brigade," the game challenges players to stop sperm from reaching a waiting ovum (and thereby stave off pregnancy) by selecting from a variety of contraceptives, reports The Toronto Sun.

Intended to be both fun and educational, it asks players to destroy the "waves of sperm" by selecting birth control defenses at a certain price and placing them strategically in the field of play, according to a press release for the product.

Targeted at Canadian teenagers, The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC) released the game in celebration of World Contraceptive Day, which took place on September 27. It is available not only through Sexualityandu.ca but also as a free Facebook app.

“Our hope is that adopting a game format will allow messages about the array of hormonal contraceptive options and the importance of responsible and healthy sexuality to have a positive impact on the contraception choices they make,” said the SOGC's Dr. Edith Guilbert in the press release.

According to a recent Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals study also released on World Contraceptive Day, more young people throughout the world are having unprotected sex and know less about effective contraception, but a report released yesterday by the U.S. Center for Disease Control showed that more American teenagers are using condoms during their first sexual experiences, according to Reuters.

However you feel about "Birth Control Brigade" as an educational tool, it does provide an alternative to another way teens learn about contraception: birth control commercials. Here are a few notable examples from that advertising tradition.

WATCH:

Loading Slideshow

• Birth Control Meets 'The Game Of Life'

  "You never know what you may want later." This ad successfully plays to our fantasies of being able to choose what we do and don't want in our lives exactly when we want it. If you've never quite abandoned the illusion that your future could be charted through the decision between a split-level and a tudor, this is the Pill for you.

• 'Hey, Logical.' 'Hey, Emotional.'

  Yes, women have mood swings, but this suggests that we are effectively Jekyll and Hydes every 28 days. Isn't part of selling a product <em>flattering</em> your customer?

• NuvaRing Lets You Quit Synchronized Swimming Class

  According to this ad, using the insertable NuvaRing will allow you to "let your hair down" and cut synchronized swimming class. 'Break free, women oppressed by The Pill!' these women seem to say as they strip into two-piece suits and smile knowingly at one another. (And that wink in the hot tub? We aren't even going to guess what that's about.)

• 'We're Not Gonna Take It'

  This <a href="http://www.mmm-online.com/bayer-runs-corrective-yaz-ad-agrees-to-preclearance/article/127205/" target="_hplink">ad was actually pulled by the FDA</a>. Apparently "We're Not Gonna Take It" wasn't the best song to promote a pill that needs to be taken daily to be effective.

• Regular Periods Make Us Frolic

  Women in tutus frolic in a forest and crashing waves, joyous that their periods are regularized by Ortho Tri-Cyclen LO. Because doesn't having your period arrive on time make you want to don a ring of pink tulle?

• Wait, What Just Happened?

  Spy ring? Spandex commercial? Unclear.

• Birth Control Ad As Mini RomCom

  Sound familiar? A series of Mr. Wrongs is finally followed by a very sweet, classically good-looking Mr. Right. The ad closes chastely with Mr. Right kissing her goodnight and leaving her at her door (because suggesting actual sex in a birth control ad would just be so tawdry, right?), but now she has opt-ions ..

• 'When Your Family Is Complete'

  Brilliant or despicable? This ad targets the stressed-to-the-limit mom by threatening her with the prospect of yet another child to chase around a soccer field.

• The Primary Use For Birth Control Is Mood Control?

  This ad, the second in our slideshow for Yaz, shows women having "girl talk" about The Pill at a nightclub -- and focusing on how it improves their moods. They never quite mention it's primary purpose: preventing pregnancy.

Comments

[Nancy Ellen]

04:10 AM on 10/17/2011

I don't think any teenager I raised would go for this game. Information should first come from the parents, ideally. Next, the health classes in school. Call me Dr. Mom

[StevenRussell1]

12:40 AM on 10/15/2011

As the old saying goes; "Either the Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible."

[keith925925]

12:19 AM on 10/15/2011

All part of the wonderful Eugenics and de-population movement.

[David Miffitt]

07:55 PM on 10/14/2011

I'm not sure how many teens would choose this game over others. I imagine that there are far better tower defense games (that's the type of game this is) out there, games that probably have more depth and less oddity.

[belldn3]

04:44 PM on 10/14/2011

WTF.

[Brittni Stenmo]

04:08 PM on 10/14/2011

This game is adorable, I just checked it out on facebook. Although, it's not really educational if you cannot ready the benefits of each contraceptive because you are too busy trying to make sure those pesky sperm don't get you preggies. Maybe give them a longer life span and make them go a bit slower?

[Mrsbean54]

09:16 AM on 10/17/2011

Haha good point, can't they actually live up to 7 days anyway? Girls need to realize the tower defense doesn't just end after the initial attack.

[nikkitytom]

03:16 PM on 10/14/2011

Yikes. When I was a little girl growing up in Canada .... in Montreal ..... birth control was illegal in Quebec. The only method which could be used was the "rhythm method" which relied on abstinence for the days a woman was most fertile. It was illegal to refuse sexual relations with your husband. In 1969 finally contraception was legalized. But for many years abortion remained illegal and if in the course of a pregnancy a decision had to be made to save either child or mother, the child took precedence. I remember a woman who was allowed to die to save the baby and her husband's anguished interview with the media. She left FIVE children.

I left Canada when I reached adulthood, so angered by our history of legal abuse to females that I returned only briefly during the 80's. I lived in India for twenty years, where from the day I landed, woman had more rights. Indira Gandhi was our Prime Minister. Birth control was standard. Abortion was legal.

This horrendously tasteless game would arouse my ire if it was produced anywhere in the world except Canada. Now I just sit here and laugh .... vindicated at last.

[jsand96876]

01:51 PM on 10/14/2011

Geeze, and I thought Leisure Suit Larry was bad.

[David Miffitt]

07:57 PM on 10/14/2011

I'm suprised that this article didn't mention it somewhere. That game's kinda notorious.

[jnsburke7]

01:30 PM on 10/14/2011

Birth control in a video game. perhaps it's how you handle your joy stick.

[beckym1488]

01:10 PM on 10/14/2011

I can't believe there are so many parents not educating their kids that they need to make a video game out of it. Geez. My son prefers killing zombies at this point. He's only 13 though so. I am a parent that educates on daily life etc. It's really important that kids hear it from their parents.

[vaygollybum]

04:20 PM on 10/14/2011

I think that too many parents are embarrassed to talk about it with their children. Some think if they don't talk to their kids about it, they will never know about it or do it. Some think that if they set their girls up with birth control, that is telling them to go ahead and do it. Parents forget that they were young and didn't do everything their own parents told them. Many men are proud if their sons have many conquests. The old double standard if alive and well!

[midnightsun20095]

07:46 PM on 10/14/2011

It's not that they are too embarassed, it's that they think they get this education in school so they don't even bother. Or they just...don't bother in general, seeing as how sex is everywhere anyway.

That and it's glorified, and all those underage and extremely young parents who are still children themselves don't get punished or hardly see any consequences. Half the time the parents are excited or let their kids pawn off their new borns on them instead of making them miss out on what they want to go do to take care of their own child. How are you supposed to take care of a problem if there are no consequences from anyone?

[akarmahitmydogma]

01:09 PM on 10/14/2011

insert your own joystick joke here ______________________

[David Miffitt]

07:56 PM on 10/14/2011

I'll pass. :P

[PKJ1980]

12:01 PM on 10/14/2011

Now gamers don't have to leave the house and socialize to have a sexual experience.

[mo524]

12:47 PM on 10/14/2011

I love your comment it is so true lol

[David Miffitt]

07:56 PM on 10/14/2011

The wonders of technology, huh?