Currently in the works at U. Central Florida is a new video game designed to teach preteen girls how to handle peer pressure and the complicated demands of social situations in a safe, consequence-free setting. Wearing a motion-capture suit, the player will act out the reactions of their avatar, a 3-D character in the game world, to the sexual advances of male avatars. Girls will supposedly learn valuable social skills by saying no to virtual male characters, thus leading to a decrease in teen pregnancy rates.

The first glaring flaw of this program is its focus on abstinence as the only sexual option for the youth of America. Humans, like all animals, are driven toward sex, and will continue having sex at ages unacceptable to the mainstream. Refusing to acknowledge this and teach safe-sex practices places a terrible burden of ignorance on the young generation.

Initiatives such as this reinforce the growing trend of disconnection between parents and children. This game makes it easier than ever for parents to pass off the responsibility of educating their children. Why swallow your pride, sit down with your child, and have “that talk” when you can just give them a video game to play? Crucial life lessons are equally significant when they come from an animated AI character as when they come from one’s own parent or caretaker… right?

Misplacing responsibility seems to be a primary purpose of this game, as it is always a boy who initiates the sexual situation; the girls merely react. The simplicity of the game overlooks the complexity of real social interactions. There is no way that AI-controlled avatars can impose an accurate facsimile of peer pressure.

Without extensive adult supervision, discussion, and interpretation of the game’s events, children are not going to gain anything. High scores will not diminish the appetites of sex-craving adolescents; virtual rewards do not make it easier to resist peer pressure. Parents would do better for their children with a curt, unenthusiastic “Don’t have sex” warning than with this terrible excuse for sex education.