Online sex-education game from City Health Office in London, Ontario

Dan says:

The city health office in London, Ontario, created an online sex-education game that officials hope will appeal to teenagers in that its messages are delivered by a cast of iconic superheroes. According to a February report by Canwest News Service, the players are Captain Condom (who wears a "cap"), Wonder Vag (a virgin girl), Power Pap ("sexually active") and Willy the Kid, with each fighting the villain Sperminator, who wears a red wrestling mask and has phalluses for arms. The characters answer sex knowledge questions and, with correct answers, obtain "protection," but a wrong one gets the player squirted with sperm.

Sex Squad Game (NSFW)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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e.d

One would like to think that a goverment information film (albeit one disguised as a game) would at least be accurate: the premise that a character with a sexually transmitted infection has “infected sperm” is not just wrong, it it also misleading and unpleasant.

While the Canadians can be lauded for at least trying to do the right thing in terms of sex education, they ought at least get someone to look over the material to make sure there are no glaring errors or inaccuracies.
Church

A little weird that boingboing blurs something that’s in full view on the healthunit (heh) site.
- Yamara
  
  A little weird that boingboing blurs something that’s in full view on the healthunit
  
  Yeah, really?
  
  Just don’t look at it.
- coaxial
  
  It’s they’re site, they can be childish if the want. Given the image, I halfway expected Mark to call the Spermanator’s arms “weewees” or “doodles.”
  
  I like that they made the black guy have a small dick.
  
  Once again, Canada shows us the way.
- Anonymous
  
  wow thats crazy
chaplincharlee

If the object of the game is to cause them to go into giggling fits over the name “Willy the kid” and the sperminator, than this has achieved it’s goal.
- Lester
  
  I was wondering why the virgin was named “The Vag!”
Anonymous

pretty funny considering the recent debacle in ontario over sex ed. i’m not sure if a game where your character has to dodge cumshots helps or hinders the case.
IKillYouFilthy

Of course blond-haired blue-eyed Wonder Vag is the virgin, where racially ambiguous Power Pap is getting it on…
Phlip

“Wow! At last, teens can get the sex-ed they need, on the web!” –coming soon to an Onion American Voices near you
cjp

I’m from the London, Ont. area and believe,me, mistakes or no, it’s amazing to see anything about sex come out of this city. This is one of the most conservative, Bible belt areas in Canada. (They had to be ordered by the human rights council to allow a gay pride parade not too many years ago.) I’m surprised there hasn’t been a throng of parents screaming for the Health Office staff to be fired over this…oh wait, the local Catholic School Board banned the game and the comments to the newspaper are filled with Bible-thumping and hell-fire. Yep. Same old London.
http://www.lfpress.com/news/london/2010/02/17/12923836.html#/news/london/2010/02/11/pf-12839031.html
Anonymous

Captain Condom is 98% effective when used correctly every time?

I think that’s less than Batman…
Daedalus

Any kids who need to learn about sex from a videogame…

…probably won’t be having much of it any time soon.

I wonder if you play as the (of course, female, blonde) virgin, if you are more likely to get an STD or preggers because of your zealot-enforced ignorance on all things sexual.

….every sperm is saaaacred….
Anonymous

wow.. this looks a lot like the marvel superhero squad (in design at least)
flappy

wrong answerers can form a line over here…
bmcraec

Ummm, didn’t anyone else notice the Middlesex, London banner in the middle of the graphic? That would be the UK, not Ontario. makes perfect sense to me though. Kids’re hanging out in bars at 14 over there, and 12-year olds routinely talk about “snogging”.

Argh. Having.Flashback. Must. Get out. Of country. Before it’s tooâ€¦
- Anonymous
  
  No, it’s London Ontario. Check out the site.
- Anonymous
  
  London, ON is in Middlesex county. It’s not in England.
- desperation
  
  Actually, that is from London Ontario. I live there. Middlesex is the county that the city is in.
  
  Also, this is hilarious. I am so glad I live in this hilarious city.
- Sekino
  
  There is a Middlesex-London in Ontario as well (yes, we are smothered by our own originality over here ;))
- abstract_reg
  
  Um… no. If you look at the website it clearly says Canada. London, Ontario happens to be in Middlesex county. There’s a Thames River that flows through it to. Basically you’ve been tricked by Canadians naming places after the home-country.
TimDrew

Amazing- simply amazing (and not in a good way);

I remember being a teenager way back when… and this is beyond laughably condescending and off base. What’s wrong with information presented in a mature and direct way to students who are pretty darn close to being adults in every way but the infantile way this health authority expects them to be? If they only gave youth some credit- might be surprised by how they respond.
- bmcraec
  
  Ah, Tim. Let me start by telling you that I am totally biased on this issue. My feeling is that it’s because it’s the UK. The home of divide and conquer between any segment of any society. Adults and kids. Working class and middle class. “The English” and “immigrants”. British and Foreigners. If you’ve listened to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, you’ll get it.
  
  Hmmm. I hope I don’t get disemvowelled for this.
Anonymous

Great game. And great comments when your player gets hit. It’s fun to get some answers wrong.

“Argh, right in the face”
“Ewwww, it’s so sticky”

Lol.
- Anonymous
  
  sex education funny – better teach it to kids -
  http://vigrxplus.theymen.com/wp-content/uploads/images/last/Orgasm2.jpg
Sekino

“The Vag”!!? Why so generic when you could go with “Hyper Hymen”, or “Virginatrix”?

Okay, even though it still looks a tad lame, I’m giving credit to this gov. office for trying to think out of the box. Keep it up, folks! Problem is, they totally missed a golden opportunity to include something that teens would really be curious and interested about: Actual PORN. I mean, if you’re going to have a sex-game, why not make is a sassy-looking game with awesome graphics and actual sex acts between the characters when you win (only they wear condoms, are on the pill and are respectful to each other and you have gay/straight options)?

Yeah, yeah, I know… It would probably encounter problems with some parents freaking out… But how awesome would that game be (and people would actually play, not as a joke)?
Robert

I would have thought they would be a cast of ironic superheroes.
DarthVain

I think one has to ask some questions when an educational game for kids done by government is “NSFW”.

One does not compute with the other. Either the game is wrong, or the idea of what is safe for work environment is wrong.
- abstract_reg
  
  You shouldn’t be playing any games at work! Put your nose back to the grindstone sir! I won’t have you lowering the world productivity by playing educational games at work!
bmcraec

Oh. I just clicked on the link, and see that it really IS from Canada. Ummm. OK. so those ranting comments thereâ€¦ uh. Never mind. I can be such a dork.

Better go to the doc and get my meds increased.
Anonymous

Seen it, played it, slightly dissapointed that the city that brought us the multiplayer of bioshock 2 couldn’t put in a little more work on the visual style. hehe
OrcOnTheEndOfMyFork

Of course blond-haired blue-eyed Wonder Vag is the virgin, where racially ambiguous Power Pap is getting it on.

It passes the role reversal test of offensiveness. Try this out:

Of course racially ambiguous Power Pap is the virgin, where blond-haired blue-eyed Wonder Vag is getting it on.

See? It sounds unfair no matter who gets which role.
- endymion
  
  I like the idea of the role-reversal test, OrcOntheEndOfMyFork. It’s a good way to keep it honest.
  
  But for me, it didn’t pass. If I’d read “Of course racially ambiguous PP is the virgin”, I’d have gone: huh?
  
  No, for me IKillYouFilthy’s original comments rang true and were very insightful.
Anonymous

Does anybody else think there is a problem with making penises an evil weapon which must be fought a problem from a sex ed standpoint? Seems like a rather bad idea to me.
bmcraec

Thank you, gentle BoingBoingers, for not digitally flaying me for my procedural and fact-checkiing deficiencies. As long as all of you are breeding, or are planning to, there’s hope for the world.
Anonymous

@33 – Further, how does getting covered in supposedly sti-infected bukkake cure the villainous Sperminator?
bmcraec

â€¦that last comment was one of those unintentional ironies that have plagued me for most of my existence. Breed on, and may the actions of your progeny soothe CM Kornbluth’s tortured soul!
- Felton
  
  Why thank you. I may indeed procreate someday, and I’m counting on the Sex Squad to show me the ropes. ;-D
  - Anonymous
    
    I have to admit I did actually learn something useful in sex ed. I knew the basics of where babies came from, but during the lesson on female anatomy, our teacher pointed out the clitoris and explained its function. I honestly had no idea up to that point, and I’m female. I appreciated that our teacher’s approach was open and honest, and most of all thorough. I’m not sure how I would have felt about having the same information delivered to me in comic book form.
Boba Fett Diop

If you play to lose, this turns into bukkake really quick.
DonBoy

I think Marvel might have an opinion about this: the logo and art style are a clear homage, let’s say, to this, and given that Marvel has been known to make PSA comics in the past, there could be a reasonable risk of confusion as to who it’s from.
pentomino

Dear Sperm Bad,

How do you type with penises on your hands?

Spermfully yours,
Pentomino
Jardine

There was quite a bit of discussion in the London (Ontario) area when this game first came out. As someone who went to school in and had sex-ed in Middlesex County, the questions and answers are pretty much the same as I remember from about 15 years ago.
Anonymous

What’s funny is that in spite of all that moral outrage, that game has been playable on that site for 3 solid years.

Why the Ontario government recently gave in to that theocrat McVety is beyond me. Especially when his main objection isn’t sex-ed so much as the “some people have two mommies or two daddies, and that’s ok” message from grades 1-3.

As if the kids don’t notice on their own. Maybe he’s hoping that if we don’t tell them it’s ok, they’ll do their moral Christian duty of beating up the other kids for their parents’ sins.

Uptight mostly rural bigots don’t cease to exist just because they’re north of the border.
Anonymous

wow, penis arms, that’s.. inventive.

but hey, are we overanalyzing this? as an adult i think it’s totally ridiculous and immature, but hey as a teenager i probably would have found penis-arm guy funny and maybe i would have learned something about safer sex.
Steve Schnier

Ah, our tax dollars at work.

Glad to see that someone had fun with this.