God, I love local newscasts. I happened to stumble across a report from My FOX Orlando about the development of a "simulation and digital puppetry" video game "aimed at helping to teach pre-teen girls how to resist peer pressure when it comes to sex" -- and, let me tell you, the corniness of both the game and the video dispatch below made my morning.
The setup is elaborate: Girl gamers wear a motion-capture suit to enter a virtual world with real-life scenarios and life-size avatars. Lead researcher Anne Norris explains: "A boy similar in age might approach the person playing the game and ask her to make out or there might be some sexual innuendo." (Cue the newscaster's overwrought exclamation: "Wow, sounds risque!") Norris explains that "it's a place to practice where there aren't any social consequences."
That's right -- the only real-life consequence of the game is that it cost tax payers $434,000. Well, and there's the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education. Here's hoping this effort is balanced out with comprehensive sex education -- something Florida hasn't been known for in the past.
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