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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
A new public service ad campaign in Virginia uses billboards and bar coasters to remind men that sex with a minor is against the law. But will it work?
Jul 26, 2004 | The Rock Falls Tavern in Richmond, Va., is a typical neighborhood bar: There's pizza, a pool table and a regular after-work crowd. It's comfortable in its predictability -- which is why, when strange new postcards appeared in racks last week, patrons took notice.
"So when I saw my buddy going after this young girl," the postcards read in black type, printed above the address for the statutory rape section of the Virginia Department of Health's Web site, "I knew I couldn't just sit there. Isn't she a little young?"
The Tavern has allowed advertisers to offer postcards in the past -- but to sell a product, not dissuade men from pursuing underage girls. Chip Dell, the Tavern's general manager, who says he "doesn't allow people under the age of 21 into the bar area after 9 p.m.," has mixed feelings about the cards. "I agree with the sentiment behind them, but I don't know how effective they're going to be," he says. He just put out the cards about a week ago, but he's already received feedback from the regulars: "They mostly joke -- say things like, 'I need to send this to my buddy and make sure his wife gets it!' -- to get their buddy in trouble."
The postcards are part of a public awareness campaign sponsored by the Virginia Department of Health. Similar "Isn't she a little young?" messages will appear on 225,000 coasters, postcards and napkins in nearly 150 bars and retail stores in northern Virginia, Richmond and Roanoke. People who don't frequent bars like the Rock Falls Tavern or SJ's Lakeside Tavern on Lakeside Avenue will still have a chance to see the messages -- in giant type, on outdoor billboards in central and northern Virginia. The billboards -- which include the warning "Sex with a minor. Don't go there" -- will be up until the end of July; the bars will keep materials on hand until they run out.
Under Virginia's statutory rape laws it's illegal for an adult 18 or older to have sex with someone age 15 to 17 -- but the Virginia Department of Health isn't targeting the high school senior and her college boyfriend (although, for obvious reasons, the department can't actually say this). Nor is this campaign targeted at the other extreme of the spectrum: pedophiles or disturbed adults with sexual fetishes for young children. "We agreed that people who are going after children 12 and under are not going to be fazed by a billboard campaign," says Rebecca Odor, the Department of Health's director for violence prevention. (In Virginia, it's a felony for an adult to have a sexual relationship with a 13- or 14-year-old child.)
Rather, says Robert Franklin, the department's male-outreach coordinator for sexual violence prevention, who helped initiate the $85,000 campaign, "Our goal is to bring awareness to the issues of statutory rape and sexual coercion."
What really worries the Virginia Department of Health is teen pregnancy and how it relates to sex with minors, technically called statutory rape. "The push for the campaign came from seeing the numbers of teens becoming pregnant by older men," Franklin says. "The campaign is aimed at reducing the number of young girls who have had children fathered by older men."
