Campaign promotes sex health discussion.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

How many of the following statements are true?

You can prevent pregnancy with Mountain Dew. You cannot get HIV through oral sex.

Both are wrong, of course. But both are embedded in local teen-age mythology, says Mary Gossart, director of education and training for Planned Parenthood.

"There are all kinds of myths out there," says Gossart, whose agency has worked for years to develop European-style strategies to involve youths, churches, families and communities in reducing pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases through its Rights, Respect, Responsibility initiative.

The agency begins a new phase of its strategy today with a series of luncheons to acquaint local news media with European media campaigns aimed at promoting condoms and responsible sexual decisions using messages that engage rather than embarrass families and young people.

There is, for example, the French television commercial where a woman accidentally drops her goldfish bowl on the street. She scoops up the fish, dashes into a nearby pharmacy, cuts into line at the counter and orders a condom and some water. As bystanders watch, she slips the fish into the condom and pours in the water.

The camera focuses on a happy fish. Words roll up on the screen, "Condoms save lives."

Funny. But is Western Oregon ready to hear the message?

Not just yet, Gossart says.

"I'm not asking people to run out and do condom ads," she says. "We need to make a fundamental shift in how we interact with young people first. We could go ahead and launch condom ads without that fundamental shift, but it's not going to make as profound an impact."

So, the Rights, Respect, Responsibility initiative is taking it one step at a time.

Over the past three years, the initiative has sponsored trips to Europe for local community and church leaders to witness the European approach and discover how they can bring the messages home to encourage open and respectful discussion about sexual health that also empowers families and churches to convey moral values.

The various leaders have met with more than 10,000 people though local churches, schools, business and civic groups, parent-student forums and public meetings to help open channels of communication about responsible sexual decisions and sexual health, according to Gossart.

The series of media luncheons, scheduled in Medford, Eugene and Portland, are the beginnings of what Gossart hopes will someday result in an effective mass media education campaign designed for Western Oregon's youths and families.

"We realize what we're asking of our society is to make a fundamental change," Gossart says. "This is really an effort to engage the media community. It's kind of the next step. It's another baby step in that long, long process."