Back in the day, health teachers taught safe sex by slipping a condom over a banana or screening the film Philadelphia in class. The German advertising company, das Commite is taking a different approach: dictator sex videos. The company is responsible for a campaign that uses images of Hitler and Saddam Hussein engaged in unprotected sex to scare people into wearing condoms. The commercials, whose release is set to coincide with World AIDS Day 2009, feature Hitler, Hussein and Stalin in steamy sexy scenes where they fail to use a rubber.

The idea is to depict AIDS as a mass murderer, but many AIDS/HIV charities are turned off by the advertising company's unconventional approach to promoting safe sex. The organizations are worried that the commercials merely add to the stigma already facing AIDS sufferers and may actually scare people out of getting screened for HIV. “I think the advert is incredibly stigmatising to people living with HIV who already face much stigma and discrimination due to ignorance about the virus," said a spokeswoman for the National AIDS Trust. The organizations also fault the commercials for failing to provide a real safe sex method and for perpetuating the misconception that contracting HIV always leads to developing AIDS.