He used the media and schools to promote safe-sex messages, and required prostitutes to be registered.

Defenders argued that the most effective vehicle for the safe-sex message is a visual one rooted in the culture of the street adolescent.

For an earlier generation, the safe-sex message may have come home when Magic Johnson announced he was infected with H.I.V. and retired from basketball in 1991.

AIDS is widespread, yet safe-sex messages are ignored and cynicism about condoms is universal.

This is how the deliverers of the safe-sex message shoot themselves in the foot.

Thanks to Marc Abrahams over at Improbable Research, we now know that the safe-sex message has reached even the darkest corners of human desire.

But Dr. Coll-Seck, who is from Senegal, said she feared that the safe-sex message might get lost in the emphasis on poverty.

Hospital counselors and nonprofit groups regularly distribute condoms and offer awareness programs, but there is little evidence that their safe-sex messages are taking hold.

About 14 percent of the shows with sexual content also discussed contraception, abstinence or other safe-sex messages, the study said.