Arkansas-based student organization hosts risky behavior awareness event

This October, VOX, a new student-run organization at Arkansas State University (ASU), will be taking a campus-based haunted house to a whole new level. The group has prepared The Real Fear Haunted House, an event that features several "dangers" faced by today's college students, including alcohol use, unprotected sex and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Established in 2009, VOX, which means vocal in Italian, works to educate ASU enrollees about how overindulging in alcohol can lead to risky behavior, according to The Herald. As one of several new organizations recently launched on campus, VOX aims to take advantage of this opportunity to meet one-on-one with students and discuss sexual health.

Members of the organization hope that by addressing their peers directly they will encourage them to practice safe sex more efficiently than an authority figure would, the school newspaper reports.

Amber Martin, adviser of the organization, stated that the group's message is to get students to think about "their actions and what they may entail and provide the tools so that, if they want to engage in these practices, they go about it in the safest manner possible." She added that "everything is geared toward responsibility."

Attending similar events may make college students more aware of the dangers of risky sexual behavior, which can results in contracting an STD. From 2003 to 2006, an estimated 10 percent of all herpes cases were diagnosed among Americans aged 20 to 29, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.