Posters and brochures are often less expensive to produce, but they reach a smaller audience and often have less emotional impact. In countries that do not allow brand-name advertising of condoms or explicit discussion of sexual behavior in the mass media, opportunities for promoting safe sex may be limited. Messages need to address people's reasons for not using condoms or staying with one sexual partner. They get lost inside the woman. Similarly, people may give various reasons for having more than one sexual partner.
Men usually have more partners than women.
In Zambia, for example, men say that they need several partners for regular sex, which they consider necessary for good physical and mental health, and to build self-esteem. Messages can best change these attitudes by offering new images of condom use and monogamy. Monogamy can be depicted as the responsible behavior of a leading citizen, winning the approval and admiration of family, friends, and community. Messages must go beyond what audience members say about their own behavior and motivations, however. Behind these statements, patterns of behavior reflect peer group attitudes, beliefs about health and about the body, rumors and misperceptions, distrust or dislike of other groups including health authorities, and inequities of power between men and women in sexual relationships.