Blaming Sex Talk ‘Squeamishness’ for Rise in STDs
Another one of those groups that must be really, really hung about talking about sex has an even more severe problem:
Sixty-three percent of syphilis cases were among men who have sex with men.
If you haven’t been paying attention, “men who have sex with men” is the preferred term now for homosexuals, bisexuals, and all those straight men … who have sex with other men. Since homosexual and bisexual men are about 4 to 4.5 percent of the adult male population of the U.S., that means that 63 percent of syphilis cases are in a group that constitutes no more than 2 percent of the U.S. population.
Pretty obviously, the reporter’s claim is wrong. It isn’t “squeamishness about talking about sex.” It could be squeamishness about talking about STDs. But the real issue isn’t an unwillingness to talk about STDs. It’s an unwillingness to take steps that would substantially reduce the risk of getting an STD. As the expert interviewed for the article points out:
Douglas said children and teens need to know about condom use, and should limit their number of sex partners and avoid sex with people who do have many other sex partners.
Since Douglas’s use of “children and teens” implies that those under 13 are children, would it perhaps make sense to suggest that those under 13 shouldn’t be having sex? Or is that just too prudish and narrow-minded?
And you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in America, anyone at all, who doesn’t know about condom use yet — though tragically, condoms aren’t the panacea that some people think. Condoms sometimes fail, and even condoms that don’t fail may not be preventing the spread of some STDs. A 2002 study concluded:
Available data are too inconsistent to provide precise estimates. However, they suggest that while condoms may not prevent HPV infection, they may protect against genital warts, CIN II or III, and ICC.
The second part of Douglas’s advice is extraordinarily important (especially in light of the deficiencies of condoms): Limit your number of sexual partners and avoid sex with people who won’t do so. It turns out that the speed with which an STD spreads through a population is the square of the increase in the number of sexual partners. (Here’s an application of permutations and combinations that you didn’t even consider in calculus class, I’m sure.)
I hear an awful lot of screeching from the Democrats in Congress about “bending the curve of health care costs.” This news article tells us that there were 1.2 million cases of chlamydia reported in 2008, almost 337,000 cases of gonorrhea, and 13,500 cases of syphilis. If each such case costs someone $100 (which is no more than one doctor’s visit and antibiotics), that’s at least $155 million.
Somehow, I can’t imagine the Democrats deciding to “bend the health care cost curve” by promoting self-restraint about sex. Can you?
“American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday.”
Wrong.
“American promiscuity has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday.”
Right.
Sounds like the author (not of your article, Clayton) is both black and a homosexual. That was my first thought when I first read it.
The kids are just another casualty of PC and M/C in that the cause is Q…s and welfare, the causes whose names we must not speak.
We all know that abstinence outside of marriage is the real cause of this increase in STDs. When will this “puritanical”, sexually squemish society ever enter the 21st Century?
Unbelievable.
A piece attempting to normalize the notion of distributing condoms, etc. to pre-teens (and thereby normalize the notion of pre-teens being sexually active), attempting to replace “gay” and “straight” in the public lexicon with descriptive phrases for each individual’s favored sexual practices (“dudes who like to have sex with other dudes,” etc.) and ridiculing Americans for a “squeamishness” which hasn’t existed for at least 40 years, all while risibly masquerading as a sexual “health” article.
If I were a policeman looking to put child molesters in jail, I would investigate “Douglas,” the person cited in the article as an “expert” in such matters.
And are we going to scrap the mercifully vague euphemisms that we currently use for “sexual identity” and exchange them for terms that vividly describe each person’s favorite sex act? Are we going to create a separate and distinct identity politics for individual proclivity?
This article is not only evidence that Americans are anything but prudes. It tries to push the frontiers of our decidedly unsqueamish ways into downright stupidity (which is the only place left for it to go). In terms of culture, of health and politics, this article looks for the day when we have gone way past the merely indecent, and are all the way into the bizarre.
Sounds like the author (not of your article, Clayton) is both black and a homosexual. That was my first thought when I first read it.
I wouldn’t assume this. There’s a widespread belief in liberal circles that some urges are so strong that it is unrealistic to expect self-restraint. (I think the formal name for this is projection.) I remember seeing some official of the New York City schools arguing that encouraging junior high age kids not to have sex was like asking them not to eat.
Did Janet Elder head up this “study”?
Next they’ll tell us if we frequented sex internet sites and visited prostitutes more often, rape occurrence would decrease.
you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in America, anyone at all, who doesn’t know about condom use
Knowing about them and choosing to use them are two entirely different things. Anyone serious about combating the problem would want to learn why the populations with high rates of disease (and out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and subsequent/simultaneous pregnancies with different partners) choose not to use condoms…but this inquiry seems to be off-limits. It might lead to “imposition” of white/educated/”privileged” values onto these populations.
TO: All
RE: Seriously….
….it’s NOT about the ‘talk’. It’s ALL about the ‘walk’.
It’s the proverbial elephant-in-the-living-room business. You can (1) ignore IT all you want. OR you can (2) talk about IT ALL YOU WANT.
But until someone gets up and walks over to IT and shoves IT out of the household….
….it’s going to be around. And it will c*** all over the house, until someone does something about it.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. And that ‘someone’ means YOU!!!!
A lot of scary stuff out there nowadays.
I recall reading 50% of teen black women, ~35% of Latino women and ~25% of white women have an STD.
Thank God I’m married.
You know my birds and the bees talk consisted of “Son, don’t have sex with anyone you wouldn’t be willing to spend the rest of your life with. If you choose not to follow that bit of advice then don’t get her pregnant, don’t catch any diseases, and don’t trust her to take responsibility for prevention of either one.” That was the entire conversation as nearly verbatim as I can recall.
There was never any mention of condoms, my father knew I was intelligent enough and that he had imparted the necessary life skills for me to figure that one out on my own. I’ve never had an STD or a pregnant girlfriend.
No baby-mama drama for me.
Clayton, I see from your picture you’ve had a shave.
Clayton, I see from your picture you’ve had a shave.
Definitely NOT a picture of me!
It’s a genital jungle out there!
1 in 5 Americans have genital herpes and approximately 80% of people with herpes don’t know they are infected.
25 percent of American adults have genital herpes and eighty freakin’ percent don’t even know it!
Please, kids…wait!
This struck a bit close to home with me. Recently found out that my school district will be providing HIV/AIDS education to my daughter when she gets to 3rd grade. Got in a bit of a tiff with the superintendent over it, and he tersely informed me that this curriculum is state-mandated. Silly me, I think of it as my responsibility to teach my 9 year old what she needs to know about STD’s. Which is nothing. Guess I’m just a prude.
12 is, unfortunately, a different story. But I still feel that as a parent it is my right and responsibility to educate my children at the appropriate time on the consequences of unprotected and irresponsible sex.
Recently found out that my school district will be providing HIV/AIDS education to my daughter when she gets to 3rd grade. Got in a bit of a tiff with the superintendent over it, and he tersely informed me that this curriculum is state-mandated. Silly me, I think of it as my responsibility to teach my 9 year old what she needs to know about STD’s. Which is nothing. Guess I’m just a prude.
Depending on the nature of the education, unfortunately, 3rd grade isn’t too young anymore. There are lots of sixth graders having at least oral sex now, and “playing doctor” seems to be a more advanced now than it was when I was a kid. This may be because so many parents don’t realize that their kids can find the “adult videos” and play them when Mom and Dad are out.
Warning them that sex is potentially deadly, and certainly something that they should not be doing this young is good. Telling them that this is just part of elementary school, and they need to use condoms: not a good idea. The danger is not just that condoms fail, but that schools are likely to teach them about safe sex just as effectively as they teach them about reading, math, and history.
As a 42 year old woman, I can attest that I, along with all students in my high school, were taught repeatedly about reproductive functions and health in our classes. This first started in 5th or 6th grade and extended into our high school years. No one was in doubt about how one got pregnant or how to prevent pregnancy and this in the mostly conservative state of Pennsylvania. That was over 25 YEARS AGO. Granted, there was only a small emphasis on STD’s, but this was before AIDS and when high STD rates were more likely in the adult gay cohort.It isn’t that kids don’t know, it’s that they either don’t care, or think it can’t happen to them.
Maybe Americans just don’t want to talk about sex with THESE PEOPLE!
I had a theory about the way they taught sex-ed in my public school. I called it “abstinence through boredom.” By starting sex-ed in 4th grade and repeating it every other year from then on, maybe they’d make sex sound so boring to us that we wouldn’t even want to try it.
I’m kidding, of course — though I became so bored with sex-ed that sex-ed was the only class I cut in high school (though I got in so much trouble for cutting it that I only cut it once).
Some things not covered in my sex-ed classes: strategies for saying “no” to sexual advances, should we choose to do so; the natural and inevitable role of jealousy in sexual passions; the statistic that most sexually-active teens, especially sexually-active girls, wish they had waited longer; the fact that withholding sex is an excellent strategy for telling whether a date is in it for you or just in it for the sex; the fact that limiting sexual appetites, like any other discipline, is a way to practice self-control and can help you achieve your long-term goals.
None of the things that they didn’t bother to teach need be restricted to an “abstinence only” curriculum, nor are they meaningful only for those derogated as “bible thumpers”. They’re just common sense, and could go with any curriculum. But mysteriously, they don’t… I think I know why…
Assuming, of course, that kids ought to learn about sex from school rather than from their parents, which is a debatable assumption.
“it perhaps make sense to suggest that those under 13 shouldn’t be having sex?”
Yes, those UNDER 13 shouldn’t be sexed. All of my Hollywood friends agree.
Bullshit American’s are deluged with every Tom, Dick and Harry pushing gay sex 24/7/365 Brittany spears flashing her vulva, it’s sex talk all the time!
The sex talk the administration has in mind is GAY SEX IS WHAT WE WANT YOU TO DO!
for the children and to save the planet!
Meanwhile, what were the STD rates back when Americans actually were squeamish about sex talk?
Bueller? Bueller?
I don’t think the problem lies in whether how often sex is talked about or how we are surrounded by sexy ads on tv- I think it has more to do with people not talking about sex in a serious matter. I also agree that sex education in schools- while good that it gives most people an awareness if they remember it well enough- is boring and causes students to not take it seriously and zone out.