CDC Survey: Sexual Habits

The first impression one should get from the Journal-Sentinel article is bias. The conclusion is made that "young women are more sexually confident than they use to be" definitely is a positive judgment of sexual behavior that includes oral sex, experimenting with bisexuality, and multiple partners. Then the report concludes that most people have had "relatively few sexual partners". That term evidently refers to the median average of 6-8 female partners for men currently 30-44 years old; four for women in the same age group. Another stat, claims that 18% of Hispanic men, 22% of white men and 34% of black men have had 15 or more female partners. If that's "relatively few", what will be the standard when today's teens pass age 30.

Are we suppose to be impressed that now more teens have oral sex than vaginal intercourse? Let's throw a parade in celebration! Let's put up billboards congratulating teens on their responsible behavior of choosing an option that won't get them pregnant! Let's replace the "corner bars" with teen medical centers that can cater to their every pre- and post-sex needs! What a boon this is--just the service industries Milwaukee has been looking for!!!!!

Do you know that the websites of Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, and Advocates for Youth--the Big 3 of Sex Education-- not only recommend sex acts other than vaginal intercourse for safer sex but offer instructions for how to use condoms and dental dams? In legalese, that's called "covering your ass"--tell kids to do a safe sex behavior and then tell them they need to add more protection to make it safer when STDs are showing up in kids' mouths and throats. But what the heck, they can brag that they deserve credit for teen birth rates going down.

The problem with statistics is you have to look at all of them. Teen births might decrease but birth rates might actually increase; teen pregnancy and abortion might actually increase. When one reads the actual report instead of a news release, other statistics are found.

Whereas the article reports more than half of teens, ages 15-19, have had oral sex, it does not report that 88% of them have also had vaginal intercourse. Instead it gives us an "authority's" opinion that kids are making the safer choice. This authority will tell you that oral sex might be becoming a precursor to vaginal sex but it is not an alternative for long.

So how could recommendations to stay safe with oral sex be viewed as anything other than finding a new avenue to get kids sexually active through false kudos for"sexual responsibility"?

When are people going to get mad at what these organizations are doing to our kids! By the way, another suggestions they give kids is to avoid sexual intercourse by watching erotic films or reading erotic lit together. A Kaiser Foundation Study today said kids, 12-17, are the largest group of consumers of Internet Pornography. Come on Planned Parenthood take credit for that one!!!!!

"Fighting AIDS and Bias"

I admire what Diane Hardy has done to help in HIV/AIDS awareness. I share her concern about the spread of AIDS among Afro-American minorities, and I too congratulate those who provide care to AIDS patients. However, I must take issue with the criticism in her "Community Columnist" today that AIDS is demonized because of the linkage between it and behavior when so many other disease-behavior links are treated differently.

Our decisions, no matter how personal, play out in the lives of others. When one gets the diagnosis of heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels, the entire family is affected by dietary and lifestyle changes. Those changes will probably benefit everyone. However, if a person afflicted by one of those health issues does not change diet and behavior, the family will eventually have to care for that person as a patient. The impact of a person's behavior now begins to have major impact on loved ones, friends or fellow employees.

The difference with HIV is that it is communicable. A person with HIV is giving that deadly disease to someone else--a stranger, a "friend with benefits", the love of one's life or an unborn child. This is a far bigger deal! There is a reason why it carries a stigma! For growing numbers of HIV cases, contagion is through heterosexual sex. An action that should be the most lovingly, intimate gesture is now deadly.

Poor individual decisions can have a measurable impact on our culture. Will we watch young Afro-Americans contract a disease that began little more than 20 years ago with one person who made "personal" decisions that were "nobody's business but his own"? Will we continue to mislead youngsters that their personal decision to have sex, as long as they use "protection", won't wipe out their entire neighborhood twenty years from now?

Regardless of a person's age, the personal choice to have sex outside of marriage is accelerating the spread of HIV/AIDS. The at-risk group now includes all of us; we are one infected person away from HIV. and we don't know who that one person is.

A culture decided to make personal choice sacred regardless of what those choices did to self, family, culture or society. In this state, our government agencies, our schools, our health providers, our press are all scrambling to keep that choice sacred no matter what. Unfortunately, the "no matter what" happens to be our lives.

They're losing the battle. A piece of latex is not saving us from HIV. A new weapon is needed but they keep ignoring the best artillery around. The American people are capable of good decisions especially when done for the best of intentions--to save the ones they love. That's where to place our trust; not in a condom.