Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education
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Paul Campbell, in reply to
You'll see them gayly gadabout
they love to play and shout
they never have any caresYeah, but that was before HIV ....
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yeah, but that was before HIV ...
You're thinking of monkeys. Teddy bears can still go at it with wild abandon. Monkeys shouldn't, but I'm sure they do. I expect HIV is the least of their worries, they've got problems enough as it is.
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Horny is to the USA what Randy is to NZ. Maybe?
Who would call their kid Randy in NZ. No probs in the big 'ol US of A.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yes, and who in NZ would accuse someone of being a fanny-lancer? People would be stoked.
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Islander, in reply to
definitely don’t love it. Good substitutes?
For those who are seriously interested, Eric Partridge’s magisterial 2-vol. opus,
“A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English” provides many thousand options… -
You know what's sexy? References. References are sexy. Let's have some.
New Zealand has very high rates of chlamydia infection (PDF in link). Whether the apparent rise over the last couple of decades is due to better surveillance and more testing or not is debatable, but that rates are high - and much higher among young women and Maori/PI populations - is not. I'm gonna take it as read that things like chlamydia and gonorrhea are, you know, things people want to avoid getting.
Gonorrhea, by the way, is becoming antibiotic resistant.
The only thing that reliably protects against (not 100%, but pretty bloody well) the majority of serious STDs?
The people who recommend these things do not want you to have bad sex (or no sex.) They do not want you to be unhappy. They just don't want you to show up in their clinics with an STD. Because it is demonstrable that where people feel condoms are optional or refusable, and penetrative sex is considered the primary or only form of valid sexual activity, STD transmission will happen.
Condoms are not the only option for people, sex-wise. But for this specific sort of sexual activity, they are the only one we've got - if you want to be safe. Do we need to teach our kids about all those other options? Absolutely, and right now we're usually not. That needs to change.
Regarding condoms, though - let's bring it back to the original metaphor. People might not like seatbelts. They might find them uncomfortable, or get a rash. And they're not going to die or be injured every time they get in a car if they don't wear one. Or, necessarily, not die or be injured if they do.
Does that mean we have conversations with kids about relative risk and how seatbelts don't always stop you dying? No. We don't. Our public education message is that they need to wear a seatbelt. If they dislike seatbelts so much it makes them not want to go places, then we teach them to ride a bike or take the bus. But we don't condone non-seatbelt-wearing because it doesn't always lead to disaster or always prevent it.
And we shouldn't do the same with condoms.
Also,
(the chance of pregnancy is probably already zero since women are fertile less than half the time).
Speaking of unhelpful things to tell kids? Yeeeeeeeeeeah. That.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
You know what’s sexy? References. References are sexy. Let’s have some.
You're right. That was incredibly sexy. Bringing the knowledge.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
I could have used someone like you when I was in my early 20's, Lucy, and gaily gadding about, mostly sans prophylactic devices. Knowledge is a powerful thing, and I didn't have much, as far as body and soul safety went, in those days.
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just what The Doctor ordered...
You know what’s sexy? References.
References are sexy.STDs are the new beau ties...
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
I could have used someone like you when I was in my early 20’s, Lucy, and gaily gadding about, mostly sans prophylactic devices. Knowledge is a powerful thing, and I didn’t have much, as far as body and soul safety went, in those days.
What you actually could have used is my mother, who has been working in the field since before I was born and has forgotten more about this sort of thing than I have ever known. It does make me glad to know that a lot of my peers did get the benefit of her advice. (Although it took me ever so long to work out why I suddenly wasn't allowed to wait for her at her clinic once I hit fourteen or so - it never occurred that I'd got to the age where people I knew would be visiting the place.)
You’re right. That was incredibly sexy. Bringing the knowledge.
I can also....bibliograph.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
I can also….bibliograph.
Oh, lordy. Emma? Can we get Lucy a pony too please?
It's funny though. I can count on my hands the number of times I have had unprotected sex outside of a long-term relationship. And it has almost always been when I was too...drunk... to care. Maybe I am especially conservative, (hah) or untrusting.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
Ah, your mum. What an incredibly difficult area to work in - in the 70's or so I'm guessing? I remember when the dayclinic in Epsom was controversial, when women flew to Australia for abortions,....sexual health in NZ was a fraught area in those days.
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French letters....?
Candida
While still transmittable it is a problem
we have licked in New Zealand...
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
While still transmittable it is a problem
we have licked in New Zealand…Now I think about it, public service announcement: guys, you can get yeast infections, and if you're unlucky, it can end up with you having a medical circumcision. If your partner is being treated for one, you should be too. Girls, if you have one, tell your partners. They have a need-to-know.
What an incredibly difficult area to work in – in the 70’s or so I’m guessing?
Nah, late '80s - by "before I was born" I meant "just before or around the same time as". So after the real struggles, but still not the easiest of fields to work in.
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Danielle, in reply to
(the chance of pregnancy is probably already zero since women are fertile less than half the time).
Speaking of unhelpful things to tell kids? Yeeeeeeeeeeah. That.
Particularly as during your teens your periods are often quite unpredictable, and you could be ovulating at some seriously wackaloon time. And sperm, they can lurk for a day or two. Or five.
(Ross, I have a first cousin called Randy. I do not snicker at his name. Much.)
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Oh, lordy. Emma? Can we get Lucy a pony too please?
As soon as I'm finished. We're going to think about the bibliographing for a bit first. Oh yeah.
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I work with people in China and Taiwan a lot, there typically one chooses an english name from a list when you start english classes ... I've been wondering how to explain to Randy, the engineer I work with a lot, about his name ....
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Oh, lordy. Emma? Can we get Lucy a pony too please?
As soon as I’m finished. We’re going to think about the bibliographing for a bit first. Oh yeah.
Is this why people think we're weird?
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Particularly as during your teens your periods are often quite unpredictable, and you could be ovulating at some seriously wackaloon time. And sperm, they can lurk for a day or two. Or five.
It's helpful in this sort of discussion to remember that, where heterosexual sex is involved, your body and your partner's body ARE in a conspiracy to make a baby. You are the only thing that can stop them.
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Randy isn’t the worst of it. Plenty of folk out there called Fanny or Dick. Or Roger. Or Willy.
Do you think the slang terms are in some way derived from the names? Or just etymological coincidence?
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Emma Hart, in reply to
Is this why people think we’re weird?
That's not the word that comes after "people think we're", darling, and you know it.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
That’s not the word that comes after “people think we’re”, darling, and you know it.
I was trying to be circumspect. It's my new thing.
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Megan Wegan, in reply to
Randy isn’t the worst of it. Plenty of folk out there called Fanny or Dick. Or Roger. Or Willy.
Do you think the slang terms are in some way derived from the names? Or just etymological coincidence?
So, in the case of 'a good rogering', we think there might have been a particularly...prolific Roger?
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Do you think the slang terms are in some way derived from the names? Or just etymological coincidence?
Derived from the names, I reckon - "jock" as in "jockstrap" definitely is. And it's been going on for a while; ninety years ago, my grandmother decided she preferred her middle name to her first (Frances) because "Fanny" as a nickname was still in fashion, but so was the alternate meaning.
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