Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Moz,
So I suggest that condoms are not the only thing that works.
They are only thing that is cheap, easily distributable, and have high reliability rates. Condoms are not perfect, but given all current constraints, they are the best available solution.
Regarding the rhythm method - it simply isn't reliable for teenagers or people not in committed relationships, who also may have less control over when their sexual activity happens. The conversation we're having is about sex education. It's not responsible to educate teenagers that the rhythm method is a good contraceptive method for them at that time. It's not even close to the many hormonal and non-hormonal other methods available.
As a biologist, I'm also immediately wary about prophylactic use of antivirals - that's generally not advisable except in specific high-risk situations. Not quite the same problem as antibiotics, but close. If you're worried about the influence of drug companies, too...condoms bad, drugs good?
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
How do we know how honest reports/ surveys/ studies are? How honest will someone be in a study if (like Ben) someone feels inadequate, freak, alone, massive, puny? I can see how all studies could be accused of being questionable. Especially about, if you always do, sometimes do or definitely do use a condom. How about the monogamous relationships with the affair on the side? Seems to me, asking questions and getting pure honesty could be a can of worms. Studies are done how, in these more sensitive matters?
Methodology in these sorts of studies is always a separate can of worms - self-reporting, anonymous survey, series of interviews? No study is definitive, but I don't think it's fair to say they're all questionable. Social science is by necessity fuzzy, but it can give very useful information.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
I only gave it for the entirely non-statistical purposes of painting the picture, which might help people to understand that condom induced impotence actually happened and it wasn't enjoyable, and it alienated me from them entirely.
I think it didn't help that you were a little oblique about the impotence bit and I (and a bunch of others) then assumed you were just not trying very hard to put them on, which set things off in an adversarial manner. Such is the internet. I think we actually are agreeing on the broad outlines of how sex education could be improved (and that it really needs to be.)
And Lucy, I'm sorry for assuming from your name that you're a woman. You being a man who prefers condoms over other contraception hadn't occurred to me until you said as much. It makes your insistence that everyone else should do the same a little more understandable.
...I. Er. Wha?
I know it's easier to just say "always use condoms" and pretend that that is all the information that people need. I don't deny that. What I deny is that stopping there is desirable.
No, okay, you actually aren't reading anything anyone is saying here. That makes a bit more sense then.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
While I was at Family Planning they asked if I needed any condoms, and I got some extra-large ones on a hunch. Sure enough, my partner had never tried them or even thought to, and he said they were significantly more comfortable and easy to use.
Do the extra-larges come under the 144 for $3 deal? It would definitely be helpful if the question of size were brought up when you asked for a prescription for condoms, which in my experience it isn't. More info about what normal, large, and small sizes *are* for penises would also be really handy for kids. And about the diversity of genital appearance in general - useful both for self-esteem and ability to spot real abnormality. I dunno if that's in the curriculum now, I don't recall it when I was in school.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Emma Hart,
You can’t possibly know which kids are the non-straight non-vanilla ones, but it doesn’t matter because EVERYONE benefits from exploring a broader idea of “sex”.
I just cannot conceive how utterly boring sex would be if I thought that it consisted solely of Tab A going in Slot B. (I understand this is a very big problem for people who Save Themselves for the Very Special Wedding Night, but don't educate themselves on more than the bare mechanics of, well, penis-in-vagina.)
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to DCBCauchi,
I’d like to hear from the guy who actually prefers them and would wear them even in a monogamous and trusting relationship. Or the woman, for that matter.
That would be my relationship, and a few other people I know. Not everyone's cup of tea, but - anecdotally, admittedly - I know a few women who prefer them for reasons of hygiene, and others who just really can't afford to get pregnant (including me). Guys generally seem prepared to go along with it, even if it's negotiable.
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OnPoint: Transcription of new Rick Perry…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
A lot of it seems to be attributed to all the litigation associated with it. Also, American industry has faced employee health insurance costs that other industrialised nations don’t.
Mostly it comes down to the fact that 30c in every American health dollar goes to administration, v. 2-3c in nationalised systems. I went to the A&E once here. I was dealing with bills from five or six different providers, coming over a period of months. This necessitated five or six different claims to my insurer. It's a *mess*, and an expensive one.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
Do you have any statistics to the contrary? Show me the statistics on why it is that condoms don’t get used, and in particular when it results from male lack of interest. Show me that you’ve done any research into the matter at all. All you’ve done is repeatedly deny my experience is of relevance.
Check the references I already provided. I won't pretend to have done in-depth research but I did do a few keyword searches on the big medical databases and none brought up male inability to use condoms or severe distaste for them as major factors in heterosexual condom non-usage. (I didn't check the papers focusing on homosexual behaviour, as that hasn't really been where this thread has gone.)
I may be misreading it though – it’s not clear to me what the base rate of people who have been infected at some time during their lives was – the data seemed to be saying how many are infected now. Any insights from your scientific mind would be helpful.
STDs suffer from chronic underreporting and discovery, because of their often asymptomatic nature. Those data, as I understand it, are for infections *in a particular time-period*. When you add in those who are un-diagnosed or infected over their lifetimes, rates are going to be much, much higher than that. The rates I've heard bruited about are in the 25-30% range for young people in NZ, depending on ethnicity and area. Whatever the exact figure, it's way, way higher than it needs to be.
I’m not entirely sure what you meant in this analogy by riding a bike or taking a bus, however, because it seems to be suggesting that I should have been taught simply not to have sex, or perhaps to have it only with my hand, or the girls hand, or only when I’m already somehow in a committed relationship. Can I ask you to elaborate on what you meant by this?
Well, yeah, that. If condoms impair the experience that much for you, then have non-penetrative sex or have sex in committed relationships where alternative contraceptive methods and STD testing are options. PIV is hardly the be-all and end-all of sexual experience, after all. If it is for you, and condoms make it not worth it - well, as you said earlier, casual sex in the modern environment (any environment, really, STDs aren't novel) isn't for you.
You can't expect or ask people to have unprotected sex with you. The judgement of whether someone is safe, STD-wise, is not one people should be asked to make. For that matter, you're at the same risk making that judgement about them (and about their contraceptive status, if you're a guy and they're a girl.) Sometimes it'll be fine, individually. Over a population it won't be.
“Show me evidence” seems like a dismissive response to the honest sharing of experience.
When discussing sex education, I am entirely comfortable calling the anecdata fallacy. One person's experience is not enough evidence to change the overall message about the necessity of condom use. Broadening the message, sure, but people have been throwing around terms like "challenging the essential nature of condom use", and...that essential nature remains, for casual penetrative sex. And I feel like that's not really being acknowledged.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think sex ed should confront that and say, well, if that’s the case, here’s what you can do. I don’t think there are many young men who’d say no to a nice hand job.
Isn't that the argument we've been making for about five pages now? Although admittedly I was using language like "explore other sexual options", rather than "nice hand job".
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OnPoint: Transcription of new Rick Perry…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
The biggest problem the American Govt. has is the fact that it can’t afford to pay for what Americans need because Americans would rather have a Jet Ski than good health care for their sick and elderly, would rather coddle the rich than help their neighbour.
Spoilt brats if you ask me.Not entirely fair, about the healthcare. If the US government were spending what it spends on Medicare/Medicaid for a standard first-world nationalised healthcare system, they'd have a pretty good thing going. The problem is how the money's spent, not that they don't spend enough. They actually overspend by quite a bit, because the whole system is just so inefficient (and devoted to producing profits for health insurance and drug companies.)