Sexually transmitted diseases, or infections, or whatever wording you want to use, are considered to be serious problems. They are, indeed, serious problems if you find yourself with one - particularly the incurable, chronic ones.
There's no joke to be made about them. They are something you definitely want to avoid. Teachers, parents, and doctors have myriads of prevention methods, including having "safe sex," being informed about your potential partner's condition, and up to and including things like vaccinations. Of course, there is an important thing to note about sexually transmitted diseases, that being that there is a guaranteed method of avoiding them.
This method is of course considered "unworkable" by a large majority of people. It's simply unreasonable some will say. That method of course being, not having sex.
The very nature of sexually transmitted diseases is that you get them by having sex with someone who has one - who has it because they had sex with someone else who had it. Of course, other sexual activities can lead to acquiring these diseases, but the way in which these diseases are discussed is very interesting as they tend to ignore this reality.
They will discuss things like the possibility of some STDs becoming immune to antibiotics, the rising rates of contraction of these diseases, and the possibly of epidemic proportions as if they are an airborne virus that you won't be able to avoid. The media of course always intends to strike fear into people's hearts for ratings, but it's interesting because these particular diseases are actually 100% avoidable. There is a foolproof way to avoid them. If they were to become an epidemic, it could be stopped in its tracks in the blink of an eye if everyone simply did this one thing.
People just don't like this method. They just don't like the method that allows them to have a 100% chance of avoiding these diseases. The idea of not having sex in order to avoid potentially life threatening diseases is considered unreasonable by a large number of people.
This is patently absurd.
Of course, there is also another method with a 100% success chance that doesn't involve not having sex for the rest of your life! Only having sex with the same person, who is also only having sex with you, up to and including never having had sex with anyone else before that, will allow you to avoid contracting STDs from sex with 100% success while not resigning to lifelong celibacy. This is also considered unreasonable, of course, by those same people.
(Yes, unfortunately, some people can obtain STDs and other conditions that were sexually transmitted from their mother before they are born. This is a calculable risk as well that can be known ahead of time assuming you and your desired partner are honest with one another about it before you get married, which I would sure hope you are. My statement is still fully correct, as this would have been a condition you had before you were born and thus "contracting an STD from sex" is not occurring. Sneaky of me, I know.)
People will criticize methods like abstinence and waitin' til marriage, claiming they "don't work." This is the same as being prescribed an antibiotic, taking only the first dose, and then claiming it didn't work. Abstinence, when used properly i.e. actually being abstinent, does in fact have a 100% success rate. If you have sex you aren't being abstinent and it really should not surprise you that it didn't work. Any claims that abstinence has a less than 100% success rate are based off of a purposefully skewed representation of data and understanding of the concept. An infidelity-free monogamous marriage will in fact reduce the chance of either person involved from contracting an STD to zero. If you don't do that, then it doesn't work. Obviously.
Still, some people will claim it's unreasonable to expect someone to not have rampant, casual sex with dozens of strangers in order to avoid potentially life threatening diseases. This argument does not change reality - that reality being that abstinence does in fact work. If you're unwilling to use the method it doesn't affect the method's validity.
When you make choices, you are weighing the pros and cons of the choices you make. Or maybe you aren't thinking about it very hard - unfortunately, this doesn't remove the reality of the consequences of your choices, either. Whether you made a calculated decision to sleep with the guy who you didn't know had an STD or you just jumped into bed headlong, it doesn't change the fact that sleeping with that guy will probably give you an STD. That is reality.
Please note I'm not currently arguing for abstinence, saving yourself for marriage, and infidelity-free marriages. I do believe in and advocate for those things, but that is not the point of what I have written here today. The point here is that abstinence works. Failure to acknowledge that not having sex with strangers reduces your chance of contracting STDs to zero is a denial of reality.
If you want to accept the reality that having sex with strangers comes with the risk of STDs, but still choose to do so, that is your choice. You also have no room to complain when you get antibiotic-immune gonorrhea. Your actions have consequences.
No comments:
Post a Comment