Karen Rayne
adolescentsexualitytoday.blogspot.com

I remember as a kid being told that I should not talk to other students during class time because I would get in trouble.

I remember being told that I should not eat snacks before dinner, or they would spoil my appetite.

Perhaps what I most remember about these “rules” situationally is that I would somewhat routinely break them. There is a lot of things that people might be safer not doing; speeding and/or driving aggressively, for instance. There are even laws to forbid speeding, yet millions of people do it routinely. What does that tell us?

Being taught we should not do something is simply not enough. So, in addition to telling kids they shouldn’t eat snacks before dinner, we also teach them about healthy snacks. We teach people to wear seatbelts to protect them in case of an accident. We know realistically that many people are going to do it anyway. Why is it, then, that rather than encouraging teaching all of the options to protect people from STIs and HIV, there is this kind of push to teach the one that is most likely to fail? Clearly something is out of whack here.

The irony of the situation is that while these programs will teach about condom failure rates, they will not teach about their own.

How sad that the Bush government not only fails to understand HIV and AIDS issues but the policies are actually fueling the spread of HIV; instead of helping to put a stop to them!

Anyone who engages in sexual activity without a condom is at risk of being infected with HIV!

And we know from the earlier years when there were no drugs to treat HIV, that the use of condoms reduced HIV infections nearly to non existent. With the advent of drugs and lives saved, people have ignored the warnings of HIV infection and the need to use a condom. If condoms were a mainstay, we would not have over 43 million people infected with HIV. And I say 43 million, because the real numbers of HIV infection are not being told due to the fact that a large number of people are not even aware they are infected!