<p>StickerShock- the fact is that the “truth” often has little impact on young people. They are invincible and “nothing will happen to them”. This is true with alcohol, sex, speeding, whatever. I WISH all our “truth” and earnest conversations made a bigger difference. I’ve been trying for YEARS!</p>
<p>But you still try, right? You wouldn’t just shrug & tell your kids that (insert any behavior) has no consequences. Or imply it in any way. You’d do your best to pass on the truth & hope that it had some impact. It can have an impact with many kids.</p>
<p>StickerShock, there is a limited amount of time available for dialogue on sexual safety issues. It is a well-known fact that abstinence has statistically much less effect than other forms of sexual education. Given that, and also given the fact that in those layperson groups with less knowledge of sexual health issues, religious authorities tend to propagate the message of abstinence plenty (to little effect), for what reason should the medical community be devoting even more resources to it?</p>
<p>StickerShock, I don’t know whether your teens think that “condoms are the magic answer”, but I think 1of42 (a teen, apparently) has understood the medical information she or he has gotten well. And that view accords with what I’ve seen, too. I think that many teens conclude that the risks of HPV infection do not justify altering their behavior to further limit their exposure to it.</p>
<p>If what you are really worried about is HPV – and given the general slant of your posts, I don’t think it is – just talking about “abstinence” isn’t going to be nearly enough. What most teens think of as “abstinence” is not going to be fully effective to prevent HPV infection, either. And, on the other hand, if it turns out that chemicals that could be incorporated in lubricants would be effective to prevent HPV transmission, you may find that abstinence isn’t the only method for preventing HPV infection. HPV isn’t a “magic bullet” for abstinence, either.</p>
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Not in my house. There is no limit on the amount of time I will spend on my kids’ concerns. And if you are talking about limited time for sex ed in schools, is that really an excuse for giving false information out? I don’t think so. You wouldn’t stand for it in your kids math class, and these are life & death issues.</p>
<p>So I am stumped about the contradictory and dangerous messages that are conveyed to teens. And it’s not just HPV. Herpes is the most obvious STD that can’t be reliably prevented with condom use. JHS, I don’t agree that teens have been performing risk/benefit analysis to reach a well thought out conclusion. Sadly, the condom has been promoted as the quick fix, and the kids have no clue about how unreliable it is for disease prevention.</p>
<p>About condoms- when my son was a freshman, he came home one break and I went into the trunk of the car he uses (not his car) to get something. I noticed a roll of condoms, along with heavy books, spiral notebooks, backpacks, fishing equipment, and tools. Who knows how long they had been back there, but this is Florida and it gets a billion degrees in the trunk of a car that is not garaged. College students (and high school students) aren’t the most responsible people in the world, and they get a false sense of security as long as there is a condom around. They use alcohol one night, aren’t thinking straight, think everything’s OK because, hey, “I’ve got a condom”. Yeah, big deal, who knows how long it’s been melting in a 300 degree trunk. The <em>idea</em> was right, but the execution was wrong.</p>