intactivist stuff

[mockingbirdq]

Remember the studies last year that "proved" adult circumcision could help prevent HIV? Looks like that is not holding true, especially since the men having the procedure done incorrectly believe it means they don't need to practice safe sex and use condoms.

http://thecitizen.co.tz/newe.php?id=15389

I will say again. Education and encouraging safe sexual practices are the only real way to prevent HIV transmission. The majority of men in the US who are HIV positive are circumcised, and the rate is rising again due to a drop in basic safe sex education (abstinence only sex ed to thank for that).

Comments

[mockingbirdq.livejournal.com]

Well, most men who are now adults in the U.S. were circed as infants, so they are not choosing to now be circumcised as a preventive measure by any means. But men I know hear media reports that circumcision "prevents HIV" and think it means they don't need any other protection. The news reports on the study have been lax in pointing out the protection was mainly for female partners, and I haven't heard/seen a single report on the subject that even mentioned that it doesn't seem to help in male to male transmission.

You have to realize that for nearly the past decade, teenagers have been receiving abstinence only based sex education in school, with very little emphasis on condom use or any other STD/pregnancy protection. If there are any studies availabe (I'll dig around) they would show that the U.S. has always had low condom use compared to most industrialized countries anyway.

To be fair, even when I was growing up in the late '90's and 00's there was very little read sex education going on at schools. I had never even seen a condom until a safe sex presentation I attended at my university where they were given out, and I had already been somewhat sexually active by then. The US has never done preventive education for it's people well, and kids will even tell you that there is medicene now for AIDS so they don't need to worry @_@

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You are too far away to hear, but I am screaming.

I will one day find myself in a room with one of the leaders of the Christian Right, and I will have to leave immediately, or commit a felony, which no one ever wants to do in the US as that's a whole other bucket of crazy.

When I was a young woman in East Africa, I met several nuns who would hand out condoms to young men in a bid to curb the rates of herpes and gonorrhoea (I am so old that I am pre-HIV ;-) My dad asked one of them how they balanced this with the Pope's teachings.

They replied, 'The Holy Father wants what is best for his flock, even if he doesn't always know what that is.'

Spookily, I now wish those nuns were in charge of sex ed in your country.

Happily, I know a lot of sane American parents, though how you all became and stay sane is a mystery to me. I applaud you all!