A little followup...

...to this post on circumcision.

A new study has shown that male circumcision has a even higher rate of protection against STDs and HIV than expected, at 59%. It was previously thought to be about 50%. Of course, the argument about this meaning that circumcised men will not use condoms, thinking they are safe, has been trotted out again. Obviously condoms are much more effective than circumcision at preventing the spread of HIV and other STDs. They have about a 10% failure rate for HIV transmission in normal use-- meaning there's a 10% chance that a man who uses a condom every time and has sex with an HIV-positive woman will get HIV anyway. But a circumcised man who doesn't use condoms has a 41% chance of getting HIV from an HIV-positive woman. In addition, condoms protect women from HIV-positive men and circumcision does nothing for them.

This clearly means that circumcision shouldn't be touted as an answer to HIV, right?

Well, no. But those who are against circumcision aren't really looking at the real information here. Of course you can't tell a person who is circumcised that they are fully protected, they aren't. BUT. An uncircumcised man using a condom has a 10% chance of getting HIV from a positive woman. A circumcised man using a condom has a 4.1% chance. So an uncircumcised man is more than twice as likely to get HIV from a woman who is positive. That's pretty significant, and it could be used to argue that much the same way as people should use condoms AND hormonal birth control if they want to protect against pregnancy, because the risk is so decreased (condoms have a 14% failure rate, the pill has a 5% failure rate, so when you use them together there's only a 0.7% failure rate), men should both be circumcised and use condoms to prevent HIV.

However, even that's not the full story. Let's say you live in the United States, where 0.6% of adults (which we are assuming is your dating pool) are HIV positive. That means there's probably about a 0.6% chance that any given partner of yours would be HIV positive, if you don't know their status and you don't know if they have any risk factors, obviously the numbers would change if they were a drug user or something and obviously they would change in the other direction if they were a virgin.

Now, the risk of infection for an uncircumcised man from one exposure to an HIV positive woman without using a condom is 3%. So the risk for an uncircumcised man of getting HIV from a woman of unknown HIV status, without using a condom, would be 0.018%. The risk when using a condom would be 0.0018%. The risk for a circumcised man, using a condom, with a woman of unknown status, would be 0.000738%. Both are pretty low rates and the difference is actually only 0.001062%.

I'm kind of the opinion that the benefits in preventing HIV and other STDs is sufficient to outweigh the risks of any complications from the procedure itself, but probably not enough to warrant doctors encouraging patients to do so, so ultimately, it should neither be considered necessary nor harmful and should be up to the parents and their cultural and religious needs, until more evidence is in. Still, I find it interesting how the studies are being manipulated to support one side or another.

Also, if you are going to post comments, please be aware that I don't really care to hear middle-aged men blame their lack of sexual prowess on their circumcision. If your significant other hates your sex life, then however convenient it might be to blame something you had no control over, your time and energy would probably be better spent giving her a massage and engaging in some roleplay.

This concept of "wuv" confuses and enrages us

I know this is in Italy and I'm not supposed to be reading the news anyway, but this is ridiculous. A court in Italy decided to severely reduce a 34-year-old man's sentence for having sex with an underage (13 year old) girl because they decided there was "real love" between the pair.

First of all:

In Italy, the age of consent is 14, so this is like the equivalent of in the average US state (where consent is usually about 16) a 36 year old and a 15 year old. So sketchy, illegal technically, but don't think of it as quite the same thing legally as a 30 year old and a 13 year old in this country.

HOWEVER, the reason behind the sentence reduction was not "she was only a year away from being able to consent, so we'll reduce it on those grounds" but it was "they loved each other."

Here's the thing. The law says a 13 year old can't consent to sex, she can't consent to sex. Period. Well, she can, but it's invalid consent-- like if a completely plastered girl consents to sex, that's invalid (of course in that case, she may have had a standing consent with a guy that it was okay for him to have sex with her while she was drunk, like if they were dating. Someone who is underage could not have done that, since they have never previously been able to give valid consent). According to the laws of consent, when a person who is underage consents to sex, their words are essentially meaningless, and only affect whether or not the crime is "statutory rape" or just "rape."

And yet according to this Italian court, if the girl "loves" the man (maybe she did, doesn't matter) and he loves her, then her consent becomes valid. Despite the fact that nothing in her brain changes when she thinks she loves the man that makes her judgment better and makes her older.

Ultimately, though, what really bothers me is that this is a moral decision on the part of the judge. According to this judge, sex + love = okay, sex + no love = bad. And even though I personally agree, I don't think that that is a decision the courts should make. This is saying that a teenage girl who has sex with an older man because she thought he was hot and wanted to have sex was somehow coerced and unable to consent, but one who wanted to have sex with an older man because she felt she truly loved him was NOT coerced.

It's saying that women/girls would NEVER have sex willingly unless they loved the man and the man loved them (could also be saying the same for young men, but I doubt it; anyway, that's irrelevant). Which is not true and a moral judgment of women who have sex with people they do not love. If the judge feels that that is immoral, fine, but it shouldn't come into the courtroom. Judges should go by the law, not their own moral codes, if they live under a truly secular government, which Italy claims to have.

The best isn't great and the worst is downright dangerous.

I am writing something new, a short story about sexual education. It's not going to be published-- it's just to get out my frustration. Because I am frustrated. About the school system in this country, and how they teach lies and blatant falsehoods.

I get the urge to not teach children about sex in public schools. I get it. There's something to be said for parents teaching that sort of thing themselves, making sure that the kids know everything and are prepared. There's something to wanting to protect them from sexual relationships until they are older, even.

But lying? There is no excuse for a teacher to flat-out lie to a student about the subject matter they are teaching. I mean, a math teacher doesn't sit there and say "2+2=17 because I say so, and if anyone tells you otherwise they're lying." An English teacher doesn't say "Verbs go before the subject." Why can a health teacher say that condoms cause cancer?

And then, if they are honest and simply do not tell students the whole truth (ie don't lie, but don't tell them anything besides "it's best to wait"), it doesn't work and the teen birth rate is increasing. "But that means that we need to increase abstinence-only education! It's a failure of the comprehensive sex ed programs!" the abstinence proponents cry. If that's the case, why did teen birth rates drop steadily after the 90's when there was a massive campaign to teach children about sex, birth control and their own bodies, and the rise only happened after Bush implemented the abstinence-only education requirements to schools that wanted federal funding?

So if they teach abstinence, why aren't kids listening? These educators need to turn on the TV. When every channel and every song and every movie and every one of their peers presents sex as the best thing in the world, and their own hormones are telling them to do it as well, it's natural that they should give in. Abstinence-only educators tell kids not to have sex but they don't teach them HOW to not have sex.

Yeah, I know, that seems pretty obvious, right? You just don't have sex. But you'd be stunned how many kids think that anal sex isn't sex (when it has a higher rate of spreading STDs than vaginal sex) and withdrawal isn't sex (when it has a phenomenally high failure rate and there is a chance of getting pregnant even from pre-ejaculate) and that even if they do have sex, nothing can go wrong if their partner is "clean" and they use some ridiculous form of supposed birth control like douching afterwards (which pushes the sperm further into the vagina, thus increasing chance of pregnancy).

And parents don't teach their kids. Some do, sure, but most don't. They wait for the wedding day to tell their daughters to "just bear it" or slip their sons a dirty magazine and hope they figure it out. As a result, many women AND men think that women pee out of their vagina. I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for that kind of ignorance about human anatomy after a kid goes through twelve years of school. Not to mention how few people can find the clitoris, even their OWN clitoris.

So clearly we need comprehensive sex ed. Including, naturally, abstinence. BUT failure rates of abstinence should be quoted (while the perfect-use pregnancy rate of abstinence is 0%, the actual-use pregnancy rate-- the rate at which women get pregnant when they claim they have been abstinent or when they have taken an abstinence pledge-- is more like 54%), and even more importantly, kids should be taught that masturbation, athletics, yoga, etc can help alleviate desire to have sex and help maintain sexual abstinence. Part of that should be explaining how masturbation works, because while you would think it's a no-brainer, you'd be surprised.

We also need to teach kids about pornography, since they already have access to it. Kids need to understand pornography they might see and be taught to separate the realistic, good stuff-- usually amateurs-- from the fake, degrading, horrible porn one can find on the internet.

What else should all kids know, HAVE to know, about sex before graduation?

-Their own biology and the biology of the opposite sex, structure, terminology, function, and how to locate every single sexual part that is on the outside. This should include erogenous zones, etc.

-How attraction works and sexual orientation as understood by science.

-What, exactly, sex is; the advantages and disadvantages of having sex at various points in one's life, the different kinds of sexual intercourse, sexual outercourse,and foreplay.

-What consent is, what rape is, what gray area scenarios are and how to avoid them, what drug-induced rape is, what statutory rape is (including local laws), what intimate partner rape is, why rapes happen, laws about rape, and what someone should do if they are raped.

-What STDs are, how they are transmitted, symptoms, treatments, cures, and prevention with focus on abstinence and condom use, testing, and abolishing common myths

-What pregnancy is and how, biologically, a person can become pregnant; what sexual activities can result in pregnancy; why it's a good idea to wait to become pregnant until you are financially secure and independent; what are the best ways to prevent pregnancy (birth control); what are the worst ways to prevent pregnancy (myths); how to take a pregnancy test, what to do if you are pregnant (discussion of giving a kid up for adoption, abortion, or raising a kid on one's own with a LOT of help from the community and family).

-What to do if they want to become sexually active and how to know when they are ready.

-What to discuss with any and every sexual partner, like consent, age, contact information in case of a problem, STDs testing history, birth control discussion, and a discussion of limits (ie "I don't do anal").

-All about relationships, including what happens and what they should do if a relationship has problems or becomes abusive

.

When a sex ed class has all of that before a kid graduates or is able to drop out of school, I will consider it to be comprehensive. And I guarantee we would see immediate positive results-- fewer STDs, fewer date rapes, fewer teen pregnancies, maybe even fewer divorces and more tolerance over all-- if such a program could be reliably implemented with good teachers.

Casualities of Casual Sex

Here's the thing about casual sex: If you are informed and educated, healthy, your partner is informed, educated and healthy, and you both want it, then there is nothing wrong with casual sex.

If you and your partner are informed and educated, you will know not to drink or use drugs beforehand, to use birth control including but not limited to a condom (male or female, in case of accidental disease spreading), and not to expect anything from the other person afterwards except maybe another offer for "consequence-free" sex. If you are both healthy and mentally stable and use birth control there will not be any consequences. Thus, if that's the case, more power to you.

BUT. How many people, especially young people, drink or otherwise impair their judgement before having sex with someone they don't know well? How many don't understand birth control, or don't like how condoms feel? How many never check for diseases or know they have them and have sex anyway because they are impaired or they don't think they can transmit them via whatever they're doing? And how many go into it hoping that it will turn into something more long-term and are hurt when the other person doesn't call, or are having sex because they were abused or hurt in the past?

Maybe you are into casual sex and are none of the above things. But if the OTHER person is, you're in just as much trouble as they are. So go, have sex all you want, it is your choice; but please, do it with people you can trust. People who think there is nothing wrong with this choice don't seem to understand that in our world as it is today, casual sex with people you do not know and trust is very, very risky-- because you might get hurt, or you might hurt someone else.

That said, there is another problem from casual sex-- by making it an expected norm, we've labeled everyone who doesn't engage in it as either frigid or religious. The frigid/whore (or whipped/commitmentphobe) dichotomy is alive and well and it's perpetuated both by the "save it for marriage" types and the "sex please, and lots of it" types. Those of us who chose to only have sex in committed relationships, or to wait, often feel pressure from all sides to pick one or the other when in fact it is our body and we should be allowed to do what we want with it.

And almost everyone is guilty of it. If you've never heard of a party-girl type with many multiple partners and thought, "That's kind of... slutty..." then you've probably heard of some girl saying she'll wait for marriage and thought "She's just doing it because she's been brainwashed by her parents and her religion." Guys get it too-- they either sleep around a lot and are thought of as "afraid of commitment" or "misogynistic" or they never sleep around and they're "whipped" by some girl or a loser.

Sometimes I think humans MUST be designed to see the world in black and white. Nothing else explains why we are always so insistent that something can be one thing or another but not in between. Same as me or not like me but not in between. Democrat or Republican but not a mixture. Slutty or frigid but not in between. We actually have to fight that instinct. And we definitely should.