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The Politics of Condoms

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by rimrocker, Jan 10, 2003.

  1. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    I'm not a big fan of condoms, but in my younger, more virile days (during the height of the AIDS uncertainty), they were an absolute necessity. ;) Seriously though, I don't understand the rationale here. Wierd.
    _______________________________

    The Secret War on Condoms
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


    Three thousand years ago an amorous Egyptian couple (probably libidinous liberals) experimented with a linen pouch, producing the world's first known condom. Some right-wingers still haven't gotten over it.

    Over the last few years conservative groups in President Bush's support base have declared war on condoms, in a campaign that is downright weird — but that, if successful, could lead to millions of deaths from AIDS around the world.

    I first noticed this campaign last year, when I began to get e-mails from evangelical Christians insisting that condoms have pores about 10 microns in diameter, while the AIDS virus measures only about 0.1 micron. This is junk science (electron microscopes haven't found these pores), but the disinformation campaign turns out to be a far-reaching effort to discredit condoms, squelch any mention of them in schools and discourage their use abroad.

    "The only absolutely guaranteed, permanent contraception is castration," one Catholic site suggests helpfully. Hmmmm. You first.

    Then there are the radio spots in Texas: "Condoms will not protect people from many sexually transmitted diseases."

    A report by Human Rights Watch quotes a Texas school official as saying: "We don't discuss condom use, except to say that condoms don't work."

    I'm all for abstinence education, and there is some evidence that promoting abstinence helps delay and reduce sexual contacts both in the U.S. and abroad. But young people have been busily fornicating ever since sex was invented, in 1963 (as the poet Philip Larkin calculated), and disparaging condoms is far more likely to discourage their use than to discourage sex. The upshot will be more gonorrhea and AIDS among young Americans — and, abroad, many more people dying young.

    So far President Bush has not fully signed on to the campaign against condoms, but there are alarming signs that he is clambering on board. Last month at an international conference in Bangkok, U.S. officials demanded the deletion of a recommendation for "consistent condom use" to fight AIDS and sexual diseases. So what does this administration stand for? Inconsistent condom use?

    Then there was the Condom Caper on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control. A fact sheet on condoms was removed in July 2001 and, eventually, replaced by one that emphasized that they may not work.

    "The Bush administration position basically condemns people to death by H.I.V./AIDS," said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "And we're talking about tens of millions of people."

    Evangelical groups do superb work in Africa, running clinics for some of the world's most wretched people — like poor AIDS victims. So it's baffling to see these same groups buying into junk science in ways that will lead to many more AIDS deaths.

    (The scientific consensus is simple: Condoms are far from perfect, but they greatly reduce the risk of H.I.V. and of gonorrhea for men, and they probably also reduce the risk of other sexual infections — but more studies are needed to prove the case definitively. See, for example, the National Institutes for Health report at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf.)

    One study by the University of California at Berkeley found condom distribution to be astonishingly cost-effective, costing just $3.50 per year of life saved. In contrast, antiretroviral therapy cost almost $1,050.

    Yet the U.S. is now donating only 300 million condoms annually, down from about 800 million at the end of the first President Bush's term. Consider Botswana, which has the highest rate of H.I.V. infection in the world — 39 percent of adults. According to figures in a report on condoms by Population Action International, the average man in Botswana gets less than one condom per year from international donors.

    In the time it has taken to read this column, 28 people have died of AIDS, including 5 children. An additional 49 people have become infected. It's imperative that we get over our squeamishness, accept that condoms are flawed but far better than nothing, recognize that condoms no more cause sex than umbrellas cause rain, and ensure that couples in places like Botswana get more than one condom per year.
     
  2. Achebe

    Achebe Member

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    Is this a followup to 'North Korea Pulls Out'. Can we combine the threads?
     
  3. EddieGriffin

    EddieGriffin Member

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    Sex was invented in 1963?

    The thing I find weird about the article is that it doesn't mention pregnancy. Are they only supposed to teach that condoms preven STD's and not that they (for the most part) also prevent pregnancy?
     
  4. heypartner

    heypartner Member

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    Well, this is rim-rocker we are talking about, and I think he knows a thing or two about using condoms and screwing people by pulling out. But combining the two threads doesn't seem like it will work, as I said in the other thread, since Korea is such a limp-dick looking penis-ula, what would condoms have to do with them, and how could they "Pull Out" of anything. Were they ever really "in" the treaty.

    Anyhow, I wonder what Will thinks about this, given that he has a "forthcoming book on the politics of abortion."
     
    #4 heypartner, Jan 10, 2003
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2003
  5. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    Yes, I think we should try to convince North Korea that they could do more psychological damage to the US if they used their missiles to rain down tons of condoms on unsuspecting suburbanites.
     
  6. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    Get your mind out of the gutter heypee. Rimrocker is a legitimate basket-ball term used to describe a play where a strong, athletic man powers his ball through a hole with great force, leaving the receptacle quivering. I mean really.
     
  7. Achebe

    Achebe Member

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    my cremaster is pulsing. If you had mentioned the predominant ethnicity of basketball players, I think that I would have fainted. Time for a cold shower.
     
  8. mateo

    mateo Member

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    "Condoms are for sailors!!!!!"

    :)

    Condoms either work, or I just happened to get over my sterility around the time I quit using them.

    Wow what a quinkiedink!

    http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047426.htm

    This article by the CDC is quite supportive of condom use.
     
    #8 mateo, Jan 10, 2003
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2003
  9. Jeff

    Jeff Clutch Crew

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    A recent appointee to the Federal Drug Administrations panel on reproductive health (the group that makes recommendations to the FDA regarding contraception and other reproductive health issues) "advocates only natural family planning, or the so-called rhythm method, and opposes all other forms of contraception on pro-life grounds." That according to the Jim Lehrer News Hour from January 2.
     
  10. Isabel

    Isabel Member

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    Just to clarify, natural family planning and the rhythm method are <i>not</i> the same thing. If anyone wants more detail, let me know and I will explain.

    There are some conservatives who oppose birth control personally for religious reasons (i.e. Catholics), though by and large they don't want to regulate what everybody else does. Some methods are of more concern because they do not stop the egg from being fertilized - thereby creating a cell with unique DNA, which can be seen as the beginning of a new person. These methods just stop the egg from implanting into the uterine wall.
     
  11. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Ugly people discovered it in 1842 when they discovered beer.
     

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