Posts by Moz
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
Has anyone used a femidom, or had sex with someone who did? Reports?
They suck. A lot. The only redeeming feature was that it sucked for her as much as it did for me. So we got to have the "wow, sex with significantly reduced sensation really isn't a lot of fun" discussion. Also, the mechanics could charitably be described as humorous. I mean, this was a woman who had used a diaphram successfully for some time so it's not as though "down there" was a mystery. And I have a few ideas about how this stuff works. But it still took a lot of instruction-reading and trial and error to make it work. Once we had that down it was just "sex in gumboots".
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
No-one is arguing for teenagers to not be told things.
Count me as saying that teenagers should not be told things. Specifically, things that are known not to be true, even when those lies might be effective. The lies would need to be significantly more effective than truth, IMO, to even be considered. If you're open to teaching known falsehoods, why stop at "condoms work"?
I appreciate that there are simple questions you will not or cannot answer. But refusing to discuss things with adults, here, makes me wonder just how open you are to discussing those things in a sex education context.
They are arguing for them to be told that for them to achieve maximum safety from STDS, while having penetrative sex, they must use condoms. You have failed to come up with any argument against that. They are the only thing that works.
Well, other than me saying that you're mistaken and giving examples. Which you keep ignoring in favour of chanting "condoms are the only thing that works". I say condoms don't work. They may work less badly than most of the alternatives, but that's different from, as you put it "they are the only thing that works".
Things that do actually work: femidoms and dental dams. Both are, as far as I can discover, almost 100% effective at preventing both pregnancy and STD transmission (excluding insect STDs like scabies and nits). Femidoms even work for PIV sex. From what I can see the rate of HSV-2 transmission between condom users is between 25% and 50% of that between non-condom users, so they do have some effect. But between femidom users it's thought to be zero (no cases are known). Unfortunately there are also suggestions that HSV sufferers are less likely to use condoms during episodes, making those stats more shaky that I'd like (unfortunately this is a result of me emailing and asking questions because the info wasn't on the web, so I don't have a link).
I know it's easier to just say "always use condoms" and pretend that that is all the information that people need. I don't deny that. What I deny is that stopping there is desirable.
And Lucy, I'm sorry for assuming from your name that you're a woman. You being a man who prefers condoms over other contraception hadn't occurred to me until you said as much. It makes your insistence that everyone else should do the same a little more understandable.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Speaking of unhelpful things to tell kids? Yeeeeeeeeeeah. That.
OK, apparently I'm unusual in preferring reality-based sex education. You know, "now with actual facts". And I sat there in high school going "I know you're a PE teacher but FFS, this stuff is pretty basic". What I learned was that our maths teacher was a more reliable guide to sex than the official sex ed teacher. And that a pregnant 15 year old looks really, really dumb, even if she was in the academic stream.
So, what do you do when one kid says "condoms are not allowed by my religion, so my parents use the rhythm method. How does that work?" And do you mislead about how ovulation works so that it looks as though women are fertile more of the time, or do you just hope that kids don't put the picture together?
And do you pretend that the STDs that can be transferred when condoms are used, don't exist? Or that condoms stop them? Do you mention that condoms can break? If you mention that, do you explain that that means STD transmission or do you just pretend that the morning after pill also magically cures STDs as well? Or do you just prevaricate and change the subject, because this is all too advanced?
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
My friends t shirt started me off saying " getting all jiggy on it "
Those t shirts on women who are all jiggly with it are very distracting.
Also, "I could kill you with my brain" is a very bad thing to write across your boobs.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Nat,
concupiscent
Up for it has fewer syllables. Although the connotations of concupiscent are quite pleasant, I fear that too many people would star blankly and that might kill the moment. Plus, the ex-catholic girly might think I wanted her in her old school uniform again.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Nat,
"horny" is the most cringeworthy word on earth... Good substitutes?
Up for it? Down for it? Wet'n'wanton? I can't think of a one-word substitute, and am annoyed that "sexy" is such a passive term.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Danielle,
I wonder if I am alone in thinking that "horny" is the most cringeworthy word on earth.
For some reason I just remembered that "beating my meat" is the most offensive sexual metaphor I can imagive. Anyone approaching my genitals with a meat tenderiser is going to get a vigorous rebuff.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, to be safe, they need to be doing it when they're not horny, and using a condom. I can recommend the contraceptive power of this approach.
I thought that was why sex educators always try to emphasise that your parents have sex? "kids, when you think about having sex, think about your parents having sex". Should work wonders.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Russell Brown,
As noted, everyone should be careful with language in this thread.
Sorry, point taken.
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Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
are you suggesting that condoms are not effective at preventing STDs
Exactly. Condoms can help prevent some STD transmission. "condoms prevent STDs" is false, but easy to convey on a billboard. I think sex education shouldn't be limited to billboards. I gave examples.
I feel like that's not what's being said here?
I haven't seen the nuance in the condom discussion, and I was responding to a very specific comment that condoms stop STDs. Which is so utterly false that I would be surprised to see it had I not been overexposed to such nonsense in the past.
Or at least, what I've been trying to argue is that there are very specific situations - i.e. penetrative sex where STD/contraceptive status isn't mutually confirmable - where they are essential,
Arguably, and that in itself makes your statement false. Lying about what condoms do isn't helpful. Talking about things in terms of risk is much more useful, and I would expect it to lead to better outcomes. Kids are not stupid, and once a couple of kids in the class start saying "my friend got pregnant when the condom burst" it's game over for the "condoms are the solution" mantra.
"condoms make pregnancy less likely" needs more explanation, but at least it's honest. And it feeds into a bunch of stuff that has to be discussed anyway. If two people have unprotected PIV sex once there's a small chance one of them will get pregnant, and a small chance one or both of them will catch one or more STD's. If they use a condom some of those chances drop, but not to zero (the chance of pregnancy is probably already zero since women are fertile less than half the time).
Oh, and for the record, STD status is never confirmable. Claiming otherwise is usually an indication that the person misunderstands what tests do and how they work. Trivially, an test can show infective status at the point when the test was carried out, and by the time the results are known that status may have changed. Testing is not a substitute for trust, but the contrary is not true either.