Condoms: The `safe sex' myth

The Boston Herald

The argument is that they're going to do it anyway.

"Nothing will stop kids from having sex. Nothing has ever stopped them. At least if they use condoms they'll be safe." That's what my friend says, and three 14-year-olds agree.

These 14-year-olds, like most American kids, are used to watching people "do it" on TV, are accustomed to reading magazines brimming with sexual advice, are constantly digesting ads that romanticize and trivialize sex, are always listening to "sex is natural, sex is good, not everybody does it, but everybody should" songs. Many get the same message when they see their parents leave home and them for a life of sex and ease.

Is it any wonder, then, that "doing it" is no big deal anymore. Not only permission, but acceptance, is everywhere.

Just for a minute, though, let's not argue the right or wrong of teenage sex. Just for a minute, let's put morality on the back burner. No impassioned pleas, no dire warnings, no you'll go to Hell and he/she won't respect you in the morning. Ban all this from argument.

There is no right or wrong, no Heaven or Hell, no forever. There is only now.

So now let's look at AIDS, a fatal disease spread through bodily fluids that kills every person who gets it. How do you get it? One of the ways is through sex.

Not too many years ago the biggest imperative for not having sex was fear of pregnancy. This one possibility kept millions of girls chaste. Then came the pill, and then the ready availability of condoms and then abortion, which meant that even a pregnancy was reversible. After all, a pregnancy could be terminated.

But there is no way out with AIDS. AIDS is not reversible. It's a death sentence, nobody is pardoned, everyone dies and it is this single, most important fact that is not being addressed, that is, in fact, being ignored.

Give the kids condoms, everyone is saying. Hand them out in the schools. Put vending machines in the restrooms. Make them easily accessible. Use them all the time and you'll be safe. This is the message being thrust upon our children.

But this message is a lie because condoms are not foolproof. They break. They fall off. They are subject to human error. Millions of people walking around this planet are indisputable proof that condoms fail, that they are only a means of preventing disease and pregnancy, not a guarantee.

Like a safety lock on a loaded gun, condoms fail. Every gun expert, everyone who knows anything about guns, cautions new owners never to store a loaded gun, never to depend upon the safety.

And yet, so-called AIDS experts dare to spread the message to young, impressionable children that by using a condom they will be safe.

Yes, they will be than they would be having sex without a condom, and yes, if they have sex then a condom must be used.

But the bottom line is they shouldn't be having sex at all. The behavior is far too dangerous and the kids far too young, too inexperienced, to recognize the danger of AIDS and assess it all by themselves.

What adults need to be telling young teens is that their lives are precious and that they have only one and that one incautious moment can destroy not just everything they've worked for, but everything they've dreamed. Don't do it. Don't take a chance. It isn't worth it. This is the message that must be spread.

"They're gonna do it anyway," the 14-year-olds say. But they say it only because AIDS to them is still someone else's problem. They don't know any real person with AIDS.

And even if they did, they still wouldn't worry because they believe that condoms prevent AIDS. Why would there be all this talk about handing them out in schools if they didn't?