Dr. Hess wrote:The last study I saw said condoms were 30% effective in preventing the spread of HIV. That was based on looking at "couples" and not some lab study of effectiveness "when used properly."
Regarding sex ed in general, I think it is a good thing to teach children old enough for it. However, the society we are in has created a lot of problems with this. Here's an analogy, which, of course, is way too hard for Salanis to understand, but I'm sure the rest of you will get it:
You take 15 year olds. You give each of them a squad automatic weapon (machine gun). Outside of school, the children are bombarded 24x7 with images of the great fun of firing a machine gun. Machine gun usage is used to sell everything from shoes to food. Every movie is based around the great joys of machine gun firing, especially at people. The internet has so much machine gun usage all over it that it is difficult to even research anything from cars to breakfast cereal without being exposed to large amounts of machine gun firing. Then, you mandate a class for them to take in school. In this class, they are shown how to load the magazine, insert the magazine, rack the bolt back, pull the trigger, and a brief mention of the safety, which may or may not work on this particular weapon (pretend it's a French SAW). No mention is made of the consequences of pointing the machine gun at people and firing, as that would be "teaching religion" or morality and the school wouldn't do that. There's even a group of people who like shooting other people with machine guns that think that teaching the children machine gun usage like this is just great, and they make sure that only machine gun usage is taught, without any consequences of shooting people or other alternatives like "keep your gun safe until you need it." What do you think the children will do?
That's the problem we have.
I'm sorry Dr. Hess, but I see the machine gun analogy as a strawman (also rediculous, but I'll ignore that for the sake of arguement). Sex Ed is not like handing a person a loaded gun, showing them how to use it and then sending them off with images of people happily firing at each other. First, adolescents already have the gun, its already loaded and they have enough instinct to figure out how to use it. Sex Ed (by parents or by school) is a way to tell them what might happen if they use it improperly, where there are shooting ranges to practice without risk (religious types might crucify me for that one) and what safety's they can put on the gun to prevent hurting innocent bystanders (god that sounds rediculous, but its the best comparison)
Also, is it possible in your studies of couples and condom effectiveness that the couples (and or their partners) lied to you about condom usage?
). I know there is variation in any statistics, but I am sorry a 30% failure rate seems beyond all common sense. As a note, the failure rate has a LOT more to do with procedure rather than actual mechanical failures (kind of like the Explorer tire problem was almost more of a driver / loading / suspension problem than a tire problem).
