Sex in Today's World

*Mature Content*

I was listening to the radio a few days ago on the way to work. I was shocked when I heard a conversation between a woman and the DJ's. She was saying that she had in the past watched her boyfriend have sex with another woman. The DJ's asked if she had been jealous at all and she said that no, unlike most women she was able to differentiate between sex and a relationship. The DJ's, who were male, thought this was amazing and that they couldn't believe her boyfriend was no longer with her, because she was so amazing. To me, what she said as a slap in the face to women everywhere. Of course her boyfriend isn't with her anymore, he obviously didn't love her enough in the first place to devote himself solely to her. The fact that there are people out there who are okay with being used like that astounds me. How has it come to the point where sex means so little that the MAJORITY of American's seem to think that sleeping around is NATURAL?

I understand that I have what is considered to be a very "outdated" view on sex. I believe that you should have sex with one person and one person only for the entirety of your life. That is what I believe and I'm not going to apologize for believing it. I am even willing to understand the people who will have sex with multiple people throughout their life as they fall in and out of love. I will not, however, understand or condone the people who seem to think it's okay and normal to sleep with random strangers.

While reading the information given from the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) I saw that the biggest rises in STD's were in those people who were 15-24. They were also much higher in women then they were in men. I saw a random fact in a Womens's Day magazine saying that 25% of all Americans have an incurable STD. I thought that was shocking so I started searching for some more statistics online and I came across a webpage: www.avert.org. I was poking around the site and decided to check out the teen page to see what kinds of information they were giving the young people who seem to fall into this category of having the most STD's. I was literally shocked to find there is an entire page under the TEEN section for casual sex. It of course says that casual sex has risks but in one paragraph it says "As a young person exploration and experimentation can be very appealing and you have the right to have fun when you're young and to experience things that are unfamiliar and different. Being prepared will also allow you to carry on enjoying yourself and not have to stop due to some horrible STD, or becoming infected with HIV....being responsible doesn't mean being boring!"

So the website is telling TEENS that so long as the "protect themselves" they can have casuals sex so that they aren't "boring". Condoms are NOT 100% effective against pregnancy or STD's. On the FDA's website www.fda.gov they specifically say the only way to prevent STDs is to not have sex. They say "sex with condoms isn't totally safe sex, but it is less risky sex." To tell impressionable teenagers that all they have to do in order to not be boring and stay safe while having casual sex is to use a condom is just negligent! No wonder people of that age group have the highest rate of STDs.