rogress
is being made in the continuing efforts to isolate and eradicate the AIDS/HIV
virus, but two decades after a measurable number of cases surfaced, the cure
remains elusive.
The threat of contracting this deadly, incurable
disease remains a strong deterrent to unprotected sexual activity and one
would think the disease a discouragement to "hooking
up" as well. After all, contracting the disease is currently equivalent
to a death sentence with no fixed execution date.
The cumulative AIDS statistics (June 2000) from the Center
for Disease Control (CDC) have New Jersey ranked fifth in the United States,
with 41,245 reported cases. The adjacent metropolitan areas of NYC and
Philadelphia report 117,792 and 18,348 cases respectively.
Though serious and certainly to be avoided, other
sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphilis are
treatable, so don't generally include the ultimate
complication that AIDS does. Perhaps the most common of the STDs is Herpes
Simplex II, which necessitates refraining from sexual contact during an active
outbreak. The CDC has a complete list of
STDs with charts and slides
that will hammer home your responsibility for candor with past, present and future sexual
partners and your expectation of the same from them.
Practicing unprotected sex (even once) puts you at a very high risk of
contracting one or more of the above and carries the added risk of
pregnancy for women. While not generally thought of as life
threatening, an unplanned pregnancy is certainly life changing,
requiring deep introspection to reach a tough decision on which path
to take. Hardly the same as the relatively routine decisions about
which major or the credit load for next semester. The alternatives
include living together, marriage, single parenthood, abortion and
adoption.
We
see then, that a casual "hook up" can easily escalate into much more
than either party bargained for if the proper precautions are ignored. Though
the responsibility for those precautions is that of both parties, according to a
National Marriage Project study at Rutgers, increasingly that responsibility is
left to the woman, "If we don’t insist, they say, the guys won’t voluntarily use a condom."
Still, despite the dire consequences, another woman was quoted, "When you’re
drunk, you’ll let him do anything." This brings an ancillary consequence into
the picture in the form of self-esteem issues.
STD Prevention
Abstinence or Contraception?
The
invincibility of youth, rather than a lack of awareness or knowledge of proper
contraceptive use, appears to be the main consideration when puzzling over why
anyone would choose to ignore these consequences.
The best, and only sure, method of prevention is abstinence; but is that a viable,
or even desirable solution? Perhaps it is - statistics from an
Institute for American
Values (IAV) study indicate:
- Less than
half of college women (40 percent) have "hooked up" and;
- Only 10
percent report more than six encounters.
With up to 40 percent of the women finding
abstinence
viable, (and it's probably safe to say the parents of the other 60
percent would find it desirable as well) the idea may be gaining favor. The
abstinence stance of a number of pop singers may be a contributing factor as
well.
After
abstinence, the next best defense against disease is to follow the proper
procedures in the use of the various contraceptives, keeping in mind that "the
pill" is only effective against pregnancy. Many of the resources included below
contain good information to review before your next potential sexual encounter.
