Christians and counseling those with STDs

[agricola]

I think you are right - in my experience, women (as wives and mothers) are very good about making sure husbands and children get health care, but not so great at taking care of their own health, and singles (male and female both) are mostly pretty poor about taking themselves to see the doctor regularly.

Even students, with tables and brochures and 'student health' - they are sometimes bad about self-care as well. My youngest ended up with double pneumonia despite all kinds of warning signs because she was 'too busy' to visit the clinic and had 'too much to take care of' to rest up and take care of herself, until she was really truly seriously ill.

[B.H.]

You know I was reading a medical report published back in the 20's which stated the STD rate was like 20% of the population. They have been around for a long time and probably a lot of folks had them.

[chrisso99]

I think it's a pretty safe bet that human sexual behavior is pretty much a near constant. It's only the degree to which it is overt that changes significantly. If god wanted people to only have sex with one person of the opposite sex in their whole lives- why are people wired so differently? I'm not saying it's ok to give in to animal instinct all the time, but why do we even have the animal instinct? This is one of the things I pondered in my younger days when I was still trying to pretend to believe in Yaweh. Trust me, as a 19 year old male "dating" an attractive preacher's daughter at Harding, it was a profound thought. As a 36 year old male in a decade-plus long monogamous marriage (not married to a preacher's daughter or anyone in the CoC), I still think it's a valid point. If Yaweh were real, I'd be pissed he stacked the deck against me. I also think that if I had been a virgin at marriage, it would be even harder to be in a monogamous marriage. At least I don't have the allure of the unknown fantasy. I have some friends and relatives who were virgins at marriage. Based solely on my anecdotal experience (which is NOT data, I don't know if data exists on this, and I'd be curious to see it, if anyone has any) they have more marriage failures than the people I know who had regular sexual experiences inline with our modern society.

Oh, and I never had an STD. Never really worried about, because I knew how to prevent them - but even if I hadn't, I still would have had sex.

[KLP]

That is interesting. I would guess that the divorce rate among Amish and Mennonite groups is pretty small, but it does occur. And they certainly are not inline with modern society. I wonder what rate of partners they have prior to marriage and also the amount of STDs. It is pretty closed society, so maybe that keeps STDs down or maybe it is rampant or maybe they tend to be monogamous. But it would seem if STDs were rampant in these communities that it would be newsworthy or stock material for comedians.

[chrisso99]

I almost caveated my statement with some small extreme communities who are very controlling of individuals may succeed in keeping sex rates low - but I thought that would be obvious and there was no need to be overly verbose.

[agricola]

The biggest issue I've read of in the Amish communities is a very high rate of birth defects and retardation, due to a seriously high rate of inmarriage amounting to near-incest, due to the closed nature of the communities and the relatively small number of original founding families.

[KLP]

Yes I understand the Amish is an extreme comparison. My point was that Divorce rates seem to able to be effected by the particular society and community, it seems to be able to be controlled if there is a motivation or at least to have some component of "nurture" instead of just "nature".

[AtPeace]

chrisso said:

Given condoms have around a 99% effectiveness rate - you have next to no chance of getting an STD in normal circumstances.

Not exactly the correct effective rate when you take into account improper usage, which is a HUGE issue. (Although even the most well-intentioned and well-informed condom usage exposes vulnerable anatomy sections to secretions.) The breakage/slippage factor must be taken into account as well.

As the mother of someone who arrived compliments of a broken condom (best error ever made), I counseled my kids before and after their marriages that *one* form of birth control is *never* enough if you truly do not want an STD or a baby. And I've passed that advice along to numerous people through the years. Almost every time, I can see the lightbulb go on over their head....they simply never considered the possibility that one form is not enough if you're serious about avoiding problems or unplanned pregnancies.

Yes, condoms are better than nothing. But I believe people should be told to use something else as well if they're serious about their health.

[chrisso99]

It's simple math. If condoms are 99% effective (the 1 percent accounts for breakage and other malfunctions) and a disease has a 1% transmission rate per session of intercourse the chances of getting that disease during protected sex is .01%. That's 1 in 10000 or roughly the odds of you being killed in a car crash this year in the US. Clearly it happens but not something to lay awake worrying about every day.

Now take in the fact you probably wouldn't be having sex with someone who you KNOW has an STD. So there you have to factor in that only 1 in 3 people has an STD so your odds go to 1 in 30000. That's about the odds of dying in a car wreck sometime in the next 17 weeks.

[Ivy]

It's simple math. If condoms are 99% effective (the 1 percent accounts for breakage and other malfunctions) and a disease has a 1% transmission rate per session of intercourse the chances of getting that disease during protected sex is .01%. That's 1 in 10000 or roughly the odds of you being killed in a car crash this year in the US. Clearly it happens but not something to lay awake worrying about every day.

Now take in the fact you probably wouldn't be having sex with someone who you KNOW has an STD. So there you have to factor in that only 1 in 3 people has an STD so your odds go to 1 in 30000. That's about the odds of dying in a car wreck sometime in the next 17 weeks.

That seems extremely optimistic.......holy crap. Use more than one method of protection and be very, very selective about your choice of partners, people. Just trust me.