chrisso99 wrote:So that whole having sex with one person means you're exposed to everyone they've ever had sex with and everyone they've ever had sex with etc... Is total propaganda nonsense. No STD has a 100% transmission rate or anything close to it. For instance herpes will only be transmitted 10% of the time over the course of a couple having sex for a YEAR. HIV has a transmission rate of less than one tenth of a percent per instance of vaginal intercourse (it's around ten times that for anal sex, which is still less than 1 percent).
Given condoms have around a 99% effectiveness rate - you have next to no chance of getting an STD in normal circumstances.
Also I don't think it's an ideal world to have sex with only one person in your whole life. Men (and women too, but to a lesser degree) are biologically and therefore psychologically programmed to have multiple partners. Monogamy is great once you're old enough and mature enough to handle it, which I don't think is nearly as likely if you've never gotten to indulge your natural tendencies in the past.
The transmission rate can be low but it is never ABSENT. Yes, you are having 'contact' even second and third hand (or more). SOME STD's are very easily transmissible and some aren't. Some diseases are very contagious and some aren't as contagious. Is that a valid reason not to be vaccinated (assuming the vaccine itself is 'safe')? No.
Did you miss the part where condoms are a form of birth control, which requires an understanding of the mechanics of sexual activity, aka 'sex ed'?
We 'control' our natural tendencies all the time. Why give 'sex' a pass? If I can learn to go to a toilet to empty my bowels, I can certainly learn to control my 'natural tendency' to f*k all and sundry passing strangers.
I do think the 'Biblical ideal' is 'one person' - AT A TIME. Monogamy or serial monogamy is the 'ideal'. What I DON'T think is that 'the ideal' is something that widely exists in the actual world, and therefore, 'the ideal' is not something that should be relied upon.
probably TMI - ahem. I did not 'indulge' and never did. DH is the one (and only), and at my age (past 60) I don't anticipate a flurry of orgies in my future, either. Blame (or credit) some of that on a coc upbringing, of course, and a great deal of paralyzing shyness.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.