Where did you get that list?
A few weeks ago, the television program “The Doctors” featured high school aged students and their questions to the doctors about STD’s. Over and over, the parents and the doctors marveled at the prevalence of anal sex among teenagers. The teens seemed amused.
I could see the eyes of the teens glaze over every time one of the physicians said “Young people don’t realize that they are engaging in a VERY high risk behavior.” The repetition of the doctors’ warnings and the students’ blank attitudes finally made me realize that the young simply cannot conceive of anal sex imparting a higher level of risk than hetero sex because such information has been unavailable to them their entire lives. The fear of ‘stigmatizing’ the gay community has suppressed standard medical information to the point where teens do not heed or believe medical cautions about anal sex. So the list you provided was a suprise. Wonder if publicizing percentages of STD’s and types of STD’s per gay/straight community would influence the young to greater caution?
I met an ER doctor a while ago. Doctors call the list I posted “Lavender Diseases” due to the high number of cases unique to the gay male community.
Farrah Fawcett has no comment.
Wow. That is surprising to me! I suppose it’s about avoiding pregnancy, but I find it hard to believe that anal sex is a big part of teen sex! Maybe things have changed (a lot) since I was in school 20 years ago...
I think young folks can understand the threat, however, you also have to keep in mind the prevalence of the “immortality mindset” that almost all teens possess to one extent or another. I think that is why their eyes were glazing over. It’s not that they can’t comprehend disease, it’s that they don’t understand their own mortality, IMHO.