Saturday, March 10, 2007

i go to spring break for the STDs

As spring break rapidly rolls upon the college students across the country causing them to vanish south of the Mason-Dixon line for some must needed relaxation after midterms, don't expect federal funding to provide free condoms as you leave your respective Floridian/Texan/Mexican (Yes I know Mexico wouldn't get federal funding...blah blah blah.....but it helps with the allegory of 3 am hook-ups) disco techs with your sweaty and hammered drunk not-so-significant other. Why, you ask??? Because all of the federal funding apportioned for young adult sex issues like this is already spoken for in the form of low-quality, expensive, and ineffective abstinence-only programs. Understandably, free condom handouts in the middle of the night amidst the thumping of Darude's latest single is not the adequate resolution to the continuing spread of HIV-AIDS, with young females especially at risk (Washington Post 2-24-07), Congress must halt seven years of federal funding for programs that use overly simplistic and biased abstinence-only tactics.
I feel I have a special insight on this issue, coming from both educational backgrounds:1. Catholic Schooling K-8 promoting abstinence and 2. Public High Schooling providing vast education on sex, pregnancy, and STDs. Taking both into consideration when making a sex related decision would obviously be ideal, however, our friends alcohol and lust seem to take over at the most inopportune moments(stumbling around the bar at last call.)
Arguably, the majority of bad decisions to not use condoms or have relations with a not-so-suitable partner come when alcohol(Watkins) relations have taken over the mind, i mean, Jager really was NOT needed...............But.......no matter how many tailcocks I have had throughout the course of a drunken marathon, certain pictures of certain things from a certain health/sex-ed class seem to take over my imaginative side of my brain. I don't need to include details here, we have all seen the pictures that make you a little queasy, at the same time making you a little smarter the next time a decision comes around, hoping you had the proper education. Abstinence-only programs refute opinions revolving around full-disclosure believers that wish to put the decision into the hands of the kid, the educated kid, not the the dumbfounded "what the hell is that" kid. Without prior knowledge of things like herpes, pregnancy, and HIV-AIDS teenagers won't be making the correct decision based on all relevant facts. Wait, that sounds familiar, oh yeah, that's how the law works:you make a decision based on all relevant facts, not the ones that shelter our kids and keep them closer to adolescence longer than necessary. No kid has to be in the dark about this Congress, so stop paying for it to happen

No comments: