From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: Passing out Condoms  (Was Re: Better Off Than Four Years Ago NOT)
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 92 21:18:25 GMT
Reply-To: mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Corp. Kingston NY

In article <1992Aug25.143848.25921@crd.ge.com> doel@crd.ge.com writes:
>In article <BtJL2I.K4z@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug25.131123.24352@crd.ge.com> doel@crd.ge.com writes:
>> >> In both cases using the device will make you safer.
>> >
>> >Better yet is not having sex at all. 
>> 
>>   Better?   Let's just say "safer".
>
>What's wrong with saying better?  You seem to be trying to take morality
>and/or values out of the discussion.  I think we can both agree that it
>is "better" for school kids to refrain from sex until their mature enough
>to be able to handle the implications and responsibilities of intercourse.
>The fact that it's "safer" is IMO one of the things that makes it "better."

The thing that's wrong with saying "better" is that it almost invariably
sidetracks the discussion. NO MATTER whether or not you think it's BETTER
for X to refrain from sex (whether X is school kids, unmarried adults,
priests, or ?), you can agree that it is SAFER (in terms of avoiding
pregnancy/diseases) to abstain. It merely focuses the discussion on health.

>> > Too often the advocates of condom distribution seem to refuse the
>> > best alternative. 
>>   Oh, ca-ca!   Condom advocates are realistic enough to know that
>>   people will have sex.  If you know some reliable way to prevent
>>   young people from having sex **PLEASE** post it to the net!
>I have no way of "preventing" young people from having sex, but I have
>a way of reducing the number of young people having sex.  Simply start
>a campaign in the mass media and in the schools similar to the "just
>say no" campaign against drug use.  We're starting to see the amount
>of drug use among the young go down because of this campaign.

Oh? Do you have any research, or even a plausible theory (beyond "common
sense") why "Just Say No" has worked with drugs, or will work with sex? Most
young people I know think the just say no campaigns are a complete joke. I
tend to agree, and regard the phenomenon as correlation, not causation.
Similarly, young people have been having sex since at least the time of
Hammurabi. I don't know if there was anything in his code outlawing it, but
if there was, I'll bet it didn't work. Millenia of social disapproval,
morals, and laws have not stopped young people from having sex. Pardon me if
I think the problem is a bit beyond a "just say no" solution.

>>   of a chance of helping to guide kids.   Moreover, compared 
>>   to when we were growing up, the popular culture places much
>>   more emphasis on sex.  In the 60's there were far fewer TV
>>   shows and rock music promoting promiscuous sex and those
>>   that did (e.g., the Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together")
>>   were considered scandalous.   Have you listened to any rap 
>>   music lately?  (I'm not blaming music per se, merely pointing
>>   out how promiscuous sex is deeply embedded in the popular
>>   culture).
>I agree whole-heartedly.  That's why I think we have to get the
>mass media on the side of reducing promiscuity.  So far, I haven't seen
>it.  There's little doubt in my mind that the images presented by the
>media go a long way towards shaping our values.  One movie or character
>by themselves don't do much (see Murphy Brown), but the continuous
>escalation of promiscuity in movies and television do eventually have
>an impact.

But the mass media are all owned by large corporations. They're *extremely*
conservative. They only produce what sells. The only value your average
record company exec (for instance) cares about shaping is that of his stock
options. This is very much the same flavor as Bush's twaddle about the
"cultural elite." Allow me to quote from an essay by Lewis Lapham in the
September Harper's magazine:
        ...As even Vice President Quayle must know by now, the manufacture
    and sale of America's cultural product is the work of very large, very
	profitable, and very timid corporations -- Time Warner, the Washington
	Post Company, Harvard University, Fox Broadcasting, Conde Nast, the
	Public Broadcasign System, Columbia Pictures. Such corporations define
	culture as anything that turns a profit--no matter how indecent the
	photograph or how tasteless the joke--and they seldom take chances....
		Of the 200 highest-grossing moveis that Hollywood releases every
	year, at least 150 must pass prior review by audiences deemed
	demographically correct. The film studios run test screenings in
	suburban shopping malls and then ask the people rounded up for the
	occasion to fill out printed forms: Was the ending good for you? Which
	characters were too distasteful? Did any scenes offend? Would you
	recommend the film to a friend?
		The Republican propaganda about the loss of American innocence
	blames the servant for the fault of the master and substitutes a
	fictitious cultural elite for the corporate elite that owns and manages
	the the country's news and entertainment. Unlike the anonymous and
	wraithlike figures dreamed of in the bombast of Messrs. Bush and Quayle,
	the gentlement in question are plainly visitble and easily named. The
	United States makes of business its culture, and of its culture a
	business, and at any fund-raising breakfast or White House dinner, the
	President and Vice President need merely look around teh room or across
	the table to discover the princes of darkness aobut whom they have heard
	and told so many mysterious takes. Who would have guessed that they
	would prove to be so pleasant, or so generous with their campaign
	contributions, or so knowledgeable about the golf courses in Palm
	Springs?
 
>> >> >	2) Handing out condoms encourages their use.
>>   Evidence, please!
>I don't have any, but I haven't seen any to the contrary either.
>To me, it's just common sense that if you give someone a condom &
>tell them that it will help them avoid disease and pregnancy
>(i.e. reduce some of the responsibilities that go with the act),
>that they'll be more inclined to have sex because it's physically
>pleasurable and the perceived consequenses are fewer.

This makes only very marginally more sense than claiming that people
shouldn't go to the dentist because it will reduce the consequences of
eating sweets. Seriously. Teenagers in the grip of raging hormones don't
*need* any encouragement to have sex. They're *going* to do it anyway.
Now, I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that there are *no* young people who
wouldn't find being given a condom the last bit of motivation they needed to
start having sex, but I would claim that the number is very, very small.
What's a good bargain to you? If 100 young people decide it's all right to
have sex because they're given condoms, how many pregnancies have to be
prevented among young people who are *already* having sex to make up for
that?
 
>
>> >> >	   ask yourself if you think we should be handing
>> >> >	   out IV needles in the schools for all the kids to use when
>> >> >	   shooting up.  Should we teach them to use the needles
>> >> >	   properly so they can avoid disease?
>>   If there was a serious IV drug use problem then absolutely yes!
>>   European countries that do this have a lower rate of increase 
>>   of AIDS infections than the US.  And if you're going to claim that
>>   this "encourages IV drug use" then again, I demand evidence.
>Again, I don't have any evidence.  Are you saying that European countries
>hand out clean needles in schools?  After all, that's what we're talking
>about.  Schools are where kids learn things.  In my opinion, we can either
>a) teach them not to do dangerous/irresponsible things, or b) teach them
>how to do the dangerous/irresponsible things in a less dangerous manner.
>Both are important, but option a is far superior IMO.

Option a) is superior ONLY IF it can be done effectively. The consequences
of not doing a) effectively and not doing b) are quite severe. It's fine to
say that we should do a) instead, but considering the risk, I'm sure you'll
understand if I insist that you show me some proof that it will work first.

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them
seemed to come from Texas.
	- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale"