Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: It's Complicated

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  • Gee, in reply to BenWilson,

    Which would get you in trouble these days, if you actually did it at a pool.

    Quite :)

    Many things that aren't STDs are serious. Many things that are STDs aren't particularly serious. They don't really hold any special place in the medical seriousness stakes..... To this end the endless stigmatization of young sex is a major cause of problems with STDs. It sets up a situation where the young are ignorant and afraid to seek help. It's a perverse outcome of our social treatment of the problem.

    Exactly. Not the most serious of illnesses, typically.* But going untreated because of ignorance/'shame' is the problem.

    I think my teens years would have been very, very different if societal reaction to sex wasn't such a major player in the frame. OTOH, it may also have reduced the interest in something that wasn't 'forbidden', from both sides of the equation.

    *but, obviously, HIV, untreated gonorrhea and syphilis, etc......

    Canada, eh • Since May 2011 • 78 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Gee,

    but, obviously, HIV……

    Yes, it would be a terrible thing to happen. Also very unlikely. Your chances of dying in a car crash are far higher, and we put children in those from before they are even born.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Gee, in reply to BenWilson,

    Yes, it would be a terrible thing to happen. Also very unlikely.

    Agreed. Sorry, wasn't trying to make a point there, just wanted to not minimise the struggle for people with sexually-transmitted HIV, or those with serious complications from other STDs.

    Canada, eh • Since May 2011 • 78 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Gee,

    Fair enough. It shouldn't be either minimized or maximized as problem, but seen for exactly what it is. I don't think it helps HIV sufferers for people to think it's worse than what it is, either.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Gee, in reply to BenWilson,

    Agreed.

    Canada, eh • Since May 2011 • 78 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    You also don’t really hear of many people dying from sex.

    You hear of plenty of people dying from diseases from sexual contact though.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Kyle Matthews,

    You hear of plenty of people dying from diseases from sexual contact though.

    In this country, some stats on that would be awesome. The main killer STD, HIV turning into full blown AIDS, killed no one at all in 2011. I don't know how to find out, really. mortality data for 2009 in NZ doesn't even show STD related death as a category at all, but I can't be sure that an STD related death wouldn't be reported under a different category, like pneumonia.

    Side note: It's pretty scary that intentional self-harm kills more people than motor vehicle accidents.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • linger, in reply to BenWilson,

    It’s pretty scary that intentional self-harm kills more people than motor vehicle accidents.

    Not so much. At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious:
    It’s impossible to get either figure down to zero.
    But it’s a lot easier to limit the latter by making and enforcing legislation.
    It’s a lot harder to limit the former, which would involve such acts as changing the social environment, & actually funding a decent support system.
    So you're comparing a mostly uncontrolled cause of death with a mostly controlled cause of death here.

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to linger,

    So you’re comparing a mostly uncontrolled cause of death with a mostly controlled cause of death here.

    This is all true, but what I find scary is just that the suicide really is that high.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews, in reply to BenWilson,

    In this country, some stats on that would be awesome. The main killer STD, HIV turning into full blown AIDS, killed no one at all in 2011.

    Even if no one dies in a year (and we're unusual with HIV, lots of other countries are losing people hand over foot), there's several hundred people being kept alive by a cocktail of drugs and their lives, and the lives of their families and friends drastically affected.

    I'm just not sure that an argument that there aren't really any downsides to sex is a good argument. Our sexual health clinics are full of people discovering some of the possible downsides to sex.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Kyle Matthews,

    I’m just not sure that an argument that there aren’t really any downsides to sex is a good argument.

    I'm not making that argument. I'm saying there's a balance of goods and harms in it, and trying to put in perspective the harms compared any number of things we do every single day and wouldn't think twice about, and yet can have deadly consequences. I'm arguing that the dangers of sex are way, way down the list of things that are harmful over which we make no restrictions at all.

    Which is not, repeat not, an argument that those other things should be banned, or better controlled. Each one is its own case, to be judged on its merits. Its an argument that the good of sex should not be ignored.

    It's also got very much derailed from what I was discussing, the topic of the thread, about teen sex. How the potential harmfulness of sex, whether major or minor, comes to bear on the age at which they should be allowed to experiment with it, I have not yet connected up. It's a non-sequitur that people get STDs. People get killed riding pushbikes, but we don't stop kids doing it. People drown all the time, but we let children swim.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • "chris",

    We’re back to kids/ children swimming? because teen pregnancy, exposure to STDs, parental consent required for under 16s medical treatment, minimum age of 16 for holding a full time job/ leaving school/ getting married/ leaving home = derail

    Emma linked to on the first page

    Police national youth aid co-ordinator Inspector Chris Graveson said yesterday children aged 10 to 14 could not be convicted of a criminal offence unless they had committed manslaughter or murder.

    Instead they were dealt with by the Family Court, which could make orders.

    After nine years in the job he struggled to remember cases of consensual sex between under-16s reported to the police.

    If they were lodged the police, under the act, were obliged to first consider other options, such as family group conferences.

    Which sounds suspiciously like underage couples being allowed to… experiment, without being criminalised. I’m happy to be corrected, unfortunately I can’t recall or google any recent cases of underage couples/ triples being prosecuted.

    location, location, locat… • Since Dec 2010 • 250 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to "chris",

    Which sounds suspiciously like underage couples being allowed to… experiment, without being criminalised.

    So long as the parents don't push for prosecution. Which isn't everyone being treated equally under the law, not everyone has the same parents. But it's good to hear that good sense surrounds these laws in human form, at least here, now.

    = derail

    I'm tired of the thread too :-). Over and out.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • "chris", in reply to BenWilson,

    I’m tired of the thread too :-)

    Not to stretch a point, but I do believe you are right Ben, it’s comical that the thrust of the law prohibits those most predisposed i.e. those with the unbounded energy and flexibility, while pharmaceutical companies profit enormously from our need to perform in variously decrepit states. Take care.

    location, location, locat… • Since Dec 2010 • 250 posts Report Reply

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