Tag Archives: Sexually-Transmitted Disease

News

New study links morning-after pill to increase in sexually-transmitted diseases

3 Comments

From Physorg. (H/T Family Research Council)

Excerpt:

Offering the morning after pill free over the counter has not reduced the number of teenage pregnancies and may be associated with a rise in sexually-transmitted diseases (STIs), according to a report by experts at The University of Nottingham.

Professors David Paton and Sourafel Girma used local health authority data to study the impact that the introduction of Government-backed schemes to offer emergency birth control at pharmacies and without prescription have had on conception rates and the diagnosis of STIs among under-18s.

Their findings show that, on average, areas operating a pharmacy emergency birth control (EBC) scheme saw an overall increase of five percent in the rate of STIs among teenagers — 12 per cent in the under-16s age group. The study also found that EBC schemes may actually be associated with a small increase in the number of teens falling pregnant.

[…]Historically, a number of studies have been conducted looking at the impact of easier access to contraception and legalising abortion and a review of 23 of these reports in 2007 revealed that none found any significant decreases in unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates.

[…]The researchers warned that as the figures only show the number of diagnoses at GUM clinics, rather than the total number of infections of illnesses which can in some cases be asymptomatic.

Professor Paton commented, “Our study illustrates how government interventions can sometimes lead to unfortunate unintended consequences. The fact that STI diagnoses increased in areas with EBC schemes will raise questions over whether these schemes represent the best use of public money”.

Make having sex easier, and you get more people having sex more often. More sex means more STDs. Pretty simple.

News

New study on open relationships in the gay community

1 Comment

Story from the San Francisco Chronicle. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

A new study released this week by the Center for Research on Gender & Sexuality at San Francisco State University put statistics around what gay men already know: Many Bay Area boyfriends negotiate open relationships that allow for sex with outsiders.

[…]”I think it’s quite natural for men to want to continue to have an active and varied sex life,” said 50-year-old technology consultant Dean Allemang from Oakland, who just ended a 13-year-open relationship and has begun another with a new boyfriend.

“I don’t own my lover, and I don’t own his body,” he said. “I think it’s weird to ask someone you love to give up that part of their life. I would never do it.”

Hoff, who just received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue the study for five more years, initially started her research based on findings that HIV infection is on the rise among male couples.

“So much of the HIV prevention effort is aimed at a different set – men in dance clubs or bathhouses having anonymous sex,” she said. “HIV prevention might want to expand its message to address relationships; we have to look at risk in a greater context.”

In her study of gay couples, 47 percent reported open relationships. Forty-five percent were monogamous, and the remaining 8 percent disagreed about what they were.

Another researcher quoted in the story explains how same-sex marriage is compatible with an “open relationship”, and that this interpretation of marriage would be a redefinition of traditional marriage.

Comments will be strictly filtered in accordance with Obama’s laws restricting free speech.

News

British Medical Association opposes therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction

6 Comments

Here’s an article from the Sydney Morning Herald written by Polly Vernon, talks about Grindr, which is an iPhone application that facilitates anonymous sex between strangers in the gay community. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM) I want to talk about Grindr first, in order to set up the news story below.

Excerpt:

Ever heard of Grindr? If you have, I’m going to guess that you are male and gay; or male, technically straight and somewhat curious; or the straight friend of a gay man. If not, allow me to enlighten you.

Grindr (pronounced “grinder”) is a free downloadable iPhone app which, it promises, will help you “Find gay, bi, curious guys for free near you!” Grindr harnesses GPS, allowing you to establish who else in your direct vicinity is also using Grindr. It shows you — on a gridded display — who these men are and what they look like; it will tell you how far away from you they are standing; and it will allow you to “chat” them, if they take your fancy.

[…]Grindr was launched on March 25, 2009; now more than 700,000 (and counting) men in 162 countries are using it to phenomenal effect, if J, W, Kevin and the other gay men I’ve asked are any kind of a guide. “I’ve never, ever had so much sex in my life!” R told me gleefully. “I’ve probably had as much in the past eight months of Grinding as I have over the 20 years since I came out. Maybe more.”

[…]Others condemn it more directly. “Grindr’s addictive,” writes one man — the ex-boyfriend of a close friend — by email. “A lot of gay men have addiction issues . . . Things like Grindr . . . enable that sort of sex, sex which is compulsive and which dehumanises you; and means you in turn dehumanise the people you are having sex with.”

He puts me in touch with G, a man he met while seeking treatment for sex addiction. “I’ve lost entire weekends to sex,” writes G. “Downloading porn, going on Grindr, meeting men whose names I don’t find out, having sex; downloading more porn.”

“Low self-esteem,” says Todd. “I see it a lot in gay men – it’s inevitable after years of repression and shame. And what’s better for self-esteem than someone having sex with you?”

I noticed, in a Life Site News story, that people in Britain who would like to get therapy for their unwanted same-sex attractions may soon be blocked from doing so.

Excerpt:

The British Medical Association (BMA) has passed a motion asserting that therapy meant to treat unwanted same-sex attraction is harmful, calling on the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other professional bodies to repudiate such treatments and forbid them in their codes of practice.

More than two-thirds of the doctors who voted supported the motion. They also said that alleged cases of conversion therapy funded by Britain’s National Health Service should be investigated.

[…]The case echoes a similar suppression of therapies meant to help treat SSA in Spain. The Catalan government said in June that it would fine the clinic Policlinica Tibidabo if it was confirmed that it was carrying out such treatments.

Be sure and check out Wesley J. Smith’s ideas on how this will impact the culture as a whole.

See below for some research showing the differences between heterosexual relationships and same-sex relationships.

Comments to this post will be strictly monitored in accordance with Obama’s hate crime law.

Related posts