This is a very sex positive campus. Trojan even rated us fifth in the country on their Sexual Health Report card in 2012, climbing all the way from 32nd in 2010. We have awesome resources like Sex Out Loud and the Campus Women’s Center. However, I still see a problem in our sexual health future: We are way too reluctant to use condoms. I have so many friends who claim to just not like them and that is why they do not use them. The birth control pill, they say, is enough. This excuse is infuriating to me. Latex allergies aside, there is just no comparison between the slight differences in sensation when using a condom and the risks one takes going without one.
Our teen pregnancy rate and STD rates are off the charts in the United States compared to countries in Europe. In a 2006 study, teen pregnancy is three times higher in the U.S. than it is in Germany or France, and four times the rate of the Netherlands. Compared to Europe, HIV and other STD rates are higher in the U.S., while condom rates are, predictably, lower. According to the same 2006 data, 62 percent of all females in the U.S. use the male condom. Another study by the Guttmacher Institute claimed in 2010 only about 10 percent of women ages 15-44 use condoms. With that gap in mind, The Guardian released a data set that could put the United States to shame. India has a 51 percent condom usage rate for people ages 15 to 44. Uganda has a 53 percent usage rate. Places like Colombia, Ghana and the Dominican Republic hover around 30 percent. France, the Netherlands and Germany are between 70 and 80 percent for overall usage rate.
A 2010 New York Times article claims condom use is on the rise in the U.S., but we still trail behind many countries. Why are we still not getting with the program? Regardless of what the statistics truly are on contraceptive use, the STD rate speaks for itself. According to the latest data from the Center for Disease Control, 20 million cases of STDs are contracted each year. Gonorrhea and chlamydia are on the rise. Herpes is said to infect most of the United States’ population at this point.
This is not just meant to be terrifying, but also realistic. Most people are smart enough to use some form of birth control because we, as educated college students, know it takes one time to get pregnant, so why are we so casual about STDs? Because most of them are treatable? I met a female, University of Wisconsin-Madison student this summer who did not know some STDs were treatable and that led me to blame a third party for this supposed “dislike” of condoms: our education system. We were not educated to like them. Condoms were introduced to us as something we should use if we have to have sex, but we should not have to have sex. Many of us were taught very little sex education or just abstinence in school. Some of us, even in this generation, were taught that sex should be reserved for marriage. Sex was weird to even talk about.
So condoms became the embodiment of that awkwardness. Possession of condoms proves we have sex and that yes, we are afraid to catch something. This might also contribute to inconsistent data on usage. People can easily lie in surveys if they feel uncomfortable with the questions. It should not be that way. We need to get over not liking how condoms “feel.” Because herpes, chlamydia, and syphilis do not “feel” good either. We need to get over the awkwardness and embrace condoms as an important part of a mature, modern sex life. In documentaries comparing sex education in Europe and the United States, it was found sex is much more accepted in many European countries. Sex is expected, acceptable behavior in young people and that behavior comes with condom use. Every young adult who chooses to have a sex life in these other countries is given all the facts and knows how to be safe by using a condom when they have sex.
No, not everyone needs a condom. If you and your monogamous partner have been checked and declared free of all STDs and STIs by a physician and there is another form of contraceptive in play, it is probably not necessary to use a condom, though it cannot hurt. If latex allergies are a problem, places on campus offer latex-free, cost-free condoms. Never fall for that he is “too big” joke, either. Try to wrap a condom around your forearm and see what happens, it will fit to the elbow. As far as believing you have never had an STD or trusting your partner when he or she says they have never had one, I have one word: asymptomatic. Many if not most of these diseases or infections do not reveal symptoms. They remain dormant in your body and you can pass them without ever knowing that you did. If that was not enough of a bummer, the book used in this university’s human sexuality class teaches that 15 percent of women have cheated on a partner, and 25 percent of men have too.
Condoms are not 100 percent guaranteed safety against pregnancy, STDs, midterms or anything else that might scare you, but we all need to stop making excuses. Educate yourself and please just use a condom.
Do you use condoms on the reg? Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
