Javachick, have you ever read Blankets?

Not to get all finger-pointy but God gave rock and roll to everyone.

Yeah. Plus us Americans are guaranteed the right to rock. It's in the constitution or something.

I remember a conversation I had with some other girls in my dorm in college. One of them said that she was considering having sex with her boyfriend. I jokingly gestured toward the basket of free condoms on the side table and said, "Well, we know you'll be safe." She said something like, "Oh, he doesn't want to use condoms. And it's not like they actually work, anyway." And several other girls agreed, that condoms don't actually work, and that I'd been taken in by condom industry propaganda if I thought that they did.

(Mostly, they had totally out-of-context statistics, like the 10% failure rate with "normal usage." I'd been taught in health class in high school that that meant that, among couples who said that condoms were their primary method of birth control -- meaning that they usually used them, but maybe sometimes not -- 10% of them got pregnant. These girls had learned that the same statistic meant that, in real-world situations, as opposed to controlled ones where everything is done perfectly, 10% of acts of intercourse with a condom resulted in pregnancy.)

years later, the overwhelming majority of these kids deny ever having made such a pledge.

I'd be interested to know how many decide to make the pledge on their own, and how many are pressured by parents, churches, and so forth.

Mom and I got into an interesting discussion yesterday regarding the fact that I had to get a pap in order to get birth control when I was an older teen. Now they don't recommend pap's until you are over 21 or have been sexually active for 2 years.

It got us talking about how the care and maintenance of "the glittery hoo-ha of happiness" has changed and how that could have an impact on teen sexuality.

My favorite comment from tommy's Blair House article?

That disgusting, petty, nasty little goblin!! I hope he has gigantic boils on his arse for the rest of his life.

Somehow, this is making me giggle like a little girl.

The speech I gave my abstainant cousins before they left for college was, "You've set a difficult standard of behavior for yourself and that's always an admirable thing. But if for some reason you don't live up to that standard you can either a) go "crap, I messed up" and return to your former behavior or b) pay for it for the rest of your lives. Get some condoms, put them in your dresser, and never ever open them."

What's so difficult about that, people?

These girls had learned that the same statistic meant that, in real-world situations, as opposed to controlled ones where everything is done perfectly, 10% of acts of intercourse with a condom resulted in pregnancy.

Oh lord.

I am having a seriously eye-stabby day. And so are my coworkers! Whyfor, people???

Oh, and I think it's juvenile crime that peaks after 3pm, not juvenile Doing It. Sorry for spreading erroneous facts.

At my college, anyway, it was kind of hard to avoid getting condoms. There were some in the orientation packet, there was a basket of them in every dorm common room, and just about every group giving out freebies included condoms. One of my friends made a mosaic on her wall out of them, and it was at least two feet square. (And these were all ones that had been given to her, not ones she'd taken from the free baskets.)

FatCat 1, Owner/Tabby/Boston Terrier 0

I know I shouldn't find that funny, all things considered, but HEE!