Sex Rant

It amazes me how little the public knows about HIV and AIDS after 20+ years of managing and mismanaging the crisis. This is all apropos of a conversation I had with one of my math students yesterday. He had chastised me for putting a paper clip in my mouth--kinda nasty, I know, but I held it between my teeth, not my lips--because "what if somebody who had AIDS touched it?" Needless to say, I was a little flabbergasted.

I mean, it has been common knowledge for over a decade that HIV can only be contracted by fluid to fluid contact and that once outside of a host organism the virus expires rapidly, and here's this 14-year old young man on the cusp of sexual activity (if he isn't already there) who hasn't the slightest idea how one can and cannot contract HIV--and probably any number of other sexually transmitted diseases--who's mystified as to why I know so much about the virus and the syndrome. That scares the hell out of me. I know that I am something of a special case, being in the high-risk category and all, and that the circumstances of my life have compelled me to take a special interest in virology and immunology, but for gods' sake this kid clearly has an interest in receiving this information, and he has a compelling interest in the information if he intends to become sexually active, if he isn't already.

I know what I was doing when I was 14 (and my partner was 12), and I'm powerfully thankful that I had access to the information that kept us both safe. Sure, I got more information when I got to high school, but even the material I had received by the time I was in sixth grade, not to mention the introduction to human reproduction I got in seventh grade, was immensely helpful. If these young persons aren't getting information that can save their lives and help to allay their anxieties about interacting with other persons whose sexualities might differ (or be similar) to their own, then we're in a world of hurt.

What it all boils down to is this: We need to change the terms with which adults discuss sex and sexuality among ourselves and with children. A frank discussion of the multiplicity of reasons for which persons do sex would go a long way toward demystifying sex and sexuality and would allow for a more thoughtful discussion of self-respect, disease and self-preservation.