Comments on: Why I Disagree With The NYT On Abstinence And STD’s

By: Dr. Keely Kolmes

Dr. Keely Kolmes — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:14:19 +0000

I also wonder if some of the kids who tested positive for STD’s may have been sexually abused in the past and would never even think to call this “sex.” It seems another really important point worth mentioning since this is another way that STD’s are transmitted.

By: criolle johnny

criolle johnny — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 01:15:22 +0000

But, THE PRESIDENT said it wasn’t sex!
Garbage in, garbage out. If you ask them the questions you want to ask, they’ll give you the answers you want to hear.
Then you call them liars when you get empirical data you don’t want.
AIDS politics, religious politics, sex politics … they all have an agenda and they all try to color reality to suit their own position. They’re as hypocritical as economists no matter what party label they put on themselves.
Politics … meet Reality. Introduction courtesy of Violet.

By: Etcetera

Etcetera — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:14:14 +0000

When I do sex ed, I always get the question “what is sex?” Every time, I tell them that it’s impossible to define because people are endlessly creative – but that if thinking about doing it gets your parts tingling, it’s at least sexual in some dimension. I also teach in a Catholic school which unfortunately prohibits education about contraception and disease prevention.

By: Antonio

Antonio — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:35:35 +0000

Violet, your post reminds me of an married acquaintance who believed that oral and anal sex did not constitute infidelity to his wife. I so hate to see sex research get tangled up in definitional arguments, especially when a source like the NYT gets caught in that trap. Thanks for fighting the good fight for responsible sex education. It’s one of the reasons we love you and need you.

By: Imei Hsu, RN, MAC, LMHC

Imei Hsu, RN, MAC, LMHC — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 19:28:11 +0000

Violet, once again, you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for taking the time to write your post. I encounter adults in my psychotherapy office that still consider anal and oral sex as “not sex”, and thus they don’t even think that they can pass STD’s around. It’s ignorance inside and outside the abstinence education circle.

By: Rick Loftus, M.D.

Rick Loftus, M.D. — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:21:40 +0000

Violet, I could not agree more. People forget we have a whole generation of kids who don’t categorize oral sex as *sex*. Many of the teens in the study probably consider themselves abstinent because they haven’t had penile-vaginal intercourse. And even many adults seem to be very vague about what activities create a risk for which STDs. (I remember telling one AIDS activist that a person using condoms could still get syphilis and she almost fell out of her chair.) The lack of education about STDs is staggering and I think could easily explain the results.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 13:29:07 +0000

This is an interesting and informative comment. When you read the original published article it does appear that they defined sex as penile/ vaginal penetrative intercourse, this definition excudes homosexual or lesbian behavour. It does not appear that they defined abstinance. About 15 years ago I saw four teenagers who had very successfully passed clamidya around each other with cunnilingus and fellatio. ( They were refreshing open about the fact that they had been servicing each other and how)
Have you written to the editor of Pediatrics?