AIDS and the Failure of the Sexual Revolution

I am in favor of contraception.  I am a zero population proponent and firmly believe in teaching our children, in age appropriate ways, about sexuality.  I think that discussion should start with abstinence and end with condoms.  After all, teaching your children to drive defensively doesn’t mean they don’t need to wear a seat belt.  But with all of that being said, there is no mistaking the fact that the sexual revolution has not served this country well.  In fact, it has been a disaster that has turned out daughters into victims, the homosexual community into a medical experiment and African-Americans into a grim, fast growing statistic. 

            The Centers for Disease Control has released their latest numbers on AIDS, and the information needs to be laid out in the bare light of day.  The number of AIDS infections has settled at the appalling number of 50,000 new cases per year for the last decade.   The epidemic is still concentrated primarily in gay men and gay black men are by far the fastest growing group.  What is more, because the  black community is more likely to have gay men maintaining the semblance of a heterosexual lifestyle, black women are being infected with AIDS at a rate 2 ½ times that of white or Hispanic women. 

            There is no way we can avoid three important facts about 50,000 new AIDS victims each year:  (1)  In the categories of homosexual men under 30, heterosexual men and heterosexual women, the number of blacks being infected is always over 2 times that of whites or Hispanics.  (2)  By definition, every one of those infections is the result of unprotected sex with multiple partners.  (3)  There isn’t a person in American who doesn’t know that unprotected sex is dangerous.  To say otherwise is like saying you don’t know that smoking is dangerous, or guns are dangerous.  Some things are common knowledge.  People can fall prey to so many terrible diseases over which they have little or no control.  This is not true of AIDS.  With the small exception of those who contract the disease through no fault of their own, you can prevent AIDS through better personal choices. 

            When Federal officials say that the AIDS epidemic will grow if prevention doesn’t get better and then blame budget cuts they are choosing the party line instead of having the guts to say the truth.  The black, gay and straight communities have to be willing to recognize and reign in promiscuous practices and insist upon the use of condoms.  There is an undeniable correlation between the number of sexual partners one has and the presence of sexually transmitted diseases.  Why can’t the leaders in these groups simply say, “Keep it in your pants, or keep it under cover.” 

            Instead of telling high risk groups that they need to get their house in order, this administration chooses to make sure that all women get free contraception.  There is something insidious in taking away the short term fear of pregnancy while doing nothing about the long term reality of AIDS.  We have already stolen our children’s childhood with a sexually soaked culture.  Now we are going to make sexual exploration easier for everyone with not a nod to the dangers of life threatening disease.  This is not liberating, it is enslaving.  It is not even realistic.  Reality is telling people what we always knew.  Sex between two people should not be just casual pleasure.  It is either sharing at a deep, personal level, or it is exploitation and coercion. 

Let’s teach people to say, “No!” and keep the faith.