22 March 2009

Does he have a point?

Now I'm not a big defender of religion. I do, however, have an equal rights approach to disliking them all. Which I regard as particularly enlightened of me.
The current brouhaha concerning the Pope's stupid comment about condoms making the HIV problem worse in Africa, isn't that far from stuff I've wondered about. Does freeing up condom availability actually reduce HIV infection? I suspect it doesn't. I suspect it's the same thing as wearing bike helmets (which I support btw), which can increase the chances of risk taking. So wearing condoms would give a feeling of invincibility, potentially leading to more and possibly riskier sex.
I realise the media will be reporting sound bites, but it makes sense if that's what he meant. Although I doubt it. As the only system that does appear to be working is the education and use condoms approach. And I suspect Popey is going to have probs with the education bit.
So rather than throwing heaps of condoms at the problem, a more cohesive (holistic if you must !) approach would involve education, involving celebrities, and not telling people to not have sex (cos that always fails), but encouraging them to use condoms if they must have sex.

but meh, who knows.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"a more cohesive (holistic if you must !)"

Man, you missed a wonderful chance for a pun there. You should've written:

"a more cohesive (catholic, if you must!)"

Works at all sorts of levels :D