Hi Cerri and everyone,

I've read over this site for a while about condoms only protecting a person from about 7% of STDs. Where does this information come from? Other than this site what other external sources can support this argument?

bump

I have never heard this.
There are things like herpes or genital warts that you can contract even when using a condom, but that's just because a condom will only protect what it covers.. other parts of the body can still get infected. But you can also get genital warts from sharing a towel with someone, for example.

For other STD a condom is really the only "defense", apart from abstention of course.

Why are you asking my dear?

Someone I know wanted to know because they are doing research on the subject. Since it's an official paper I'm not sure they can use this site as a proper source.

Cerri or anyone, please advise....

Cerri,

A very interesting paper. One knows this has to pretty close to right if one just thinks about it. Condom's don't have a 100% success rate at preventing pregnancy. In fact I think it is closer to 90% but consider this: a woman can only become pregnant for 1 week out of 3 (four if you count the week of the period).

That takes the 'apparent" effective rate down to around 30%.

Add to that the fact that virus' are much much smaller than sperm and one can see that even very small "failures" of a condom will allow the virus through where it would not allow sperm through. At this point you are starting to get down to the levels mentioned. AND that does not even take into account the other factors such as skin to skin contact in uncovered portions of the body.

Sadly, this is another situation where the correct message is abstinance (sp) and it is poo poo'd as being just "religious" propaganda.

Cerri, I will use this reference alot with some people I know.

Thanks,

JL

I would avoid the websites that are based on ideology that twist the facts. People who ideologically believe that sex before marriage is immoral twist the statistics and common sense to say that condoms are ineffective when they are effective. The same can be said for people who ideologically believe in sex before marriage.

I would rely on nonpartisan information like

http://health.discovery.com/news/healthscout/
article.jsp?aid=518020&tid=24
and
http://www.ashastd.org/news/fsgonorrhea.html


Obviously not having sex is the best prevention against pregnancy and stds including aids. However, it is false to assume that condoms are little better than not using a condum (the 7% number).

Here is the NIH study which the article I posted was based on http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/stds/condomreport.pdf

And here is the Medical Institute of Sexual Health which prepared the article I posted. They claim to be non partisan - founded and run by an ob/gyn. http://www.medinstitute.org/media/index.htm

And here is the Dept of Health and Human Services press release on the topic - http://www.medinstitute.org/media/index.htm

I agree that Focus on the Family is a strongly Christian and possibly biased organization. However, I have used their info and resources in several different areas. And I am most definitely not Christian - nor do I have issues with sex outside marriage when it does not cause harm to self or others. So my posting of that particular link is not biased toward a moral judgment.

C

<small>[ September 10, 2004, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: cerri ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by cerri:
<strong> And I am most definitely not Christian - nor do I have issues with sex outside marriage when it does not cause harm to self or others. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Cerri,
No 2x4s or anything like that, but I am curious what you mean by this statement. When would/could sex outside the marriage not cause harm to self or others?
Eric

Well, first you have to understand that I do ethics, not morals. Morals are generally considered to be a religious code of conduct based on a belief system. Ethics tend to be a bit broader based, and look at the potential harm to self, others, the environment, etc - rather based on a code of conduct as defined by a religion. A good source for a more in depthy view of ethics is Ethics for the New Millenium by the Dalai Lama.

That being the case, I can't decide universally for everyone that sex outside of marriage is something they can or cannot do. It's an issue that each person needs to evaluate and explore on his or her own. That exploration must take into account any and all possible harm to self, others, etc, before making a decision. Should there be a possiblity of causing harm then ethically it should be avoided. It's certainly far more complex than a simple dogmatic statement about right and wrong and it places far more responsibility on the individual to do a thoughtful and thorough exploration of the possible consequences of his/her actions. (BTW, this goes for all decisions, not just sexual choices.)


So, can I tell a 40yo, divorced for 5 years, person that it's right or wrong for him/her to have sex with someone s/he's been dating for the last year? Nope. I would certainly be willing to enter into a discussion about the dynamics of the relationship and possible outcomes of such a choice. But not to make a judgment about the choice knowing only that it's non marital sex.

That help?

C

Cerri,
yes, you cleared it up. I misunderstood what you were saying. I took your statement about "sex outside marriage" wrong. I thought you were talking about a married person having sex outside the marriage, not single people having sex without being married. My bad. Thanks!
Eric

I do a workshop on the ethics of polyamory. That's an extremely complex issue and one that I get heat from from just about every venue. The pagans don't want to take a hard look at the ethics, the christians think I'm going to burn in hell (hey, I live in the frozen tundra, it might not be so bad... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ), and the marriage advocates hyperventilate. If all of us would take a look at our instinctive knee jerk reactions and then have an intelligent discussion on the issue I think we'd find that we're really not too far apart.

But yes, what I wrote originally applied to non married people and sex. And ethically speaking, there still needs to be an exploration of possible harm. Not being married doesn't automatically make it ok.

C

Here is an edited email I received when I asked a friend about the STD issue. She is a professional health care worker in AIDS prevention. She is not unbiased, but points to some good links and provides a rational explanation why condoms work for some STDs, but do not work for others.


Thanks for the interesting question. My first thought was: I can't believe that 'people' are still arguing about condoms. Secondly, I thought, "non-partisan?" That will be hard. Folks are either for or against it these days. Since I don't have time to go find scientific articles I went to some of my more trusted websites. Even though some of these sites are admittedly "pro-sexuality" I think their articles are fairly balanced.



Advocates for Youth website

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fscondom.htm



Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States

http://63.73.227.69/pubs/fact/fact0011.html

http://www.siecus.org/pubs/fact/FS_truth_condoms_02.pdf



CDC - even though I feel like CDC is currently under the thumb of W. this article is pretty good. It starts with the usual admonition that only abstinence is 100% effective but still seems to give condoms a fairly objective review.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/latex.htm



Some other things to consider about the information you have:

1) Effectiveness of condoms does go down due to user error: for example, in theory, condoms prevent pregnancy 97% of the time - yet this goes down to 80% due to user error - the same can be said for effectiveness against STDs. If people don't use it correctly or consistently - it doesn't work as well. (You see the phrase "correctly and consistently" used a lot with rational descriptions of condom use.)

2) Regarding diseases like syphilis - which the information you sent claims you still have a 50-71% relative risk of getting even with "100%" condom use - Syphilis is a STD that causes open sores (just like Herpes or chancroid). You can get the infection from the open sore. If the open sore is not covered by the condom - e.g., it's under the scrotum or near the top of the external labia - and you come into contact with it - then you can get infected. Condoms only protect you from the sores that are covered up. In fact, I recently learned you can get "digital syphilis" that is, syphilis on your fingers (e.g., your cut finger touches an open sore) and in fact there have been four cases of this in this county this year. The danger of infection from open sores is again something that is covered in rational sex ed programs but was likely left out of the context of the information you sent.

3) I don't understand how the information you sent kept referring to 'relative risk.' Isn't a 50% risk of getting an STD still better than the greater relative risk if you didn't use one? Wouldn't it still be worth it? Additionally - the article claims that condoms don't provide "complete protection" only "risk reduction." Well - what's wrong with reducing risk? Also, I don't think I've ever heard any health educator say that condoms are 100% complete protection against anything. The most common message is that they are the best prevention method for sexually active people that we have at this time.

4) I also highly doubt their claims to a 15% of HIV transmission even with "100% occurrence of condom use." There have been numerous studies - more in this area that in other STDs- of positive and negative persons having sex and the rate of transmission between them with Consistent and Correct condom use has been zero (or minimal - I'll couch my claim in case I'm missing the one case of transmission out there.) One of the links I gave you above addresses this issue.




So - my response was not non-partisan, but hopefully the web links are objective.

So I'm curious - why the need to defend condom efficacy? Isn't it more prudent to err on the side of caution? The most recent links I posted were studies from the National Institute of Health and the Dept. of Health and Human Services - seems to me those would be pretty reliable......

C

Inquiring minds want to know...

Thanks everyone for all your information. I think knowing about this from all sides is facinating.

If anyone has anymore information, please keep posting.

Cerri, please let us know how Marriage Fidelity Day went yesterday.

<small>[ September 16, 2004, 07:29 AM: Message edited by: SAB ]</small>