But it's scientists. It must be true.
Some of us can remember when AIDS was not yet a problem, [yep] back when the public health game was to get all young women on the Pill -- ostensibly to reduce pregnancy, in reality to justify the emancipated sexuality of the advocates. In that period Science (i.e., spectacled men in white lab coats grasping Erlenmeyer flasks) was droning on about the high failure rate of the condom. Condoms were ridiculed by public health advocates as a crude backwoodsy expedient that only the naive or the unscrupulous would employ. Has the science changed in the meantime? No, only the terms of flattering the People Who Count.
I remember at my junior high (do they still have those?) we had a "health nurse" come in and give all the girls one talk and all the boys another in two different rooms. In the boys' class (this was about 1979), they were told that having sex could result in babies, and taught about condoms. In the girls' class, we were told that condoms fail and not to believe a boy who said it wouldn't happen the first time. We were given a little pamphlet on birth control methods and devices and, immediately following the class, set about trying to prove which of the school sluts were using which method and with whom.
Ah, the good old innocent days of yore.
1 comment:
I remember in my "Catholic" high "school" (I don't think they have junior highs anymore) we had a "health" section in gym class taught by a guy who played some miscellaneous sport in college while managing to obtain a 50% in enough credits before the time ran out. In the first class (this was about 1995) the teacher started the lecture with, "I'm not supposed to be talking about this, but..."
That was the year I didn't have the other gym teacher who eventually went to jail for giving one of the girls a practical demonstration of the subject material.
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