We have some new billboards in town concerning sex, one shows a group of smiling teenagers arm in arm and the message:
Say yes to the best! get the abstinence advantage.
The other shows a teenage girl with a very sad frightened look on her face plus the message:
STD, Pregnant, Broken Heart was it worth it??
Call XXX-XXX-WAIT
—I will, however, mention that someone’s past sexual history is only relevant to the extent that it…—
Yes yes, obviously. The whole point is the likihood of that binary state at any given time. The problem is not that monogamy isn’t possible or even that it isn’t common. It just isn’t a foolproof disease control strategy anymore than condom usage is. And in certain situaitons in a culture, it can be deadly, as it is suspected of being in Africa, or cultures where men are expected to have sexual experience prior to marriage, but women are expected to be pure: leading to the existence of a very few diseased women infecting large portions of the men.
—The implication, to me at least, is that by doubling their sexual frequency, they have doubled their risk. If this isn’t that case, then it appears the author is just plucking numbers from his bum, in which case his single numerical example is useless.—
Well, if that’s what happened, then that was incredibly disingenuous of you. He never said anything about any doubled risk, and he said that he was making up the numbers to illustrate how the concept works. Attacking him for that is highly misleading. That means that you took something that was totally unstated and not even implied, presented something ridiculous as his mathematical reasoning, and used it to ridicule his arguement. I gave you the benefit of the doubt in assuming you were just confused about the numbers: this admission is much worse.
—That article only presents one strong instance of real-live numbers, and it’s a lousy one, at that.—
How so?
At this point, I’m not taking you very seriously, because you seem more bent on attacking the author on grounds that even you seem to admit are completely invented in a lazy read, than discussing what he’s saying. He used numbers in that one footnote to demonstrate a very counter-intuitive concept, NOT because he claimed they were backed up or the case in every dating pool: which he explicitly discusses. He then suggests the importance of empirical work, and references said work. How terrible of him!
—We’re trying to minimize the number of people who have a disease (not, as I said before, and as the author seems to believe, my odds of contracting a disease when I choose a sex partner).—
When the odds of uninfected people contracting a disease goes down, can’t that very well imply a slowing of the rate of new infections overall? Again, the idea is to do the math: model as best you can what’s going on and try to see wich effect dominates. Or, maybe, to ridicule the whole idea, because the common recieved wisdom is so much more convienient.
—Since we know the curve is not either purely increasing or purely decreasing, it’s important to know where on the curve we lie before we start recommending an increase or decrease of the independent variable.—
Though this curve is purely an ad hoc invention of yours, the author doesn’t claim that in every situation that an increase will reduce disease rates. In fact, he’s explicit in noting that the particular story makes a difference.
—The author recommends an increase, but fails to establish that we’re at a point on the curve where that would make sense.—
You obviously didn’t read much of the article, because you don’t even seem to know on what grounds he makes his particular “recommendation” (and does he make one? As far as I can tell, his main recommendation is to subsidize condoms, and its a qualified one). Perhaps you’re confusing his later discussion about the overall benefits of more sex, which isn’t on a purely disease control basis, though that can be an added boon. I supopse you’d just have to RAFO.
Again, the real point here is that the common assumption that more sex (partners) always means more disease is wrong. It all depends very much on who is having more sex, and how. And that’s not even getting into the somewhat different question of people with safe pasts underproviding sex (much in the exact same way factory owners overproduce pollution), or whether more sex is good overall, considering all the costs and benefits to everyone involved. I most certianly agree with Landsberg’s contention that most people portray pasing out condoms as having good effects and bad effects: the good effect being safer sex, the bad effect being more sex. But that’s a little messed up, because more sex isn’t necessarily a bad effect at all. Some of the risks associated with sex are indeed bad to very bad: but counting only risks and ignoring benefits (like enjoyment) is a classic waste of time.
Given that most (though perhaps not all) cultures treat sex as a far more important behavior than sneezing I think we can pretty much say there must be something different about the two. Beyond the obvious.
Although if you think on it, sneezing behavior is technically regulated in some ways too. You can’t just blow your nosewad over the fella standing next to you. there are handkerchiefs, bless yous and thank yous involved.
But back to my original point…you can lament the emotional focus on sex all you want, but it is probably here to stay for most folks. Perhaps there is some evolutionary adaptation to that (I can think of several potentials).
How human sexual behavior probably got that way: