www.apa.org/monitor/oct98/hiv.html
Maybe this time.
Handy, with your attiftude, why do you even participate on this board? Your attitude is the complete antithesis of what the SDMB stands for.
I wouldn’t call you an idiot, but your opinion on this matter is certainly idiotic.
"Due to the ignorance you seem to think of as a good thing, the deaf may be at a higher risk for HIV. "
No, I said that if they don’t know how to have sex, they won’t have sex, thus, in theory they are not at a higher risk of HIV, but a lower risk (Im talking about the usa, I don’t know about the UK). Yes, I noticed that usually Deaf that are having sex don’t practice safe sex as much as hearing people. But then most hearing people I know who have been lectured on STDs don’t practice safe sex either. I said ‘most’ I didn’t say, ‘all’.
Boyo Jim, what part of my attitude do you not like? You do know that I’m Deaf, right? I went to Junior High & HS, half the time with deaf teens & half the time with hearing teens & I get to compare them.
Handy,
The same thing the several others haven’t liked, the idea that ignorance is better than knowledge.
Even as you praise the fact that the deaf are often not as sexually educated as the hearing population, you admit that deaf people, at least in your own experience, are not as likely to practice safe sex as hearing people. I would argue that there may be a connection between this lack of sex education (which you seem to think keeps deaf people out of harm’s way) and the risky behavior you have witnessed.
Eliminating sex ed from schools will not eliminate the knowledge of sex from the minds of children. Whether or not they learn in school, the kids will learn about sex. At least with sex ed, they are learning from a person with a bit more wisdom, than, say, their friend on the playground.
You know, I had to explain to the guy I was dating in high school that girls do not in fact have 7 or 8 orifices ‘down there,’ as his friend had told him. (Horrifically, the friend was sexually active–I don’t know what was up with that.) He was still very interested in having sex, though. Not that he got the chance, mind you, but he would certainly have taken the opportunity if he’d gotten it, even in his frighteningly untutored state. I had to tell him the Facts of Life, because he was 18 and knew nothing.
(For extra points, guess which one of us was the atheist, and which was religious and wanted to wait until marriage.)
Don’t even get me started on the girl who was 25 and who didn’t know that it was possible to get pregnant from only one time. She thought you had to try for a year or so (what, there’s a sperm bank where it’s collected, and when it’s full, it goes ding?). Still, she’d been sexually active for a few years.
Never underestimate the bizarre explanations people will come up with in the absence of good information.
You don’t have to teach kids how to have sex, any more than you have to teach any of the other apes.
You just have to teach them how to do it responsibly.
I can’t believe there are still people THIS uneducated!