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Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

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31–40 of 146 posts

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#31
A couple of comments.

I think education is a huge factor. Anecdote: I took human sexuality at university. We had pop quizzes daily. For quiz on birth control someone comes in and states, 'Oh I didn't need to study for this, I've been using birth control since I was 16' They failed the quiz.

Honest communication is a huge factor in prevention. My current girl friend let me know early in our relationship she had chronic hepatitis B. I'm in process of testing for my own exposure, and will get vaccine if needed.

If you're not 100% sure about your history, get tested, lots of stuff can be asymptomatic. Some healthcare systems offer free testing for some diseases.

Isn't STD Sexually Transmitted Disease a bit of a misnomer? While sex might be the primary method of transmission, from the article CDC attributes increased drug use as one of the factors. Or am I just being pedantic?

additional info: I'm definitely not young anymore.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#32
Having riskier sex and sexual perversion (think anal sex and other more extreme forms) go hand in hand with sexual suppression/repression. Sexual suppression/repression also results in people having less sex. Its very clear what's happening. The root cause are all the policies in society promoting sexual suppression/repression which have only increased and are becoming more absurd every year.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#33
post #25

What an interesting X-Ray of the sexual marketplace in the graph. Apparently young men have less than half infections as women (i.e. less than half sexual partners than women do - all things being equal) , but the situation tapers in later age and slightly reverses in the 40s when men have slightly more sexual partners. Other than that, the data shows that the sexless generation is driving itself to extinction. That'…

> " Apparently young men have less than half infections as women (i.e. less than half sexual partners than women do - all things being equal)"

All things certainly aren't equal though. There is a very large asymmetry in the chance to contract some STDs (specifically HIV, maybe others as well but I'm not sure.)

> In general, receptive sex is riskier than insertive sex. This means that women have a higher risk for getting HIV during vaginal or anal sex than their sex partners.

https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/gender/women/index.html

(There are some CDC documents that put numbers to this generality, but I don't have the time to go find them right now.)

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#34
post #22

"In recent years, the agency reports, more than half of local STD programs have experienced budget cuts that led to clinic closures, as well as reduced screening and patient follow-up. "Federal spending has also been curtailed." “In the federal government, there is one dedicated STD funding line, and that is the line item in the appropriation bill funding the division of STD prevention at the CDC,” said David Harvey,…

Blaming this on budget cuts is absurd. There didn't even use to be something such as an "STD clinic", let alone easy access. In many states STD testing is totally free and anonymous. How long has that been around?

Besides, have you seen sex education in schools these days? Let's just say it's... comprehensive. Compare that to the 70s, 80s, 90s, ANY other time. Children today go into sexual relationships with way more information that any previous generation.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#35
The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly.

Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men.

In general, women still have sex but are increasingly only doing so with the top few percentage of men, which is why we see the skewed std rates.

Another issue, there are a lot more single men in cities, especially west coast cities, than single women. Indian and China aborted so many women that there are men there that will never be with a woman.

Marriage rates are down, there no pressure to get married anymore.

So, when it says young people are having less sex, it’s primarily men who are having less sex. The world changed, women do not need your money or your protection. The fancy jobs do not matter like they did before, nor does having a ton of money. What matters more than anything now are your looks.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#36
post #30

This study is funny to me because there's such obvious answers to the trends: Having less sex: more and more people are putting off marriage. I'm sure happily married couples are leaving even their most promiscuous peers in the dust with their nuptial regularity. Rise in STDs: the risk of unwanted pregnancy is much lower these days then in say, the 60s and 70s allowing for "riskier" sex. Longer time to marriage + hoo…

> I'm sure happily married couples are leaving even their most promiscuous peers in the dust with their nuptial regularity. The traditional wisdom is that this isn't true at all.

Yeah, getting married is a sure way to stop having sex.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#37

> Something changed starting around 2012 One hypothesis to consider: the Affordable Care Act which became effective in 2010. It may be that somehow the healthcare changes that followed had an adverse effect, and that it took 2 years for increased infection rates to compound and begin to be reported.

What an outstanding thesis you've unearthed. Why don't you go suggest it on r/the_donald? I think you'll find a very receptive audience there - and a lot of new friends!

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#38
post #9

I’m not saying it’s causation, but the timing is amusing. Article > “Something changed starting around 2012,” said Gail Bolan, director of the CDC division of STD prevention. “We’ve seen dramatic increases each year in both males and females.” Wikipedia > Tinder was launched in 2012 within startup incubator Hatch Labs,[7][8] a joint venture of IAC and mobile development firm Xtreme Labs.[9] By 2014, Tinder was regist…

Yeah it's not a puzzle at all. People in committed relationships have more sex than people who are having casual sex.

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#39
post #22

"In recent years, the agency reports, more than half of local STD programs have experienced budget cuts that led to clinic closures, as well as reduced screening and patient follow-up. "Federal spending has also been curtailed." “In the federal government, there is one dedicated STD funding line, and that is the line item in the appropriation bill funding the division of STD prevention at the CDC,” said David Harvey,…

Blaming this on budget cuts is absurd. There didn't even use to be something such as an "STD clinic", let alone easy access. In many states STD testing is totally free and anonymous. How long has that been around? Besides, have you seen sex education in schools these days? Let's just say it's... comprehensive. Compare that to the 70s, 80s, 90s, ANY other time. Children today go into sexual relationships with way more…

not all schools, and not even all public schools, especially in the southeast

Re: Public-Health Puzzle: Young People Having Less Sex, Contracting More STDs

#40
post #35

The world is changing rapidly. The magic year of 2012 is when Tinder was release and then grew rapidly. Move forward to today: a large percentage of men are totally removed from the dating market (not by choice), they do not have sex, they have no hope of getting into a relationship. The reverse is not true for women, who have countless options and can at any time open their phone and have their pick of men. In gener…

This.

The shape of the graph have changed, with much more "stars" – as in, top men who have several partners at the same time. Amount of active nodes may have even gone down, but the connectivity went up.

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