From: TURTLE
To: SAAVIK
Subject: Huh-uh
Date & Time: 04/28/91 23:39:50
Message Number 16264
>This isn't a good day and age to sleep around.......
No age has /ever/ been a good day and age to sleep around, with the
sole exception of that brief interlude between the discovery of
penecillin and the advent of the first antibiotic-resistant microbes.
What people don't realize is that the existance of an incurable
sexually-transmitted disease that can kill you isn't some new horror,
it's been the norm for almost all of human history. There has been
exactly /one/ generation in all the time since the advent of man that
could say it didn't have to worry about dying of something contracted
from a lover.
Yes, AIDSD and other STD's are a risk. So is driving your car...in fact,
driving your car is several orders of magnitude more dangerous than
sex. It's a matter of /relative/ risk. Do you realize that your chances
of being struck by lightning are about three times greater than your
chances of contracting AIDS via hetersexual sexual intercourse with a
person chosen at random from somewhere inside the United States? You're
more likely to get hepatitis-B than AIDS from normal sexual intercourse,
and I don't notice any widespread fear of hepatitis or any radical
change in anyone's sexual behavior because of it. And, sure 'nuff,
hepatitis can kill you.
I'm not downplaying the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted
disease from casual or careless sex, and I'm certainly not advocating
going out and sleeping around. I /am/ rational about the risk of STD's,
though, and I /am/ rational about being careful to avoid them and
behaving in a responsible manner when I'm in a sexual situation. People
who don't take steps to protect themselves when they're having sex are
idiots, just like people who don't wear seatbelts are idiots...but the
fact that driving a car and engaging in sexual intercourse both have
risks is not, by itself, a valid reason not to drive or have sex. I
think, though, that
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