Sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise in the US

Yahoo News has an AP story with a headline that once again gives the US a distinction that is not so praise worthy. The headline is "U.S. sets record in sexual disease cases" and actually has quite a few scary facts (scary if you are on the promiscuous side of human behavior). The story states in part:

More than 1 million cases of chlamydia were reported in the United States last year — the most ever reported for a sexually transmitted disease, federal health officials said Tuesday.

Not only is chlamydia on the rise by Syphilis and Gonorrhea as well. It is interesting that there wasn't any sort of root cause analysis given by the story (that would require AP to make some sort of moral stand - perish the thought!) but no matter, because I will. But before I do that, the story continues with a really frightening note about the strain of Gonorrhea that is being seen which is referred to as a "superbug" version resistant to common antibiotics. Is anyone in Maine reading this?

This country is of course more sexual in its advertising, TV shows, Movies and other aspects of its culture. We have saturated our society with sexual images and in a great bit of marketing convinced women that they actually have to wear less clothes (half shirts, low cut jeans, etc.) but actually pay more for clothes of this type (absolutely brilliant!) and we are finding ourselves in a environment of our own making. We encourage children to have sex or "experiment" with sex and then are surprised when we have unwanted/unplanned pregnancies and a rise in STDs. This is sold as liberation or freedom without the context of actually making very bad choices that could have life altering effects (and not for the better). Where did we lose the ability for authority figures (parents, teachers, etc.) to actually preach/lecture/urge students to commit themselves to being better than the lowest common denominator and of course when did we lose our sense of shame (something I have discussed in this forum before).

Our supposed sexual liberation is being purchased is at the expense of our children and any number of people who have woken up after a one night stand or a string of them finding their world more than a little askew. Instead of resigning ourselves to an attitude of "kids are going to do it anyway - we can't stop them" families need to become re-engaged in this debate and don't turn it over to the school health care officials or other like minded individuals who don't care about your children but rather care about pushing an agenda whatever the cost. And by the way that cost will probably not be borne by those health care officials but by people you actually care about personally. The CDC website reports the following information:

"Compared to older adults, sexually-active adolescents 10 to 19 years of age and young adults 20 to 24 years of age are at higher risk for acquiring STDs for a combination of behavioral, biological, and cultural reasons...Recent estimates suggest that while representing 25% of the ever sexually active population, 15 to 24 years of age acquire nearly half of all new STDs"

Are you paying attention Maine?

Outspoken Roman