I realized last night that yesterday’s article on Natalie Dylan had missed a few details.  Specifically, when considering why anyone would want to fuck a virgin, I failed to address the issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

There is only one time you can be absolutely certain that the girl you’re about to bare-back is disease-free – her first time.  Or is it?

Just how bad is the STD problem in America?  According to ”Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2007″, the report compiled by the Centers for Disease Control, rates are on the rise.

The CDC data shows that 1-in-4 teens has an STD.  There are 19 million new infections every year, nearly half of them in people between the ages of 15 and 24.  The rate of infection for teenagers who admit being sexually active is a stunning 40%.  Estimates suspect 90% of all adults have been exposed to HSV-1.

Women and minorities bear the brunt of the burden.  STD treatments are also ringing up one Hell of a bill, at $15.3 billion a year.

The first question you have to ask yourself is whether or not that girl is really a virgin at all – many teens don’t consider oral and anal sex to be “devirginizing”.  Somehow I don’t remember the video on “Ass-to-Mouth” (ATM) during the Safe Alternatives to Sex portion of Health Class.

What kind of magical power is placed on a hymen, anyway?  It’s a tiny bit of skin, often broken by tampons, sex toys and garden vegetables.  A girl could wreck her “virginity” playing soccer or running track long before she ever has sex.

My Second Question is this: What generation gap am I missing out on, that teenage girls now are giving up the Butt to preserve their chastity?  We had an unofficial Pregnant Table in our high school cafeteria (to the right of the Abortion Table, and three down from the Drama Geeks), but anal was something we spoke of with hushed reverence.

“Golly Beav, I can’t wait to get to College so I can have anal sex.”

There are some days I think the most effective prophylactics are a broad-band connection and a free password.  I once thought 56k was a revolution in bit-rate, so you can imagine my enthusiasm when I got my first cable modem.  This brings me to my third, and final, point . . . porn.

If STDs are on the rise in America, Who is to blame?

If the Christian Right is to be believed (and they’re not), STDs are merely a symptom of rampant immorality.  It’s a slippery slope.  First you take pictures of naked women.  The next thing you know homos are getting married.  Before long people will be fucking their pets!  Since, you know . . . beastiality is unheard of.

Lest we forget how our Heavenly Father dealt with this the last time, when he purged Sodom and Gomorrah from the face of the Earth.

So I did a little digging . . .

The Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation, known as AIM, does medical testing and treatment for the porn industry.  According to them, only 2.8 percent of the roughly 2,000 people they treat test positive for STDs.  Rates for HPV and Herpes are higher, but on the whole the rate of infection is nearly 10-fold less than the “general population”.

If moral decay isn’t to blame, and God really doesn’t have all the answers, then what?

However, not all doctors are so conscientious about STD testing, Douglas said.

Particularly in nonminority populations, doctors are inclined to think, “The young woman sitting in front of me looks pretty healthy, she looks pretty respectable — she wouldn’t have a sexually transmitted disease, right?” Douglas said. “We simply miss those screening opportunities.” – CNN

That’s right . . . Respectability.  The illusion that someone is clean.  While you might pass up that girl with the weeping sore on her lip, the cute little glitter-blonde with the Tee-Hee smile and vacant eyes is hiding something from you.

Christian types have fought for sex education to focus on Abstinence.  Unfortunately, the result has been that teens are refraining from vaginal intercourse, but indulging in unprotected anal and oral sex with no qualms.  Abstinence and Propriety have forced sex into the closet, behind a veneer of respectability.

“If the parents assume that’s the doctor’s business, or the teacher’s business, and don’t roll up their sleeves and get in there themselves . . . we’re going to create missed opportunities.” – CNN

Maybe parents aren’t getting involved because they assume that the school system is doing their parenting for them.  Maybe they simply don’t believe that their kids are the ones doing the fucking.  Or perhaps they know the truth – and the whole reason they don’t “roll up their sleeves” is because they’re afraid of getting something on their skin . . .

Underneath the sham of Respectability is the Petri dish of Truth, with our shame growing in its agar.