Once the brave and unsuspecting female pedestrian walks over to Cotton’s table, Cotton asks, “Have you heard of the female condom?” Using anatomically correct models and condoms, she proceeds to show the woman how the female condom works. Cotton is just one of many safe sex advocates in the D.C. area that is strongly advocating the female condom in order to stop HIV from spreading. D.C. is home to one of the highest HIV rates in the entire nation. As it is, there are several community-based groups that are having “lessons” in public venues like restaurants and churches in order to distribute half a million female condoms and show women how to use them.

D.C.-based CVS stores actually have these female condoms on their shelves. This is the only place in the nation where women can buy these condoms without having to visit a health clinic. The local government is also pulling out all the stops by initiating a marketing campaign for female condoms with a new website and posters to be placed on close to 500 buses. These advertisements show a man and woman hugging and a female condom in the foreground with the words, “Get turned on to it. The female condom with pleasure points for her and him – to tease, please and protect. Go on, give it a try.”

Mary Ann Leeper of Female Health Co. is leading the initiative to popularize the female condom. She states, “Everybody is doing a full-court press.” What remains to be seen is if having a larger distribution of these types of condoms will mean that more women choose to use these types of condoms. This is vital considering a study done one year ago showed that approximately 3% of the population in D.C. is infected with HIV/AIDS. One issue is that the female condom is not as cheap as a regular male condom. In addition, the majority of women have no experience using a female condoms and may feel uncomfortable about using one for the first time. Manufacturers of female condoms have a compelling argument as to why more people should use them. They are as effective as male condoms in terms of preventing unwanted pregnancies and protecting against sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, the female condom covers a larger area of the genitals so it actually provides better protection. More importantly, it puts control in a woman’s hands. Dr. Nnemdi Kamanu Elias from the Department of Health states, “We’re hoping that this will just be part of their arsenal. It’s something they themselves can initiate and they themselves have control over.”

Results from the survey show that teenage girls have admitted to using the rhythm method (knowing one’s days of fertility and avoiding sex on those days) for birth control as opposed to other birth control alternatives like condoms or birth control pills. These results may provide an explanation as to why the teenage pregnancy rate has ceased to decline. Generally, however, results from this recent survey matched up to results from a similar survey done almost ten years ago. This survey was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and had a few differences with the survey done in 2002. For example, approximately 17% of teenage girls admitted to regularly using the rhythm method as a means of birth control. That number is up about 11% from the survey done in 2002.

While these girls who admitted to using the rhythm method may also have used other forms of contraception at the time, the fact that teenaged girls are relying on this method makes for some very worried parents and researchers. According to Joyce Abma, the lead author of the report, the rhythm method is only effective about 75% of the time.
The survey had close to 3,000 female participants between the ages of 15 and 19. All participants were interviewed in their homes and the survey spanned from 2006 to 2008. Results showed that over 40% of these girls who had never been married had at least one sexual encounter in their lives. Of this 40%, approximately 98% of them stated they used a method of birth control at least one time; the most popular choice of contraception was condoms.

Some researchers feel that the fact that so many teenaged girls admitted to using the rhythm method as a form of birth control may be directly related to the fluctuating teenage birth rates. A spokesperson from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Bill Albert, stated, “We’ve known the decline in childbearing stalled out. This report kind of fills in the why.” The report also suggests that teenaged girls attitudes about pregnancy and sex may also be a large reason as to why the birth rate is fluctuating. For instance, close to 65% of teenaged boys felt it was okay for an unwed girl to have a baby. Close to 70% of teenaged girls agreed with this sentiment.

If you have never heard of Forever 21 before, this store offers hip and fashionable clothing virtually straight off the runway for very affordable prices. Naturally, to do this, the clothing is not of the highest quality but it is nice enough to wear a few times. For this very reason, both times I was pregnant, I headed to the Forever 21 at our mall and bought as many extra-large cute shirts I could get my hands on. After all, I only needed the shirts to last through the last few fat months of my pregnancy and most of the shirts were stretchy enough to keep my belly under wraps. So it comes as no surprise that when I heard Forever 21 announcing their pregnancy line I was a little annoyed only because my husband and I have pretty much decided we already had all the kids we are going to have and I will not be able to personally partake in their new maternity line.

I was not at all surprised to hear Joy, Whoopi and Elizabeth discuss the instant backlash that Forever 21 received with this new announcement. Many parents and conservatives were appalled that a store that markets highly towards the teen population would have the audacity to promote a maternity line, and, thus (in their minds) teen pregnancy. Many critics felt Forever 21 was glamorizing teenage pregnancy with their hip maternity tops and dresses. If I can give my opinion here, I think that is a bunch of baloney. And you know what? So does Elizabeth Hasselbeck (I think this could very well be the only time I will agree with anything Ms. Hasselbeck has to say). Sure, Forever 21 has a high teenage market but every single time I have shopped there, I have seen just as many women my age shopping there. Why shouldn’t Forever 21 get their mittens on a piece of the maternity line pie? Have any of you ever gone to stores that sell ONLY maternity clothes? It is sheer highway robbery. Maternity clothes are not an investment (unless you are from the Duggar family); you buy them, wear them once or twice and then give them to your friends who get pregnant after you. There is no need to spend $85 on a maternity tank when you can head to Forever 21 and get one there for five or ten bucks. Bottom line: if parents are worried that Forever 21 is glamorizing pregnancy enough to make their teenage daughters run out and get pregnant, then those parents may want to worry less about a clothing store and more about the values they are instilling in their children.

Results from these exams will be able to help in multiple ways, according to Zhejiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For one, health departments will be given a more accurate picture of the infection rate. This will, in turn, give health departments a means to architect more specific ways to help control the infection rate and prevent the virus from spreading. This new initiative was spurred when a spot check of 2,000 college students was done at three different universities. Results showed that of the 2,000 students, eight of them carried the virus that causes AIDS. While this put the infection rate at 0.4 percent, it was a wake-up call that many more students could be walking around carrying the virus and unknowingly infecting others with it.

The CDC states that in students between the ages of 19 and 23, the number of college students who have contracted the virus is increasing. This was reported in the Zinhua News Agency. A CDC official stated that the main way students were transmitting the disease was through sexual contact. In addition, the official noted that gay males had a higher chance of contracting HIV. As of now, the CDC has not solidified when the physical examinations of the university students will begin, nor have they disclosed how many students would be participating in the new initiative.

Statistics from the Hangzhou CDC noted that by May 2010, there were 100 new cases of HIV infections; this rate was an increase of over 7% from the previous year. Just under 4% of the new cases were seen in university students through sexual transmission and just under 50% of the new cases were seen in gay males. An official from the Shanghai CDC stated that the best way to protect against the virus was to consistently and correctly use condoms. He also noted that not remaining monogamous and having many different sexual partners also put people at a higher risk of contracting the virus.

Many Chinese college campuses are ramping up their sexual education initiatives in order to teach students the importance of protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS. Xu Liyun, a teacher at Shanghai International Studies University, stated, “We have a lecture on AIDS prevention for all freshmen at our university, because we have noticed that university students are more and more sexually open. Some students may feel embarrassed at the lecture, but we insist on their attending in order to protect them from getting hurt due to a lack of knowledge.” She also stated that organizations like the Red Cross also participate in educating college students on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

Applications will now be accepted for this fund by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Public Health and Science. This fund was made possible by the Affordable Care Act. This forward-thinking program will basically create a network of support for those teenagers and women who find themselves pregnant and/or parents. The program will provide services ranging from child care, health care and housing in order for these young women to finish high school and possibly gain college degrees, if they choose. The program will grant approximately twenty-five million dollars a year to states and local governments nationwide in order to help those pregnant teenagers and women. The funds provided by this program have also been allocated to help alleviate violence against women and teenagers who are pregnant.

Kathleen Sebelius states, “The opportunity created by the Affordable Care Act will provide States and Tribes needed assistance to support vulnerable teens and women who are pregnant and parenting. The Pregnancy Assistance Fund provides States the opportunity to link these families to health, education, child care, and other supports that can help brighten the futures of parents and their children.” State governments will be able to use the monies granted to them through the Pregnancy Assistance Fund to build relationships with various key players in order to provide those services that pregnant/parenting women and teenagers will need. These key players include, but are not limited to, colleges and universities, high schools, State Attorneys General offices and various community-wide organizations. The purpose of this program is to ensure that these pregnant/parenting teenagers and women are able to graduate from high school or college, are able to provide adequate health care to themselves and their children and are able to be great parents. The Affordable Care Act grants approximately twenty-five millions dollars a year for ten years from 2010 through 2019. The Act will allow grants to be made to state governments as well as Indian reservations and/or tribes. There is speculation that 25 grants a year will be awarded with amounts ranging from half a million to two million dollars a year.

If somebody contracts one of the multiple strains of HPV, usually that person’s immune system can quickly rid the body of the infection. There are some strains of HPV, however, that linger and can cause cancer. In fact, having an untreated HPV infection is one of the leading causes of cervical cancer. If an HPV infection can be prevented, those cases of cancer could be avoided. Studies have shown that using condoms during sex can lessen the risk of contracting STDs, but other studies have generated varying results that could indicate condoms may not do much to lower the risk of men contracting HPV. The main reason for this is that HPV is very easily contracted; since HPV can be transmitted with any genital contact, those parts of the genitalia not covered by condoms are susceptible to infection.

In this study, over 450 men over the age of 18 up to 40 years old participated and were tested for close to 40 types of HPV. Swab samples were taken from the penile area in addition to samples taken from the anus, scrotum and perineum (those areas that the condom does not cover). Participants were surveyed on their sexual past and were asked if they used condoms consistently in the past few months. Of those men surveyed, 154 men said they did not use condoms, 90 men said they always used condoms and the remainder stated they used condoms off and on. Of those men who stated they always used condoms, their results showed them less likely to have contracted HPV. This same group of men had 38% of them having positive HPV results whereas 54% of those men who stated they never used condoms had positive HPV results.

In addition, of those men who stated they consistently used condoms, they were not as likely to have the HPV strains that cause cancer. If those men who stated they always used condoms were truthful, the results show that a significant portion of them still contracted HPV. This shows that consistent condom use does not completely prevent HPV transmission, but it does lower their chance of infection. One reason for this is that the condom does not cover every area that could contract the disease. The risk of HPV can also be lessened by not having multiple sex partners and by getting vaccinated against HPV. Children and adults that are between 9 and 26 years old are able to get the HPV vaccination for those strains of HPV that could cause cancer.

I am pretty sure that some of you reading this may be thinking back to your sexual past and remembering a time or two when, in the heat of the moment, you threw caution to the wind and decided you could have sex “just this one time” without using a condom. It happened/happens to the best of us. Is it something we should be fretting over if it only happened once or twice in our sexual history? More than likely not, according to experts (although there are some cases, like Patricia up there), especially if somebody had themselves tested for sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and tested negative. However, if your past included many careless nights where condoms were not used, the risk greatly increases. It also increases depending on the number of different partners you had. Like Patricia, there are some people walking around who may not even realize they were infected with an STD in their past.

Many sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and chlamydia have no true symptoms and are often left untreated because of this. This can cause the carrier to get a pelvic inflammatory disease which, in turn, can lead to ectopic pregnancies or even infertility. The most common transmitted sexual disease is HPV (genital human papillomavirus) which can potentially cause cervical cancer or genital warts. According to Dr. Jeanne Marazzo, an associate professor at the University of Washington, over twenty-five percent of women aged 40 or over are infected with genital herpes. She states, “It can cause periodic outbreaks of genital sores, but the greatest risk is during childbirth, when an active infection can be transmitted to your newborn, with potentially fatal consequences.”

If your sexual past has any sketchy moments, there is no need to panic. Engage your physician or gynecologist in a frank discussion of your sexual past, especially if you are pregnant or planning on getting pregnant soon. Be proactive and ask your physician for bloodwork in order to check for common sexually transmitted diseases as well as HIV. If you are a woman, be sure to get Pap smears done every single year because these will be able to determine any precancerous conditions. No matter what age you are, always use condoms with any and all sexual partners to eliminate the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Unfortunately, not all people follow the safe sex protocols that my friend at work does. In fact, according to a recent survey led by a Miami-based condom company Grove Medical LLC, approximately 90% of respondents admited to practicing unsafe sex (sex without a condom) at least once in their sexual past. On top of that, one of the main reasons given is actually a pretty lame one. Forty percent of participants (1,000 male and female participants within the United States) in this survey felt that the sexual mood was lessened if the male or female partner had to mess with opening up a condom package. I guess splitting open a foil package with your teeth just doesn’t look sexy to some people. The survey also asked participants what they first thought of when they thought of the concept of love. Forty-three percent though of commitment, fifty-five percent thought of sex, sixty-seven percent thought of romance and seventy percent thought of passion.

Survey participants were also asked what actions they felt made a couple more passionate towards one another. Close to forty-eight percent said affectionate gestures as simple as listening to one another could bring on the passion. The same percentage said that planning regular outings to spend time together was enough to heat up a relationship. Approximately thirty-seven percent said all they had to do is switch off the television to brew some romance. Also, the survey showed that men and women used different ways to stir passion. Women relied on sexy lingerie while men used flowers and candy.

In a recent statement, the founder of Grove Medical LLC, Beau Thompson, stated, “One way to protect the passion and stay safe is to incorporate the process of using a condom into ‘the moment.’” While Thompson readily admits that the process of ripping open a condom can be “an awkward time in a couple’s passionate experience,” he feels that the process, if handled appropriately and creatively, can actually be turned into “a turn-on.”

Luckily, a recent article that also comes straight from the San Antonio Express News strives to put an end to the city’s notoriety of skyrocketing teenage pregnancy rates. This month, national and local advocacy groups decided to join forces in order to begin a campaign that aims to lower the teenage pregnancy rate and put more of a focus towards family planning amongst the Hispanic teenage population. The new campaign would be responsible for improving support for Hispanic families; in addition, the initiative would provide more information on sexual health as well as plump up sex education courses.

Hispanics are notorious for having the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all ethnic groups in the United States. In fact, the teenage pregnancy rate for Hispanics is practically two times the nationwide average amongst all teens. These statistics are provided by the National Council of La Raza’s Institute for Hispanic Health. Other statistics report that over fifty percent of Hispanic teenagers report becoming pregnant before they even reach the age of 20. I find that extremely easy to believe considering that in the early 90s when I was in middle school, girls were falling pregnant left and right. I think many of my family members were actually surprised that I graduated from high school without getting pregnant. It had become almost a right of passage in my neighborhood. On top of that, between the years of 2005 and 2006, the teenage pregnancy rate amongst Hispanics actually increased.

The vice president of NCLR, Maria Rosa, stated, “When a Latina teen becomes pregnant, this impacts her chances of graduating high school, having a successful career and improving her socio-economic status.” Luckily, a few of my friends, including my next door neighbor who had two (or three) children by the time she finished high school actually graduated from high school and went on to have careers; but I know quite a few girls who weren’t so lucky. They ended up dropping out of school because the life of a teenage parent coupled with the life of a teenage high schooler became too much. Hell, I am in my 30s with a career and a very supportive husband and two wonderful kids and there are times when I become overwhelmed, so I cannot imagine going through the job of parenting when you are still a child yourself. I hope for the sake of my fellow Hispanics that these new initiatives will work to reduce teenage pregnancy rates not only for our culture but for the entire nation. I would love to see young Hispanic women rise to the challenge of making names for themselves that would bring pride to their race and to their families.

For years, England has unwillingly boasted the highest teenage pregnancy rate in all of Western Europe. Naturally, health officials are racking their brains to find new and compelling ways to lower that rate and their newest efforts have been to encourage young adults to participate in one “orgasm a day” through a new brochure aptly named “Pleasure.” It states, “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?” A campaign of this type has stirred up some controversy. Its critics feel the campaign is encouraging young adults to have sex at an earlier age and to have unprotected sex.

One of the brochure’s authors, Steven Slack, feels that it actually promotes the exact opposite of this. He feels that opening up the masturbation conversation will cause young adults to wait for their first sexual experience until they feel they can appropriately enjoy it. Experts from the United States agree with the message but are a bit skeptical about the means of executing the message. One psychologist, Pepper Schwartz stated, “These are still minors, and the parents, even if they are supportive of the idea, might be a bit scandalized to see their children being talked to directly about sexuality without taking the parents’ consent into account. I think talking about and demystifying masturbation is a great idea — but it should be done with parent cooperation rather than bombarding their child with information without context or respect for their own cultural and historical traditions.”

Others strongly support the British masturbation campaign. Another psychologist, Joy Davidson, stated, “Generally speaking, I see nothing inappropriate in suggesting that masturbation is both pleasurable and healthy for both young adults and older adults. If one is old enough to be potentially sexually active, one is old enough to deserve honest, comprehensive information about all aspects of sexuality, including desire and pleasure, and to be encouraged to learn about one’s body via self-stimulation. It’s long past time that appreciation of one’s sexual feelings, blended with emotional awareness and knowledge of safer sex practices, replace methods of fear-provoking and shame-instilling sexuality mis-education.” This campaign follows a series of other British initiatives to lower the teenage pregnancy rate.