I was stunned. Opening the booklet was even more shocking: Here, in simple language, was a step-by-step guide, with explicit illustrations, on insertion and removal of the polyurethane product.
And this was not the only thing I saw that promoted safer sex.  A $10 phone card tells users, “It’s all about communicating. AIDS is something to be aware of. Don’t be afraid. Use protection.” In addition, songs on both the radio and on an MTV-like television program called Tempo remind listeners to avoid unnecessary risks and public service announcements offer a continuous stream of safe sex messages.
The Caribbean, of course, has the second highest HIV prevalence in the world—after Sub-Saharan Africa—and AIDS is a leading cause of death for 15 to 44-year-olds in the region. According to the Kaiser Family Fund, more than one percent of Caribbean residents are HIV positive. That this is a public health crisis goes without saying, but the response—by government, media, and the business and non-profit community—is nonetheless amazing, at least when compared to what we see and hear in the US of A. Here, the fact of 56,000 newly diagnosed cases of HIV a year, reported by Julie Davids and David Muner in RH Reality Check on August 24, 2009, gets scant notice.
But it is not just that the promotion of safer sex gets little play within mainstream America, it’s that even when it is mentioned, it is pooh-poohed by the religious and secular Rightwing. Take a recent e-mail blast from The Abstinence Clearinghouse, a national coalition of advocacy groups working to promote “sexual abstinence [purity] until marriage.” The mailing celebrated the release of a study with an oh-so-sexy title: Condom Use for Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms.  The report, written by psychology professor Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior Journal, comes to a startlingly irresponsible conclusion: “Safe sex is not mentally safe.”
The upshot, Brody pontificates, is that the more frequently people have sex without condoms, the better their psychological well being. The reason? Condoms, he writes, block “the anti-depressants and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions,” thereby reducing sexual satisfaction and intimacy. Apparently, there’s nothing like the fear of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection to enhance pleasure. Even more absurd, Brody’s study—he reportedly surveyed 111 Portuguese men and 99 women—found that condom use also negates the mental health benefits of “evolutionary relevant sex.” That is, condoms block the biochemical response in “natural”--meaning procreative and heterosexual--contact.
Forget, for a moment, the blatant heterosexism on display. In 2007 Brody wrote that “Intercourse between women and men is the only form of sexual behavior that improves psychological and physiological function,” so his bias has previously been well documented.
This time, however, his promotion of mental health by denigrating condoms not only adds to the Right’s already-ample arsenal of specious anti-safe sex arguments, but is also a short leap to the championing of reckless, and possibly even lethal, sexual behaviors.
Martha Klempner, Vice President for Information and Communications at SIECUS and an RH Reality Check contributor, is appalled by Brody’s “science” and argues that there is “nothing we can do that is worse than bad-mouthing safe sex. People have sex because they have sex. If you tell young people that condoms won’t work, they will still have sex, but they just might not use protection.” SIECUS’ goal is to provide people with as much information about sex and sexual relationships as possible. This means, Klempner continues, offering people of all ages the tools to protect themselves from STDs. Furthermore, it means helping them to avoid pregnancy unless and until they’re ready to have a child.
“Condoms are important,” Klempner concludes. “They work, so I worry that Brody’s research will be used to convince young people that not using them is a good thing.”
Indeed, should Brody’s argument gain traction and stick, you can bet on an increased number of STDs and unplanned pregnancies. He—and the Abstinence Clearinghouse--should be ashamed of promoting such utter bunk.
