Throughout October 2009, young people and their allies are engaging in advocacy efforts in communities across the country to raise awareness for the need for REAL sex education. The Sex Ed Month of Action will engage young people and their allies across the United States in showing their support for comprehensive sex education.

A survey out of the British Office of National Statistics last week indicated that, for the first time since tracking began, as many women in the U.K. were using condoms as a birth control method as were using the birth control pill.   As I searched through the research and news articles to try and figure out what was making condoms more popular in the U.K., I found myself being a little jealous.

I realize that it may be unfair to compare two countries’ birth control usage statistics.  There are myriad societal and cultural factors (different health care delivery systems to use but one example), that affect individual choices of contraception.  Still, in the United States about 30 percent of the women who use contraception choose the pill and only about 18 percent choose condoms with their partner. So not only did I start to wonder what is making the condom more popular there but also what is inhibiting its popularity here.

Part of the problem is obvious. The condom has always been a favorite target of the right wing.  Its members constantly deride the effectiveness of this method and point to lessons about the proper way to use condoms as proof that comprehensive sexuality education programs go too far.  My best guess as to why they hate condoms so much is that besides abstinence, this is the only method of birth control that also offers protection against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).  It allows people to have sex while greatly, greatly reducing the risk of negative consequences and, because the Right has a worldview that is based around consequences, it must be very upsetting.

Those who have followed the evolution of messaging around sexuality education over the last twenty years know that the Right has labeled anything other than abstinence education as “condom programs.”  In response, so as not to be pigeonholed as “the condom people,” I think that we have moved too far away from our staunch promotion of the male condom (not to mention the female condom, which is not as widely accessible but as effective as male condoms in preventing both STDs, including HIV/AIDS, and pregnancy).  We are, and should be, unabashedly pro-condom.

Unfortunately, in many situations, we discuss these as if they are just another option in the contraceptive arsenal.  Frankly, this isn’t good enough.   Condoms deserve to be talked about in a totally different breath from other contraceptive methods because they are simply the best weapon we have against so many of the sexual health challenges we face here in the United States and across the globe.

Condoms are affordable, easy to use with the proper instruction, and extraordinarily effective in preventing both STDs, including HIV, and pregnancy if used consistently and correctly.   It is terrifying to think where the HIV epidemic would be in the United States (not to mention the global pandemic) were it not for the condom.  I am convinced that our best hope in this battle is to get the millions upon millions of necessary condoms into the hands of people who desperately need them to protect themselves.  This is especially true in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Zambia, where AIDS has driven life expectancy down into the mid-30s.

I am not naïve enough to think that condoms are the answer to all our problems, but they certainly give us the most “bang for the buck,” if you can pardon the expression, when it comes to prevention.

Because change starts at home, we must continue to emphasize the efficiency and effectiveness of condoms in our sex education programs. We have an opportunity to do so right now as Congress is on track to eliminate funding for all existing abstinence-only-until-marriage programs – programs that have historically deliberately undermined young people’s faith in condoms.  Both the House and the Senate are working on funding for more comprehensive programs.  I’m concerned, however, because there is the possibility that this funding focuses exclusively on teen pregnancy prevention.  While this is a noble and important goal it is not enough and I fear it will not place sufficient emphasis on the unique importance of condoms (after all, there are other ways for sexually active teens to prevent pregnancy but these would leave them vulnerable to STDs).

Let’s not miss this opportunity to remind ourselves, the world, and yes, the Right, that we are and ought to be pro-condom. Congress needs to enact a broad initiative that addresses unintended teen pregnancy, as well as STD and HIV prevention. This will provide our young people with a more holistic, comprehensive approach to their sexual health, and it will give us the opportunity to further promote that sometimes misunderstood hero in the war for sexual health – the condom.