Incredulity, infections and ignorance.

When I was a sweet little 17 year old, three of my classmates had babies, another 2 had abortions and goodness knows how many contracted STI’s.

Whilst on my year abroad in Spain, I was utterly horrified to discover that I was handed the contraceptive pill over the counter of a chemist without the flap of a prescription or the formality of an examination. My incredulity was exacerbated still further on discovering that my foreign friends thought that the pill protected you from STI’s. It reached a climax when I was confidently and candidly told that, regardless of sexual history, everyone practised the truly senseless method of “marcha atras,” Spanish for “slip it into reverse.”
“Why on earth?” I cried. “Well, it’s better for him,” I was told.

Unbelievable. Not usually a pioneer for sexual health, I immediately raised alarm bells, leaping aghast onto my soap box to orate about the alarmingly growing rate of STI’s amongst today’s youngsters. I was met with the equally blunt response, “Oh, we don’t have those over here.”

Solution? Well in England it appears to be to throw free condoms from rooftops or offer them as alternative pic’n’mix in schools. As part of Freshers’ Week here at the University of Westminster, Smoke Radio has joined forces with Sexual Health Group Plc on a crusade to convert irresponsible imbeciles into safe-sex specialists by offering the chance to win a years supply of Condomania condoms.

In addition, the University Health Clinic also offer free Chlamydia testing for those who did not adhere to the “prevention, not cure” maxim. Hooray! Yet what is the use of all this complimentary sexual paraphernalia and testing if the user is totally ignorant as to how to put the damn thing on?

In a recent online survey published by the Terrance Higgins Trust and the National Union of Students, 23% of the 2200 students questioned did not know that condoms are the only form of contraception that stops STI’s as well as swimmers. Perhaps I should not have been so harsh on my Iberian amigos. And what is the use of offering free STI testing on campus when teenagers have no interest in going or are embarrassed at the prospect of a social meeting in the waiting room? I am very proud to say that last year I resolutely frogmarched my bewildered English flatmates to the GUM Clinic. But what if I hadn’t?

So how to quell this ignorance before it even begins? As always, catch them when they’re young. A massive increase in Sex Ed in schools is indispensable. Hands on, practical advice on wrapping-up would kill those playground rumours once and for all. And rather than becoming yet another infected statistic, teenagers might finally choose to play safe.