StacyCat’s World of Thought

My main premise behind my campaign for stigma reduction is that stigma affects how individuals act. Typically, a reduction in stigma will result in an increase in positive and healthy behaviors.

I was reading a blog about passive barriers. The author used the idea that women dont carry condoms as a point.

Our safer sex education, while sorely lacking, seems to have done a pretty good job equating condoms with safer sex. However, the society at large also has equated condoms with sex itself, which is still stigmatized and shamed.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ssay/assets/downloads/meaning%20safe%20sex.pdf

The Australian teenagers in this study showed that girls had harder times buying condoms and carrying them, because of the social stigma against girls and sex. Boys were more likely to purchase and carry condoms, because they could easily play it off as experimentation, or that they are allowed to have sex without social ruin.

Both genders expressed issues with condom discussions, because it typically meant that intercourse was desired. (I once answered a question about “How did I know my partner consented” with “when he puts on a condom.”) The condom is the last barrier to sex negotiations, and typically is not discussed because it means *gasp* that the people want to have sex.

Interestingly enough, over the entire sample (which 60% did not have intercourse), most believed that the girl was the one to supply the condom.

One of the ways that we can slow the growth of STIs, and reduce unwanted pregnancies, is by sex positive education. If teenagers (especially girls, but everyone needs to know) are able to communicate with their partners without stigma and shame, they can make more empowered decisions about their health.