Blog #7 Perception of People with STD's

"Many people equate STD's with immorality, promiscuous behavior and low social status." The two pictures on the right remind me of the ignorance of thinking STD's is a problem for low social status. Do you really think the homeless man is having more sexual opportunities than the man pictured with a higher social status? I think our prejudice against the poor has more to do with our thinking than actual facts on those susceptible to STD's.

What about our prejudice that says STD's are problems of the immoral, promiscuous only? I'm afraid that a lot of those prejudices started back in our childhood when we went to our first sex education class. If you were like me, you were taught that young people were not to have sex until they were married. If they did have sex before marriage it could result in STD's or pregnancy. We were even shown films on STD's and what they could do to your body. Unfortunately this negative programming hasn't seemed to stop teenagers from having sex. Instead it has caused a lot of guilt and risky behavior. The kids coming out of these sex education classes really believe it can never happen to them. I think our society promotes the belief that bad things only happen to bad people. Since society has said that bad people are immoral, promiscuous and low income people, then if you are a good person, you are safe. If you look at the millions of cases of STD's and teen pregnancies in the United States, we are either saying that there are millions of bad people in our country, or maybe we are wrong. Maybe bad things sometimes happen to people, good or bad.

I agree with many of your post that say education is the key, however I think we need a change in the education we are giving, because the increase in STD's and teen pregnancy tells me what we are doing is not working. What if we changed this negative campaign into a positive campaign for abstinence? What if we taught our kids how to protect their bodies, not just from STD's and pregnancy, but all diseases or life style choices that can harm them? Chapter 8 in our book talks about how menopause has had this negative connotation for years, and yet they are learning that those women who take care of their bodies from youth with nutritional eating and exercising don't suffer near as much during menopause as those women who have lived life styles that are unhealthy.

There is a new commercial on TV that I think promotes the positive aspect of healthy eating. It's a commercial for eggs that says "If you want to be incredible, eat incredible". I love that! I think we should be teaching our kids and ourselves how to strive to be incredible.