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Dr. John's ABC's of AIDS prevention
Location: BlogsDr. John's Personal Blog    
Posted by: host 2/6/2006
Dr. John's ABC's of AIDS prevention

Briefly put, I use the ABCs of AIDS to help introduce the basics of HIV prevention to youth.

A = Abstinence
No sex = no AIDS. It's a medical fact that not having sex will protect you from STDs and HIV. Postponing sex until older is better than starting too early.
B = Be Faithful
Monogamy, having sex with only one partner is safer than being promiscuous with different partners.
C = Condoms
While condoms are not 100% perfect, using condoms protects sexually active young people from HIV and most STDs. Unprotected sexual intercourse is always 100% unsafe.

To this message, I make these points:
Sharing needles is never safe and in parts of Eastern Europe, it's the leading transmission route for HIV.
You don't know who your sexual partner has slept with before you.
Boys and girls lie to each other to get what they want. For many boys, sex is a game and they want to score. For many girls, giving up sex is a way to get a boyfriend.

Note: For many young people, abstinence-only-until-marriage is not a viable choice. They'll say, "Do adults really think I'm waiting until I'm 25 to have my first sex?" Most parents with whom I speak make concessions for their older unmarried children (but not under their roof although this standard is also going by the wayside). Many parents will condone sex before marriage but they put a higher age on consenting sex for youth than do sexually mature teens. When you talk to young people, they laugh and say they know their parents' generation had sex before marriage too but just don't want to admit it. Universally, youth say that what they do with their bodies is their business. I can accept that with older youth but with this caveat, postpone sex as long as possible and follow the ABCs. They need to hear that HIV is out there and if they follow the ABCs, they can probably avoid AIDS. Because they live in a democratic world, they must carefully decide what their level of risk is going to be based on medically accurate facts.
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