The conversation has subsided and the world hasn’t stopped.
The usage has decreased significantly, and we are all having jolly steady sexual intercourse
HIV and Condoms respectively.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. The virus is passed on through blood and some bodily fluids, for example during unprotected sex, through injecting drugs, or from mother to child during childbirth. HIV damages your immune system, so you’re more likely to get other infections.
A condom (which goes without saying) on the other hand is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases (STDs—such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV).
I had heard about it severally but strangely somehow never experienced it until some months back when to my utmost chagrin, a girl pleaded with me not to wear a condom before intercourse.
Alarmed and surprised, I put my clothes back on and left her apartment (hard to believe, right?).
On my way out, it dawned on me and re-registered in my subconscious that poco-a-poco, the lubricated rubber was being under-utilised and its relevance being severed.
Maybe the HIV pandemic of the 90’s and early 2000’s has lost its spine.
Aids, which is one of the most destructive diseases in the world has killed over 30million people worldwide and about 34million people are currently living with it.
Why again, are we not concerned?
Maybe lesser people carry the virus in present day.
Time and symptoms will tell.
Maybe there’s a known cure or affordable preventive measures.
Though, very recently in the US, a pill to prevent HIV infection is already being given to some healthy people, but without government approval, it remains out of reach and too costly for many who need it.
The pill’s annual cost ranges from just under $11,000 up to $14,000.
I wonder how many Nigerians can afford this.
Or maybe it has escaped our reasoning that condoms prevent not only HIV but syphilis, gonorrhea and other unfriendly body visitors.
From my experience, association, and relation with my peers of both sexes, I know for certain that today’s youth (male and female) secretly loathe the use of condoms as opposed to going in raw. Guys are all for skin-diving (Nigerian lingo for condom less sex) and the female half heartedly or hardly complain while some even request for it, yeah, raw sex.
There is this sardonic theory that most guys throw about jokingly but, surprisingly with conviction, to validate and justify their abandonment of condoms.
The saying goes thus ‘I will know if she’s got the virus’ as if a carrier usually has HIV crested on her forehead.
I laugh painfully and shake my head at this confident ignorance and unequivocal folly.
Now it would be a bloody double standard and I’d be doing my conscience a great disservice if I claim to have never indulged in the globally loved act of skin-diving. I have, yes, severally in the recent past but then, that’s the past, this is the present. I am wiser now, I’m all pro-condom, I should in fact be the face of Durex or Gold circle( your pick).
I might even wear two, if need be.
But, why the sudden distaste for the rubbery lubricated savior from HIV and other sister diseases by youths of this generation, if not all and sundry.
Why the dangerous silence on the matter?
Who is culpable?
We can blame the government and our leaders like we always do, but then, we should know better if we possess any iota of common sense and are a progressive generation like we oft proclaim.
We need to enlighten ourselves and adopt a sense of responsibility for the fate of subsequent generations.
If we cannot abstain from sex, we shouldn’t abstain from condoms.
Hiv is very much alive and actively spreading(but silently) and no known cure or affordable prevention is in the market for the disease.
I am a youth and so are you.
I love sex and so do you.
If we must have sex, then we must use condoms.
Condoms have been used for at least 400 years. Since the 19th century, they have been one of the most popular methods of contraception in the world.
I am against all things cliche but this is one status quo that must be maintained perpetually.
Tell it to your peers and siblings.
Scream it to them everyday if you have to.
Act smart, live healthy, be responsible.
We are all guilty of this inaction.
…prevention is better than cure…