The Beautiful Balloon

I sense that my connection with the New York Times will always be something of a love-hate relationship (as it appears to be with much of America.) To be sure, the Times allows (forces?) us to contemplate interesting slices of life that we might not otherwise be exposed to. Among the snippets of Americana served up recently by the NYT was a review of sorts of a documentary, "Please Talk to Kids About AIDS."

The Times described the film thusly:

In it, two incredibly sweet and precocious sisters — Vineeta and Sevilla Hennessey, ages 6 and 4 — accompany their parents, the filmmakers, to the 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto. They interview top AIDS experts, gay activists, condom distributors, a sex toy saleswoman, a cross-dresser playing Queen Elizabeth II and an Indian transgender hijra in a sari.

As the film unfolds, one of these moppets had the opportunity to share her own understanding of how HIV is transmitted.

At one point, Vineeta draws for the camera a picture of two people in bed. "These are condoms," she explains of the bowl beside them, "that you put in the boy’s penis, so they don’t get AIDS with a woman or with a man. A man can do it with a man if you like it."

And so, the progressive dream of childhood sexual awareness - or at least the dream of Vineeta's assuredly liberal parents - has been realized in microcosm. Long before she can elucidate the workings of her heart, brain, lungs or other vital organs, Vineeta can wax on about the workings of human genitals (and the use of condoms thereon), even as she is likely to be more curious about "Dora the Explorer" than genitalia.

Modern liberalism has long had a fairly transparent goal vis-a-vis sex: namely, the promotion of "safe" (read: consequence free) sexual intercourse by way of condom distribution, greater access to "reproductive health services" irrespective of age or parental consent, and so-called "comprehensive" (i.e., values neutral) sex education. One of the foundational concepts of the progressive sex agenda has been the notion of "protected sex."

But as we consider the idea of protected sex, we must conclude that it is a nonsensical fiction. Consider that - save some insect species - humankind is the only animal that has to protect itself in the course of normal reproduction. Compounding the inanity is the fact that, at the Left's encouragement, we willfully engage in coition with the very persons from which we must be protected. This situation does not make sense entirely because there is no sense to be made of it.

In their defense, progressives tend to analogize the use of condoms during intercourse with wearing seat belts while driving a car. By doing so, they ignore the salient fact that while the widespread use of seat belts has led to a readily observable decline in automobile fatalities, the use of condoms in and of themselves has had a negligible effect on rates of transmission of HIV or other STDs. (In fact, even with municipalities and schools handing out free condoms as if they were beads at Mardi Gras, we are in the midst of an upswing in STD cases.) Indeed, most of the observed decrease in HIV transmissions occurred prior to the advent of condom distribution programs in the 1990s, with transmission rates remaining relatively stable since 1991.

Any effect that condom distribution may have on HIV/AIDS prevalence can be easily attributed to an inherent bias on the part of condom users. Those who are willing to use prophylactics nearly every time they have sex would surely be conscientious enough to take other measures to avoid an STD. The less thoughtful who predicate their sex on intoxication or other less than ideal circumstances are more likely to copulate without even a sheath of latex as defilade.

To his credit, the author of the Times' story shared my concern that the film's young starlets may yet be too young to contemplate the mysteries of the sex act. Would that the Left exhibited similar concern about the rampant sexualization of the young, particularly young girls (as discussed elsewhere.) For now, liberals will continue to place their faith - and trust their lives - with lambskin.