Musing.
Hi, everybody. Long time, no blog.
I was reading an obnoxious little article on CNN today that tried really hard to shed a negative light on non-romantic sexual relationships. The title of the article is “The downside of friends with benefits” but the link from the main page is even worse: ‘Friends with benefits’ spread STDs.
Here’s a sample paragraph:
Experts in sexually transmitted diseases say they’ve become increasingly concerned about the trend toward having what they call “sexual involvement in nonromantic contexts” — the technical term for hookups or “friends with benefits” — because they’re especially likely to spread sexually transmitted diseases.
I’m left wondering when romance became a barrier against STD’s…
Of course they go on to say, after several sex-negative paragraphs, that
When people have sex with a friend, they tend to be more trusting that the person doesn’t have a sexually transmitted disease and therefore fail to use a condom, she says.
Well that makes a lot more sense… Lack of proper precautions enhances the likelihood of getting a disease, not “nonromantic relations”.
Towards the end of the article, they give some statistics about what percentages of people have which diseases, and they point out the rates are higher amongst teens and/or black people. Which leads me to one question: Is the rate of STD’s more strongly related to wealth? I never seen any study pursue that.
I’m glad I didn’t read that article, because just the blog post is making me cross!
Non-romantic sexual contact tends to lead to a greater risk of STD transmission. That’s bore out by the available statistics.
People do tend to trust FWBs more than they would a partner in a “hook up” – often with no good reason beyond self-image – and have more partners in general than people who mostly keep to more traditional romantic sexual pairings.
But then, most people who try any variant of a poly lifestyle fail at it as well, so what they’re basing their conclusions on is evidence that is not indicative of more successful practitioners of the lifestyle.