Innocent or a broad?

Link

The following is a rant with a response, from one of my favorite sparring buddies on gameknot. Reading the above link will help it all make sense, as will the understanding that jd (a medical doctor) was arguing against immunization of pubescent girls for HPV. My response (written about a year ago), follows.

8 out of 10 women in the US will have acquired an HPV infection by the age of 50.

Fact. www.cdc.gov

I’m not sure how vaccinating anyone against it is trying to bring down the roof of civilization, nor do I see what elites or liberals or God has to do with it.

It’s a disease, it’s widespread, and we’re trying to stop it. Why is this bad, exactly?

As far as the stats on kids having sex go, and sexualization of kids, and Brittany Spears walking down the school halls claiming to be innocent and sucking on a lollypop… Whatever. Yeah, we’re all messed up when it comes to sex. Education is about the only way out of it that I see.

Teach the kids that it’s better to wait, and that safe sex is necessary if they want to enjoy their thirties and beyond… yeah, those are good things. I wonder how many of those Ivy League beauties went through abstinence only programs?

jdh71
13-Mar-07, 23:06

…

***I’m not sure how vaccinating anyone against it is trying to bring down the roof of civilization, nor do I
see what elites or liberals or God has to do with it.***

You missed the point. Perhaps your obvious knee-jerk reaction resulted from lack of readin the entire piece.
The point was mainstream pornography is attempting to sexualize our young women at younger and younger
ages. I do not have a daughter, but it still bothers me. There is a price to pay, and none of these ideas and
experssion come from conservatives, so . . . connect the dots Kem.

Also, just a point of fact while we’re talking facts, there are around 100 HPV viruses. The vaccine protects
against only ~4~ - it’s not a panacea and no gaurantee against HPV, genetial warts, or cervical cancer. The
propaganda hype has been amusing.

Vaccinations have a pretty good theretical model for why they work, and on one level vaccines do exactly
what they are supposed to, on another level there is a strong association with vaccines and auto-immune
function, as well as, known toxins as componets in the vaccine. Do your homework on vaccines . . .

…and my response to that was:

jd

First off, if I comment on a piece, you can be sure I’ve read it. I don’t cringe at Freud and Kant, and an online article like that one is hardly difficult reading for an even semi-literate adult not suffering from ADD.

As far as doing my homework on vaccines, I’m not anywhere near as well informed about the relative merits or drawbacks of everything out there, obviously. I never claimed it was a panacea for anything. It’s a preventative measure, though. I assume that it’s effective at lowering the risk, and that’s about all I expect from a vaccine. Risk levels of 8 out of 10 are scary and unpleasant. We should be doing what we can, everything we can, to decrease those numbers. As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s a fairly bitter debate going on in the lay public over whether or not x vaccines cause autism, whether or not it’s okay to simply skip vaccinations, and whether or not Stay-At-Home-Moms who spend a lot of time reading online stories “proving” the link are smarter than their doctors.

I tend to side with the doctors. If you’re telling me that HPV vaccinations have known risk factors and negative side effects that outweigh the benefits of potentially reducing those odds, I’m listening.

I didn’t get the connection between wanting to vaccinate a known problem at the earliest ages when we *know* kids are starting to experiment sexually (and hello, I have a six-year-old, of course that scares the begeezus out of me, and of course I want her to wait until she’s mature enough to handle sex!) and an effort to make a buck off of our fantasies.

Sex is weird. The fact is that our culture is warped when it comes to sex… mind-bendingly so. I don’t dispute that. What I do have a problem with is the very thinly veiled accusation that the Godless liberals are all responsible for this. Last I checked, God-fearing conservatives seem just as likely to be in the spotlight for that sort of thing, and they’ll shell out the cash for it as readily as the next person.

Look. Sex sells. As a culture, the idea of going where no man has gone before and being responsible for the transformation of a good little girl into a lifelong nympho addicted to his lovin’ has a lot of appeal in a fantasy context. Fantasies are larger than life… thus, the pseudochild, hovering on the edge of innocence, just waiting to be explored. No pressure to perform (after all, she doesn’t know any better than you), no cellulite or jaded cynicism or tendancy to get on you for not mowing the yard when it’s 90 frelling degrees outside.

Just sexual fulfillment, and a desire to be taught more about it.

Who in God’s name doesn’t want that (at least in the fantasy world… in the real world, things like jobs and cars and ability to cook, clean, and pay bills do register as very important!… and having a certain amount of carnal knowledge to bring to the relationship equally so!)

Point me towards a man who isn’t at the very least theoretically interested in sex whenever he wants it with a worshipping mistress and no responsibilities, and I will show you a man you shouldn’t trust any farther than you can comfortably spit a dead rat.

The fact that that the sex industry exploits this tastelessly doesn’t do anything to decrease the numbers at the cdc website. Arguably, it does the exact opposite.

All the more reason to take every possible preventative measure.

The logic in this article seems pretty similar to the logic used by people who don’t want kids to have access to condoms or confidential medical care. An “accident” made more likely by burying one’s head in the sand and trusting our kids to be good little boys and girls… just like their mommies and daddies, right?

Heh.

Talk about a fantasy world.