[quote=Maven;993362]
"And look at how we are super-sensitive about sex in the U.S., particularly. The freest country in the world, and we have major hang-ups about sex. Europe is known for topless beaches, and it's no big deal there. But if you breastfeed in public or have a "wardrobe malfunction," the country gets all bent out of shape. It's just a breast! Nudity does not equal sex. Children aren't harmed by seeing naked people, unless those around them make such a big deal of it, it "sticks" with the child. You can teach your child you believe others' behaviors are wrong, but you don't have to freak out."

I absolutely agree with that statement, and I thought the same thing when the Janet Jackson incident happened - everyone was up in arms over a breast on national TV, when people allow their children to witness all kinds of violent horrors without giving it a second thought, in a society that promotes war instead of love.

Of course, we will never go back to the "free love" society that was once promoted in America, and I don't think we should be so care-free in a world where people are dying of AIDS, and lifelong diseased such as herpes, and even curable but nonetheless deadly diseases like syphilis continue to be prevalent in our culture. Which brings to mind the recent comments made by Jamie Foxx regarding Miley Cyrus, telling her that catching chlamydia was akin to a rite of passage into adulthood.

I don't think that the topic of past sexual partners should EVER be a secret - your current partner has every right to gauge the safety of their current situation, and the fact is that the more partners one has had the higher the likelihood that they have been exposed to a STD, herpes being the prevalent one, which can be acquired and passed on without showing symptoms, and is not generally tested for in blanket STD testing. Anyone who doesn't get tested between partners or withholds information from them, who would endanger a partner in that way, is a sorry excuse for an adult.

Herpes Prevalance Rate: approx 1 in 4 or 24.63% or 67 million people in USA
source:
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/g/geni...rpes/stats.htm

So, if you've had more than four partners, think about your chances. One must look at the evidence of a subject and make wise decisions based on those, and the fewer partners one has the safer they are, that's a fact. It isn't just a question of religious morality, though many make it out to be.

Which brings us back to America's sex phobia; if sexuality were a more open subject and didn't suffer from so many taboos we would be creating safer a society. Information about safer sex, not just abstinence, would be available to young people in all schools instead of not discussed by people who deny human nature. Of course, abstinence is the best way to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancy, but you'd have to be stupid to expect young people not to experiment, and that's what abstinence-only education assumes. Young people have a right to know what they are exposing themselves, and others to.

The matter of breasts in public has more to do with America's sexualizing of the breast than being anti-sex. In other countries the breast isn't focused on so heavily as a sexual object and that creates equality between men and women on that front, no pun intended. Where I live it is legal for women to be in public with their breasts exposed the same as for men, but I wouldn't say my community whole-heartedly agrees with that law and you rarely see women excersize their rights.

Anyway, CONDOMS, everybody! CONDOMS CONDOMS CONDOMS!!!