Pop Culture and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
As our culture moves on through our fast-paced superstar driven society people seem to have forgotten the effects all of this may have on our children and on ourselves. It has become extremely common to see our favorite singers and songwriters male or female almost completely naked on TV, album covers and in concerts. Movies show an unimaginable amount of unsafe sexual activity and you can’t have a decent selling product without a twenty-year old girl in a bikini jumping around the beach. These marketing tactics do, however, work and they always seem to push it a little further every time they get the chance. So what? You may say. It is entertaining and fun to watch read and listen to, were all adults here and know real from fiction. But as our entertainment seems to be spiraling towards a never ending sexual assault we need to look at the facts that this has had on our society and recent explosions in Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
Teens and STDs
Our teens are having sexual intercourse, let’s face that one head on, and so did we as teenagers, but the world is not as safe as it used to be. STDs like HPV, the cause of genital warts, is now effecting the lives of one in four Americans and the statistics are very similar worldwide. Herpes is a very unpleasant disease that cannot only effect you physically, but mentally as well. Going to work or even to the store with an out break is painful and makes you feel that you are a bad person that has done something horribly wrong. Other STDs that are continuing a climb in statistics are Chlamydia, Scabies, Pubic Lice or Crabs, Gonorrhea, HIV, and Syphilis. All because our new pop culture makes it seem OK and safe to have many sexual partners with little effects to ourselves and our loved ones. Even safe sex is no longer truly safe it’s a very scary game to be playing and most people loose and find out the hard way.
STDs in the Schools
Even in the pop culture world itself you here about how these mega stars are contracting STDs. It’s not safe when your 12 year old son or daughter grows up with their role models striping on poles or jiggling there rear ends around they think that these are normal behaviors. You end up with teenage girls wearing mini skirts and shorts that cover nothing and when there boyfriends want to hit it home they are pressured from not just their high school sweet heart, but there role models their friends and everyone else around them. If we are going to continue down this path we need to make very clear that STDs are no fun and very real. How to do this is a difficult journey with unknown roads. Eventually the entertainment industry has to take some responsibility and start to gather some useful safe and entertaining role models before everyone in the world is scared and alone in their home wondering if anyone will find out about there newly diagnosed STD.