So, as it turns out, sex is pretty popular, and over the past few decades, the use of condoms and other forms of contraceptives has helped decrease STI and pregnancy rates in places that actually bother to teach people real sexual education. Unfortunately for Americans, teaching has made way for preaching, and in this topsy turvy world, facts are the enemy.

Enter 1flesh, a website dedicated to preventing confused human beings from properly managing their reproductive organs. These religiously motivated douchbags are on a quest to get every man and woman to toss out their prophylactics and welcome a new age of barebacking. They’ve released t-shirts and other promotional materials in a bid to make giving out bad sex information look hip and cool.

The pseudo-facts on display include pimping out NPH and suggesting birth control has no impact on unplanned pregnancies. If that doesn’t outrage you, the ‘Birth control pills cause breast cancer’ tropes might. They’ve even thrown in some popular Internet memes in the mix in an attempt to make their lies seem hip.

…we got together — a group of college kids — to find the root of this mentality. (aka what the hell happened!?) Well, though any cultural change contains all sorts of contributing factors, we think we’ve narrowed all the wackness down to its primary cause: The widespread use of artificial contraception.

This is a dangerous idea. It’s dangerous because artificial contraception is heavily promoted by big pharmaceutical companies — like Bayer Corp. — and contraception providers — like Planned Parenthood. It’s dangerous because it’s not an idea supported by those in power. But most of all, it’s dangerous because it’s true.

I’ll tell you what’s fucking dangerous; super gonorrhea, herpes, AIDS and all the other nasty realities of what happens when people stop using protection. When your ‘enemy’ is a public health imperative, what does that mean for all the casualties of war who are influenced by these dangerous idiots?

We found, by looking at the best available analysis from sociology, medicine, philosophy and economics, that the widespread use of artificial contraception has failed to decrease STD prevalence, increased the global rate of HIV, seriously harmed the environment, screwed up relationships, and is strongly correlated with increased divorces, abortions, and unplanned pregnancies. We found that hormonal contraception significantly increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer, cervical cancer, heart disease, and may very well be lowering her sex drive. We found that the safety and effectiveness artificial contraception is often falsely advertised by pharmaceutical companies, and that the health benefits of hormonal contraception are totally exaggerated.

If by ‘the best analysis’ you mean distorting facts to fit your pre-determined conclusions (like claiming this report is against condoms, when all it says is that it’s not the only solution to the crisis)? What about not knowing the difference between correlation and causation? Eating tofu could be correlated with being good at ping-pong. Doesn’t mean shit. Oral contraception does not lead to cervical cancer; in fact, some studies even suggested the use of oral contraceptives could actually decrease the risk of ovarian cancer. Science must be pretty annoying to these guys.

Secretly I’m hoping the r/atheism reddit people flip out and spam the crap out of these assholes for daring to bogart their iconography. Boys and girls of interwebs, unite!

(Update: The site no longer exists, luckily)

Score one for the abstinence movement: a study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, found abstinence only teaching helped delay the age teens are having sex by as much as two years. Now, before you start cursing at the fact that the religious right is going to use this study to keep funding their veiled religious sexual education program, it’s important to note even the people conducting the study stressed abstinence programs are not effective in the long term. That’s because most programs misinform kids about various forms of birth control, and this is one of the main reasons why teen pregnancy rates in the US are so high.

… more than half of the students who were taught about safe sex and condom use reported having intercourse by the two-year mark, and more than 40 percent of students who received either an eight- or 12-hour lesson incorporating both abstinence education and safe sex reported having sex at two years.

So basically, abstinence only programs might delay the age kids have sex, but it doesn’t do a very good job at preventing these same kids from having babies when they are way too young.

I’m not actually surprised with the study, since it reflects the same studies which have been conducted regarding drug education programs; it turns out if you teach kids about their options, they are more likely to be curious and try them. The difference, of course, is they are less likely to make POOR decisions, which is really what education is all about. Look, you can’t stop kids from having sex (even less so than drugs); they’re hardwired by billions of years of evolution to crave it. Failing to teach kids about their options, however, is the real irresponsible thing here, and parents are sacrificing their children’s long term future in the vain hope they’ll “wait a little longer”. By delaying the inevitable and being deceptive about contraceptives and condom use, parents may have a little peace of mind, but it certainly isn’t worth the trade off.

NOTE: Turns out that it’s not even an “abstinence only” program they studied, but it was actually part of a broader sex ed program that encouraged kids to wait until they were ready while still providing information about proper birth control. This probably won’t do anything to dissuade religious folks from thinking their childish programs work, but that’s not really news, is it?

If you want to be a citizen of the US, you have to get vaccinated for a variety of diseases. It makes sense, but something as simple as a shot never seems to go very smoothly in that country. Take the example of Simone, a young woman from the UK trying to get an American citizenship. The government wants her to be vaccinated for HPV, but she has refused saying as a devout Christian, she will not be having sex, and therefore doesn’t need the vaccine. She’s essentially refused to take it purely on moral grounds.

I’m not even going to use the argument that good christian girls are actually more likely to engage in risky sexual activity; for all I know, maybe she is serious about this (and she might also be a minger; I don’t know). That’s not the damn point. The point is statistically she has a very good chance of contracting it (roughly 80% of women risk contracting it by the time they turn 50), and cervical cancer is no fucking joke, and yet her backwards religious belief is making her take a stance against protecting her own health.

The grandmother and teen make it sound as though getting a vaccination is equivalent to being waterboarded; it’s well within the right of the US government to want prospective citizens to take the necessary precautions to ensure their good health, and the health of others. Worldwide, cervical cancer still kills nearly half a million people a year. Does that seem like a small number to you?

This same kind of protest is happening all the time with this vaccine, which is not only annoying but also discouraging. How many women will die or lose the ability to have children all because of their stupid conviction that the vaccine somehow “encourages” promiscuity. No offense people, but one hardly needs an excuse to want to fuck all the time. We’re kind of engineered that way.