SEXPLOSION Richard J B Willis
The government Health Select Committee issued a report this summer which speaks of the sexual health scene in the UK as being in crisis, and advise that they do not use the term lightly.
They highlight the fact that there has been a 500 per cent increase in syphillis in the last six years; that 1 in 10 of the UK population has experienced a sexually transmitted infection; gonorrhea figures have doubled; and that 1 in 10 sexually active young people have chlamydia (a micro-organism causing infection in the genital tract) and also an unspecified increase of the infection in men.
Other studies show that there are about 41,200 people living with HIV/AIDS in the UK, of whom around 30 per cent are undiagnosed. One person is diagnosed HIV positive every 3 hours, and 60 per cent of the new infections are through heterosexual sex.
When HIV/AIDS first hit the UK the government of the day published a leaflet with the title 'AIDS, Don't die of Ignorance'. With that panic over it is ignorance which is being deplored once again. The government is allocating money to various areas of help for sexual health, but, as one commentator states, 'The moves don't go far enough to deal with the galling ignorance and isolation around sex experienced by many young people … Many young people who have not had sex believe they are in a minority. Equally, a significant proportion of them regret their first sexual experience'.
The help that the government is proposing is the spending of £22-30M per annum to make genitourinary department (GUM) clinics people friendly in appearance; £10M to the GUMs to clear the backlog of patients; £5M to the GUMs to up-grade; £5M to install latest chlamydia testing; £1M to Family Planning Clinics; £400,000 to be set aside for HIV health promotion; and £11M for sexual health services.
Whilst these monies take care of the mechanics of the enterprise nothing has been done to address the root problem - the way people think - their attitudes to sex. The Report says: 'Young British people need to learn about sex in a context of relationships with both partners and peers, receiving more support to decide when and what is right for them. Citizenship is part of the national curriculum. It could be broadened out to include sexual health education'.
It may come as a surprise that young people are not taught about the facts of life in their proper context. A first move would be to fill in the gap ignorance has taken advantage of. Before young people get to the place where they need help, they should have access to advice and care. It is not always easy after, currently GUMs are not easily accessible when things do go wrong.
If youth were taught and shown healthy relationships at home and school they would not need the safety nets that society belatedly provides. It is to be hoped that the sexplosion that we see today will be changed and a decade down the line be only a damp squib!