Pregnancies and diseases revealed
The risk of accidental pregnancy when both condoms and birth control pills are used is approximately 1 in 10,000 couples per year. When just condoms are used, the risk is 1 in 50 per year and when just birth
control is used, the risk is approximately 1 in 200 per year.
Risk of accidental pregnancy
Per Year (assuming 100 sex acts)
No protection : 8 in 10
Condoms: 1 in 50
Birth Control: 1 in 200
Condoms & Birth Control: 1 in 10,000
Per Act
No protection : 1 in 125
Condoms: 1 in 5,000
Birth Control: 1 in 20,000
Condoms & Birth Control: 1 in 1,000,000
Consider that if you have sex on a regular basis for 10, 20, or more years, you can multiply the risk by the number of years, thus the risk of getting pregnant over 20 years, if you only use Condoms, is 20 in
50, or 40%. Not a very good risk if you don’t want to have an abortion. If you only use the pill, the risk of getting pregnant over 20 years is 20 in 200, or 1 in 10. This assumes perfect use, and does not consider the possibility of misuse or accident.
Both condoms and birth control pills can be bought online.
Whether you have sex with one person or sixty, the risk of impregnation is still the same. The only thing that really makes a difference is how much sex you have.
Diseases, on the other hand, can sometimes be an argument against promiscuity,
There are 5 main diseases which may be tested for when you go to an STD clinic:
- HIV
- Gonorrhea
- Chlamydia
- Syphilis
- Herpes (blood test)
- There is currently no test for HPV(warts).
Many clinics do not give a Herpes blood test, and, as Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Syphilis are all curable, and as the risk of HIV is very slim, your only responsibility is to keep your self healthy by periodically testing for G, C, & S which might not have symptoms, and use condoms.
So, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Syphilis are not an argument against promiscuity, if you can test yourself regularly. How regularly? I don’t know, but if you are sexually active, I would assume at least once every 4 months to protect yourself against these diseases, which if left untreated could cause irreparable harm.
The only obstacles to this are 1) cost of tests, which at selected clinics are free, and 2)lack of desire of going to the clinic every four months. Cheap and simple at home tests for these three diseases could 1) reduce the incidence of these disease; which for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia is high *** (how high), and 2) stem the tide of Pelvic Inflamatory Disease which can cause infertility and effects 1 million women a year. I did find cheap at home tests for gonorrhea and chlamydia for 5.95, but I have no idea how effective they are. Such tests should be sold next to condoms in the drugstore.
HIV is also not an argument against promiscuity, because the risk of contraction is slim, and then, if you use condoms the risk is at least 90% slimmer.
An all in one at home test which tested for Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Syphilis, Herpes, and HIV would be ideal.
While the main worry with G, C, & S is making sure the disease is cured before it causes permanent damage, testing a partner to make sure they are clean ensures that you do not even need to receive treatment for these diseases. The point of testing for Herpes and HIV is to prevent these diseases. If you can test your partners for Herpes, then you should be able to exclude everyone except those who got the disease within the last six weeks. If you can test your partners for HIV, then you should be able to exclude everyone except those who got the disease within the last 6 months – that is, in the case of HIV, in the USA all except about 20,000 people, many of them homosexuals and intravenous drug users.
But given the high probable risk of Herpes and HPV(Warts), especially in the absence of a test result for Herpes, either of these diseases could be an argument against promiscuity.
Herpes
Results of a nationally representative study show that genital herpes infection is common in the United States. Nationwide, at least 45 million people ages 12 and older, or one out of five adolescents and
adults, have had genital HSV infection. Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, the number of Americans with genital herpes infection increased 30 percent.
Genital HSV-2 infection is more common in women (approximately one out of four women) than in men (almost one out of five). This may be due to male-to-female transmissions being more likely than female-to-male transmission. Since more women have it, but the risk of getting it is less, I suppose it balances out. Less men have it, but the risk of transmission to the female is higher.
It is also possible, but less likely, to get herpes from someone who does not have sores. Over the course of one year, the chance of getting genital herpes from an infected partner who has no symptoms is between
four and 10 percent. So, if the risk of transmission if they have the virus with no symptoms
is 4%-10%, or 1 in 25 to 1 in 10 per year, then it’s 1 in 2500 to 1 in 1000 per incident, if they have the virus, (assuming 100 sex acts per year). If you figure a 50% chance that someone has HSV, then those numbers fall in half. At best a 25% chance that they have it, so at best the risk is 1%-2.5% or 1 in 100 to 1 in 40 per year, or 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 4,000 per incident. Unless I can find another study which says that the risk of Herpes transmission is less. Since someone did say it was 1 in 50, or 2%.
There is a Herpes blood test, but it cannot be taken for at least 3-6 weeks after possible exposure, and it is possible that Herpes anti-bodies might not show up in the blood for 12-16 weeks after infection. (3-4 months).
HPV (warts)
Approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.
Question: How can 20 million people infected with HPV result in 80 percent of women and 50 percent of sexually active men and women being infected at some point in their lives, when 45 million people infected with Herpes does not result the same.
There are over one hundred varieties of HPV. About thirty of these viruses are associated with genital warts but not all types of HPV cause growths you can see. Strains 6 and 11 are responsible for 90% of
the cases of genital warts. Strains 16, and 18 are responsible for 70% of the cases of cervical cancer.
There are about 10,520 new cases of invasive cervical cancer in the United States per year, which result in about 3,900 deaths. Pap tests can detect very early precancerous changes in the cervix.
Sexually active women should get a Pap test each year. Pap smears have cut the incidence of cervical cancer by a whole bunch, I’m not sure by how much but I think I heard like 50%. You can look up the exact figure on your own. Your own immune system may eventually clear HPV from your body within
2-5 years.
Question for guys: What percentage of Americans are infected with an hpv strain that causes warts, and how many new cases of hpv warts are there each year? An answer to this question would allow us to asses the ACTUAL risk of genital warts rather than just the risk of HPV in general.
Question: Is the skin under removed warts still symptomatic – able to transmit the virus?? It’s possible…..
Question for girls: In addition to the above questions, what percentage of Americans are infected with an hpv strain that causes cervical cancer, and how many new cases of cervical cancer causing hpv are there each year? An answer to this question would allow us to asses the actual risk of wart and cancer causing HPV rather than just the risk of hpv in general.
Luckily they are developing vaccines against Herpes & Warts which hopefully shall be available soon. Condoms provide partial protection, but not much against Herpes and HPV(Warts). Condoms which covered the entire groin area might solve this.
But what is the risk that someone has Herpes or HPV(Warts), and what is the risk that someone will transmit Herpes or HPV(Warts) if there are no visible symptoms. I don’t know. For information on the risk that someone has and/or will transmit HIV see my other message. And how big is your pool of promiscuous people? Who knows, this requires more analysis.
HIV
Condoms reduce the risk of HIV transmission by 90%. So on the one hand, although the personal risk of HIV is low, and one might conclude that one only needs worry about one’s own personal risk, on the other hand, HIV is a biological Holocaust, and 21.8 million people have died from AIDS worldwide (though only 438,795 US). In the macro, an argument against promiscuity would be that we don’t want this disease to spread before we can find a cure. Yet why? It could be months or it could be centuries before we find a cure. If the disease spread to far because of promiscuity, then in the future being promiscuous would put you at a high risk, and would thus kill promiscuity. While currently, your own personal risk is probably no greater than that of getting in a fatal car accident. Because there are 40,000 new cases of HIV every year, and 40,000 fatal car accidents every year, and while the pool of promiscuous sex having people may be smaller than that of car drivers, many of the new HIV cases are homosexuals and intravenous drug users. So why put off sex and why worry about anything except your own personal risk? Which for now, is very low.
However, we don’t want HIV, and we don’t want car accidents, so while it behooves us to attempt to lower the risks for both, we do want to drive, and we do want to have promiscuous sexual intercourse.
As for the “government campaign” to stop HIV. It seems what we can do is 1) Develop a vaccine or a complete cure (as opposed to mere treatments), 2) Develop cheap at home tests, 3) promote condom and test use, 4) promote asex (abstinence and monogamy, and androgyny) – at the expense of our sex lives.
Another good argument against promiscuity is that if you have a disease and do not know, you may pass it on to more people, however it does not increase your own personal risk, it only increases the possibility of future risk for everyone.