Who needs these ads?

Blog.bioethics.net, the blog of the "American" Journal of Bioethics editors and pseudoeditors, are protesting the fact that some TV networks won't sell advertising time to a condom manufacturer. As I commented on their site, the ed's and pseudo-eds have forgotten that most Americans don't live on a college campus. ((Where one in four the residents contract Sexually Transmitted Diseases each year and where nearly that many - one in five - girls are sexually assaulted during their stay.)

How many of us have had to explain "Gentleman's Club" billboards to a 4 year old? How about finding ourselves needing to teach our 7 or 8 year old who just saw a commercial what a condom is?

Since we're talking "should:" I'd go so far as to say that most people believe that sex is properly private and that children shouldn't be exposed to sexual behavior of adults around them.

There, I've said it.

I guess parents could turn condom and K-Y jelly commercials into a sort of lesson that kids used to get on the farm when they saw sex between animals at a young age. Of course, those kids were exposed to birth and death in the home and in the barnyard, as well as watching their own food be killed and dismembered, too.

And, since I'm saying things that need to be said: (in my opinion) the constant public (in media such as TV and the Internet) the "selling" of sex of all kinds at at all hours of the day and night has resulted in an unintended social experiment.

That experiment has failed: the age of first sex has declined, and the variety and incidence of STD's has increased, even in those who report that they use condoms - and far too many don't, and don't believe that they're at risk. I don't believe it's healthy, physically or mentally.