I suggested a while ago, to some push back, that antibiotic-resistant STDs were going to shake up our sexual mores a bit. Here (h/t Instapundit) is more evidence:
Using nationally comprehensive vital statistics, this study found evidence that the era of modern sexuality originated in the mid to late 1950s. Measures of risky non-traditional sexual behavior began to rise during this period. These trends appeared to coincide with the collapse of the syphilis epidemic. Syphilis incidence reached an all-time low in 1957 and syphilis deaths fell rapidly during the 1940s and early 1950s. Regression analysis demonstrated that most measures of sexual behavior significantly increased immediately following the collapse of syphilis and most measures were significantly associated with the syphilis death rate. Together, the findings supported the notion that the discovery of penicillin decreased the cost of syphilis and thereby played an important role in shaping modern sexuality.
This makes sense, when the only two known "venereal" diseases were easily treatable with penicillin people could experiment without fear. Nobody counted on the emergence of all the other STDs which have come along since then, some of which are not treatable. I wish someone would tell Hollywood this, last night I watched a movie called "Shame" with Michael Fassbender, you might have heard of it. He allegedly has a sexual addiction and screws everything in sight, mostly women but he receives oral sex from a man in a gay bar. Not a condom to be seen anywhere, and the women depicted are all too willing to spread their legs for him, in one scene two at a time. This isn't the real world.
ReplyDelete