"Pinch, Pull, roll." To listen to the popular advertisements being aired, you would have the impression that if only our people would use condoms when having sexual intercourse, then all our problems in that area would be solved. The message is faulty and needs serious adjustment.

Tyrone Reid, staff reporter of The Gleaner, reported in an article published on May 7, that the Ministry of Education was seeking to put in place a system under which public schools would not provide their students with condoms on campus, but specific members of the schools' faculty and student body would be equipped to tell at-risk students exactly where they could get contraceptives without fear of being judged.

new approach misleading

This announcement was enthusiastically greeted by the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network (JYAN), as reported in an article published in The Gleaner on May 13, 2009. The group sees the ministry's move as an "important developmental step that requires a partnership between youth, parents, school administrators and teachers, health professionals and other service providers for us to ensure quality of life and productivity among young people so they can contribute to national development".

This new approach being considered by the Ministry of Education is undergirded by the belief that if our young people simply protected themselves while having sex, it would allow them to have a good quality of life and to be productive, according to the JYAN.

This is a myth. Condoms cannot protect the youth from being infected by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer. This cancer presents itself in Jamaicans at a high rate. The information outlined below is presented by the NJ Physicians Advisory Group. HPV is responsible for 99.7 per cent of all cervical cancer and is seen in oral, anal, genital and penile cancers. Some strains of the virus cause genital warts. Always using condoms may cut the chances of getting HPV only up to half, because it is spread by skin-to-skin contact in the entire genital region.

Condoms do not protect against herpes. Genital herpes is viral and causes painful genital blisters. It can be spread from skin-to-skin contact for which condoms give little protection. Both oral herpes and genital herpes can be transmitted through oral-genital contact.

Condoms are not foolproof against pregnancy. The failure rate among committed couples in the first year of use is 15 per cent; however, the failure rate for young, unmarried, minority women ranges between 36.3 per cent and 44.5 per cent.

Condoms do not protect against the emotional and mental impact of a sexually promiscuous lifestyle. Sexually active teens are two to three times more likely to be depressed than teens who are not sexually active.

More than the need to "pinch, pull, roll," is the need for us to teach our young people how to value themselves and to value others. We need to be conveying to them that true love waits. We need to let them know that delayed gratification is a character quality that will have a positive impact, not just sexually, but also emotionally and economically.

Condoms not the answer

Condoms are not the answer to the high level of sexual abuse in Jamaica. Dr Carolyn Pinnock of the Bustamante Hospital for Children pointed out that 33 per cent of girls in the Caribbean are sexually abused before they reach the age of 15. She noted that to address the issue of children being sexually abused in Jamaica, certain issues need to be addressed, one being that paedophilia (love of child sex) was socially accepted, as not many persons had an issue with an older man sleeping with a 14-year-old girl. Condom use cannot heal the emotional and psychological damage that has been done to the women and girls of this nation because of this practice.

We need to begin to teach our children that God created sex as a beautiful gift between man and woman in the context of marriage. We need to teach our children that sex is a private matter between couples who are committed to each other. It is for the pleasure, not of a viewing audience, but of the couple, engaged with each other. Instead, what do we have? What have we been doing? We have been perverting the sexual experience more and more for commercial gain. Daggering makes money; lewdness makes money. Give de people what dem want! What has been the outcome? Our children are so overexposed to sexual lewdness that they no longer know the value of intimacy as a necessary component of the sexual act. It is no longer regarded as necessary.

protection for the mind

Condoms do not protect the minds of our young from a twisted, perverted view of sex. We have come to such a state that some young boys coming into the high schools have now begun to target their female teachers as sexual objects. Are we then to supply them with condoms?

As a society, we must realise that relative morality is not the answer. We must set standards of morality, which we teach to our young people. It cannot be that because violence and lewdness sell, that we encourage them. We must stop allowing just our dancehall artistes to be the ones talking about sex in their perverted way. We must raise up countervoices with positive messages about the value of intimacy and delayed gratification.

We need to have leaders in our society who show the value of family by the family life they live. We need our leaders to be role models to the society of fidelity and love of family.

Our message has to be more than "pinch, pull, roll." It has to become, "Value self, value others; self-control and true love waits." This message, Ministry of Education, is what needs to be heard loud and clear.

Esther Tyson is principal of Ardenne High School, St Andrew. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.