Abstinence-only education breeds stupidity

[A] condoms-don't-work ad campaign led sexually active teens to have unprotected sex: "My boyfriend says they don't work. He heard it on the radio." Why is the Bush Administration giving horny teenage boys an excuse to be sexually selfish?
- Katha Pollitt, "Is The Pope Crazy?" The Nation, 11.03.03

Ok, forgive me if I'm wrong here and just arguing from behind my priviledged, Canadian, wear-condoms-or-die education, but is this girl just really really dumb, or what? Maybe I'm sheltered enough to expect a modicum of sanity and logic, even from people from Texas. Ok, ad firm, you're right. Condoms are not 100% effective. But guess what, they are 85% effective. Because so long as they don't rip and are properly put on and stay on, they are 100% effective for preventing pregnancy.

But even if no one told you about that 85% thing, doesn't it cross your mind, as a young, sexually active teenager, that the reason that there is a condom industry is because people use them? Don't you therefore make the next logical step to saying "my boyfriend thinks condoms suck, he can't be the only one, other people use them even though they think they suck, maybe there's a reason!"

Imagine yourself. You're a teenager. You're having sex. Even if a condom prevents pregnancy or an STD 1% of the time, don't you want to use one and hope? No, because of the patriarchy.

The patriarchy that tells you that you're a cooler person if you have a boyfriend, the patriarchy that tells your boyfriend that he "deserves" to have sex with you, the patriarchy that tells you that in order to keep your boyfriend you have to have sex with him. So you do it without a condom. Well done, education system, way to go.