Wicked is a grassroots community organization dedicated to the promotion of public Health and Safety using common language that community members will understand. Our current campaigns are related to public consciousness raising about matters of sexual health and sexuality education.
While speaking at a 2006 EdWatch National Education Conference Senator Michelle Bachmann said, “You have a teacher talking about his gayness. (The elementary school student) goes home then and says ‘Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.’ The mother says ‘Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.’ The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, ‘Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.’ And you think, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.’ Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.”
Are you fucking kidding us? In the day and age of the human genome studies we at Wicked think it is pretty clear that sexual orientation is not so easily influenced. Especially if people take into account all the statements on prenatal development and sex determination being in the first trimester. So let’s get to a real issue here shall we. Bachmann wants to talk about abuse? Ok… Let’s Talk about it.
Let’s talk about how the Midwest is ranked second highest in cases of reported Chlamydia and Gonorrhea and ranked third in reported cases of Syphilis according to the 2010 center for disease control STD Surveillance Report.
Let’s talk about how Indiana is ranked 24th among the 50 states for cumulative HIV/AIDS cases based on the 2010 CDC State profile.
Let’s talk about the approximately 19 million new cases of STD Infections that are estimated to be reported each year.
Let’s talk about the $17 billion dollars that the United States Health Care system pays to STD related expenses such as testing and treatment. Not to mention the high costs for individuals when it comes to treatments that will go on for the rest of their lives.
Let’s not forget to talk about how some STDs have become so common they are no longer required to be reported.
Are you getting nervous yet? If you are then you are a little behind because you should be pissed. We at Wicked don’t know about you but we were taught a very important phrase. You probably know the one we are talking about. It says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
NEWS FLASH! These rights are not being fully honored. Our liberty, which is basically our ability to govern ourselves, is being manipulated by our lack of resources. Our lives are being damaged because the resources we are not getting are not keeping us informed to how harmful many STDs can be if they go undiagnosed and untreated. We seriously doubt that anyone is going to be happy when they find out that they have syphilis and it is attacking their brain as it does in later stages.
Now one argument is that testing is available to those interested. Apparently the people making this argument have not seen their sex lives as having a need for such services. At home tests for STDs can cost around $100 per test. Testing done through clinics can range from $20 - 90 per test. Depending on the region the prices can be even higher.
There are some that say to go to your family doctor to get tested. To that we say… you got to be shitting us. Here is what you probably did not know about that. If a person goes to their physician there is a record of the tests run in their medical file. The same medical file can be requested by insurance companies later in life when the person applies for a life insurance policy. STD testing is seen as high risk behavior by many insurance groups and is grounds for rejection.
Sir Tomas Moore wrote, “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
Society has set its people on the trajectory to be at a higher risk for harmful situations and then pushes them upon completion. By society I don’t mean some faceless corporation. We mean everyone. The people that built, and operate within, this system are the system. The society that the people built is doing this to the people. So let’s get real here. What was built by individuals can be fixed by individuals.
Let’s fix it by getting rid of Abstinence Only Sexuality Education because this is the lack of education that sets people on a dangerous path to begin with. Besides, Abstinence Only programs are not much more than federally funded religious censorship tactics which actually takes away our “liberty” by still allowing someone else to decide what information we do and don’t get.
Let’s fix it by not complaining about the lack of funding for these organizations dedicated to sexual health and doing something about it. When Seattle, Washington’s Gay City Health Project was having funding issues they worked with local businesses to create a Discount card system that upon donation based purchase got the shopper a discount when shown at certain local businesses. This helps with the funding issue for the health project, boosts sales at local businesses and stimulates the local economy. Everyone benefits!
Let’s fix it by de-stigmatizing sexual behaviors. If people are not ashamed to talk about it then they will be more likely to find information that helps them practice safer sex. This could dramatically decrease the expected number of new infection cases reported to the CDC each year.
Let’s fix it by working with Clinics to increase the availability of low-cost, or free, STD testing.
Let’s fix it by getting to know what is out there. Depending on definitions there are at least 10 STDs circulating around the United States and for whatever reason only four are seen as reportable. It is time to wake up and smell the latex.
Bachmann wants to talk about abuse? What do you call it when people rob their children of the information they need to protect themselves and then criticize them for making mistakes? We at Wicked define that as abuse.