Question:
Answer:
First of all, sexual activity outside of marriage is nothing more than usury—people using each others’ bodies for selfish sexual gratification. Only within a permanent and exclusive commitment can sex be the total and unconditional self-giving that it is meant to be. Second, there is a growing body of evidence that condoms in fact have a significant failure rate in the prevention of venereal diseases (including AIDS). Our chastity speakers recently spoke in Michigan to 10,000 students. During each talk, they asked the students what the most common sexually transmitted disease was. Not one of the students knew the answer. It is human papillomavirus (HPV), which is now responsible for the deaths of more women every year than AIDS, because it causes 99 percent of all diagnosed cervical cancer. The media won’t talk about this because the condom is useless in preventing HPV. So much for “safe sex.”
But even if they did succeed in the prevention of disease, we prefer to teach people that the best prevention against such horrific diseases is to be chaste—that is, to act appropriately according to one’s state in life regarding sexual behavior. The promulgation of the idea that condom use protects us is not only deceptive; it encourages a lifestyle that leads to sorrow and perhaps even death.
Had everyone reserved sex until marriage, and if spouses remained faithful, then we would not have an AIDS epidemic. Only a return to a chaste life can stop these diseases or, in the case of those already infected, contain them. Such chastity is within God’s plan for the human race. He designed us. He knows what is best for us in regard to our relationships and our health in mind and body. So we choose to tell the truth: One cannot commit sexual sin and not expect negative consequences. Chastity is the answer.