mind wander 10/17/10

I won’t get into the whys and wherefores of the wanderings of my mind. But I will say this -- it do wander.

Last night as I was in the first leg of the car ride home (when C does the driving and I can relax for a little bit) I was doing what I always do, letting my mind drift.

I’d had a disturbing dream on Saturday night about women and unprotected sex and my mind picked up the thread there. I began to contemplate women having unprotected sex even though they might be on the pill. I won’t disparage the Pill right now, but if you’re on it you might want to look into research on the long term effects.

And you might want to consider the consequences of unprotected sex with male partners if you are not married to them. Yes, I said married. And I’m not becoming more conservative in my old age, I’m actually just worried for my single straight female friends that they may be doing serious damage to their bodies having unprotected sex on the pill.

In any event. I was mulling over the consequences of HPV. And then my mind shifted into wondering about men who have unprotected sex with men and are exposed to HPV. Next I wondered if HPV (male to male) transmission put men who are exposed to HPV at a greater risk of HIV infection.

Turns out I’m not the only one who has been pondering this. Read here.

If nothing else, I guess I was right, male to male transmissions of HPV does appear to put men at a greater risk for contracting HIV.

If there’s good news here, it’s this: you can protect yourself. Use a condom.

And unless you’re married -- or in the case of homosexuals who can’t officially say “I do,” in a church or temple, then please be sharing a mortgage, car payments, and the care of pets and/or your children – please please please don’t rely on the pill to protect you from serious diseases. (And just so I'm clear, I am not suggesting that marriage will protect anyone from disease, it's just that in a marriage there's probably less exposure to disease from your mate and should either of you become gravely ill hopefully your mate will stick around to nurse you back to health.) And to prove that I’m not being old fashioned, for anyone who wants to have sex with multiple partners, go for it, just please protect yourself.

The one thing I’ve noticed in just about everyone I’ve ever known (myself included) is what I’ll call “generalized soul-myopia.” And by that I mean people rarely seem to take into consideration the consequences that today’s choices will have on life way on down the road.

The best way to remedy that: look at old people. I’m not kidding. I’ve been scrutinizing old people for years and when I see something I like (Damn she looks great for 75) I try to find out how the person lived and then I emulate that.

I feel I could get into a serious ramble here but I won’t. Instead I’ll ask that you consider taking your self-respect to the next level.