Thanks to Txema, who is always ready to make a girl smile.

Inevitably, the goodie-two-shoes family values mob worries that if boys can get condoms easily, they’ll be more likely to have sex. “Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a pressure group, warned: “We are just facilitating and encouraging sexuality without any deeper understanding of the emotional side of relationships” The Times reports. (I don’t know what Josephine’s experience is but I carry condoms all the time and I haven’t noticed that it makes it significantly easier to get laid. The few teenagers I drink with say the same.)

More realistically, some doctors worry that the credit card scheme that goes with the free condoms will put some teenagers off. While condoms will be handed out at football grounds and other places where young guys hang out, they’ll have to show a “condom credit card” to get them. The card shows that they’ve sat dutifully through safe sex training sessions. If they sit through extra “what to do about drippy dicks” sessions, they get stamps on their cards, coffee shop style. The government’s notion that boys will want to collect the stamps as a status symbol seems devised by someone who has little memory of being a teenage boy, and doesn’t even drink with them. As NHS doctor John Crippen says, we shouldn’t be putting any barriers at all in the way of young guys being responsible about contraception and STI prevention if and when they get lucky.

If you’re a teen who’s hoping free condoms will help you pleasure women more often, Durex Play’s here to give you pointers on what you’re aiming for. But to keep in line with Nanny’s guidelines on appropriate viewing, please make sure you only watch this ad after 11 pm.

Thanks to Peter Barnett for pointing me to Dr. John.

Thanks to Paul Canning for pointing me to Patrick’s work. Readers might want to check out Paul’s comments on Iraq’s hideous treatment of gay men, and Britain’s spineless reaction.

I, like many who’ve written to me, am speechless with rage at the Pope’s first direct pronoucement on condoms. (Well, not quite speechless. I had a little vent about it in today’s Times.) To oppose condoms on dogmatic grounds is one thing. That’s the Pope’s job, if he considers it his job to defend Catholic dogma more vigorously than defending the life of young adults.

But the Pope didn’t oppose the use of condoms because Catholic dogma says it’s bad to have sex without making babies. He said we shouldn’t give out condoms in Africa because condom distribution actually makes the HIV epidemic worse. If he’s setting himself up as an epidemiologist, he’s got a bit of work to do. It’s true that in some cases, condom use is highest in communities where HIV is also high. But Rule Number 1 of epidemiology: correlation does not equal causation.

Think of all the miserable sinners who rush (back?) to the bosom of the Catholic Church at the end of a happily dissolute life, just in time for a celibate man in a dress to give extreme unction. In an instant, our sins are absolved, though the pleasure occasioned by all that babyless sex may stand rich in our memory. I haven’t run the numbers on death-bed conversions, but it seems likely that there is a strong correlation between becoming a Catholic and imminent death. By the Pope’s logic, Catholicism kills.

*UPDATE* : The Daily Mash clarifies what the Pope actually meant.
Thanks to Anita Fenton for the enlightening tip.

Thanks to David

What I love best about this is discussion of Chart Junk that it prompted at Presentation Zen. Read. Go ahead, read. Then tell me if you think the discussion is po-faced or tongue in cheek? And how come nobody picked up on Environmental Graffiti’s true wickedness, the Misleading Headline. As a resident of Ireland who has also spent time in Shanghai, I can tell you that having sex costs exactly the same in both places. Having safe sex, though; aah, that’s a different matter….

Thanks to Peter at Apt for the tip.

Bishop Robinson is Episcopalian (which is pretty High Church in the American protestant food chain), but even in that fairly liberal congregation being frankly gay has offended many. I’m especially pleased that he sets a good example to his many flocks. I ran in to the Bishop when we were both talking at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales last month. I happened to have on me a large number of chocolate flavoured condoms (as one does at a literary festival). I proffered these to the Bish — he howled with laughter and grabbed a large handful.

Now that he’s happily married, I hope he’ll save them for special occasions.

As a downpayment, resulting from late night goadings from a particularly delightful journalist disappointed that I have not yet kept my word, I offer The Whole boy, promised in the footnote on page 99.