Does access to condoms lead to irresponsible or bad behaviour?

There have always been, and always will be, young people who want to have sex. Access to condoms gives them the ability to be slightly more responsible about it. Not having access to them doesn't stop them doing it, as can be pretty clearly seen from the rates of teen pregnancy and STIs in places where abstinence only sex ed is taught in schools. Also, I don't think it's "bad" behaviour. Stupid, perhaps, but not inherently bad. Sex is natural and normal.

by Jennifer Muirhead

Agreed.

In my opinion, it would just prevent teenage pregnancy.Access to condoms or not, bad behaviour always happens.

by Sasha

You said just what I was thinking...so I will go with you on this :)

I totally agree you on this. Young people will have sex, so we may as well give them something to keep them safe from STD's. One of my best friends runs a Youth Space and they help kids all the time with sex education, but when they are in the throws of hormonal it seems that the condom can and does get missed which is a worry. S

I think it promotes responsibility, not irresponsibility.

by DamienR

No, I think it would encourage people to practise safe sex even more, considering how they are so expensive and free giveaways are always a bonus!

by Xarah

I agree with kstew. Old fashioned I know, but promiscuity is made easier with condoms, sadly. Condoms are good for those who love each other and will one day end up in a committed relationship. So many young people have lost count of how many people they have had sex with.

by joan_

Hormones are a tough one. They affect the whole essence of a being. Having access to condoms just means a reduction in teen pregnancy or pregnancy - full stop. I rather have them have access to it than no access and deal with a whole different issue!

by chipp

I think it is a good thing. Having condoms readily available doesn't make young people more likely to have sex, because when they were not readily available, there were high levels of youngsters being sexually active. More condoms just means safer sex; it can only be a good thing.

by Bryony Harrison

I would have thought that access to condoms would mean a teenager would have sex more freely, however I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing, as it is natural.
In fact probably the more who use them the better as I find it very sad that there are so many teenage parents nowadays as they are really still "children" themselves.

by Finy

The safest sex is always no sex, yet condoms are a good form of protection. Never had any break on the other end. My partner did something bad to me lately (hence we're keeping our distance now as I don't want to end the relationship) and I threw all his condoms away.Bad luck!

by Justine Crowley

Access to condoms STOPs unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of STD's how can that be irresponsible?

"I do not have a condom so lets not have sex'

Has been said by NO teenager EVER!!!!

by butterfly lady

I lived in a country town years ago before condoms where readily available to youth. The only place the local kids could buy them was from the Greek guy who sold them secretly from under the counter of his green grocer shop. Take a guess whose daughter was the first girl in town to get pregnant.
We need to promote respect for the act of love making in the correct state of marriage and connect the action to the resulting birth of a child if we are ever going to salvage this community. I wonder how a boy would react if the girls response to pressure from him for sex was to ask if he was hoping for a girl or a boy child to care for and finance the education of for life.
Sex is about 2 people who love each other creating life. It is well over due that we made this point clear.

by kstew

As you have not defined what you mean by "irresponsible or bad behaviour" and there will be many different views on what constitutes such, it is difficult to answer this question.

The assumption by most (if not all) who have commented is that the question implies "irresponsible or bad *sexual* behaviour" but that is just an assumption. It could equally include other behaviours that some would class as "irresponsible or bad behaviour". However, let me assume that it is potential influence on sexual behaviour that is intended as the topic.

Condom access, of itself, does nothing other than facilitate a greater opportunity for people to engage *more safely* in heterosexual or homosexual sex.

The cause of people engaging in irresponsible or bad behaviour is a complex one that includes many, many variables. The existence of access to condoms or otherwise is largely incidental. There may be some correlation but I have certainly seen no evidence of nor can I imagine how they could be causative.

Whilst on the surface it may seem very different, those who argue to restrict access of condoms effectively use the same argument as those who argue to restrict gun ownership - they imply that access is causative: in the case of condoms, that it will lead to more *irresponsible* sex, and in the case of guns, that it will lead to more *irresponsible* shootings. Both arguments mistake correlation for causality. The condom and the gun are each tools and each can be used *within* desirable and responsible contexts or *within* the context of undesirable and irresponsible ones.

I think that to look at the question from the opposite point of view is perhaps more realistic and useful, i.e. "If access to condoms is not available, is that likely to contribute to an increase or decrease in 'irresponsible or bad behaviour'?" I would suggest that the absence of access to condoms is likely to be far more harmful than access to them, for the simple reason that engaging in sex is usually, (particularly in the case of the young), a response to physical feelings and bodily changes that are generally and relatively spontaneous rather than carefully considered and organised. As such, if condoms are readily available there is more likelihood that they will be used but, if they are not, those aroused will, in many cases, go ahead anyway.

A further reason that I would suggest ready availability of condoms to youth is a positive action is that if young people learn to use them from the outset of their sexual experimentation then they are more likely to establish a *habit* of safe and responsible sex and less likely to get an "appetite" for unprotected intercourse.

Finally, can I just say that not only do I favour the easy and inexpensive access to condoms for whoever needs them but that I'd like to see the invention of a condom for guns that would, as effectively as that for the penis, prevent the particular and incidental damage and trauma that can result from irresponsible use of either of these tools.

by roger

If only Oscar Pistorius had had a condom . . . .

I understand why people use them, but condoms do not lead to 'safe' sex. Sure, they may prevent STIs and pregnancy, but why does no one address the emotional effects of sharing one's self with another? I think that condoms lead to irresponsible behaviour in that they can be used as an excuse to sleep with whoever and whenever - particularly in regard to one night stands - with absolutely no regard for real connection or commitment.

by Vee

No. People will do what they will do whether they have access to condoms or not. It's more responsible to use them then not if you're going to do it anyway.

by Sarah Bell

I don't term it as BAD but as irresponsible behavior without considering others' intentions, involvement or the consequences of one's actions. But these days I find even pre-teens sexually active and coddling/cuddling is pretty commonly observed in public places like trains, cinemas and just about any place.
And availability and accessibility to condoms only helps preventing unwanted pregnancies, STDs and other negative side effects of uncontrolled sexual activities.
My only fear is that this un-curtailed approach to sex will tend to continue unperturbed even if condoms are inaccessible and that will create social issues again..
Accessibility to condoms or contraceptives accompanied with continued sexual education and monitoring is probably one way to curb unwanted problems..

by Manny

"Irresponsible" and "bad" in this context is too dependent upon moral, philosophical, and religious views, so rather than comment on that, my comments are from the perspective of the relationship between condom availability and undesirable sexual outcomes. By "undesirable" I mean outcomes that a given person or couple would not prefer or necessarily plan for, however extreme.

Firstly, if our society actually subscribed to a "no sex outside of marriage" norm, AND people had enough self control to restricted their sexual activity within that context, there would be far less (or even no) STIs unwanted pregnancies outside of marriage. It IS possible to do this, with the exception of criminal behaviour such as rape (where the perp is hardly going to consider care about condoms for mutual benefit anyway).

My wife and I lost our virginity to each other on our wedding night 21 years ago. Avoiding the temptation to engage sexually prior to the wedding day was difficult (particularly considering our society's current norms encouraging people not to abstain prior to marriage), but not impossible. We figured we were going to spend the rest of our lives together so a) there would be plenty of opportunity for that and b) this gave us the opportunity to work on something together that was difficult for us both (a good thing for a couple planning to marry).

Unfortunately, however, and for whatever reason (philosophical, physiological etc), the vast majority of people either choose not to take the same approach as my wife and I, or can't resist their desires for sexual intimacy prior to marriage. As long as this is the case, there will be a higher incidence of unwanted pregnancy and sexual conduct/outcomes.

So, that brings us to the question of how the availability of condoms might influence certain types of behaviour (and therefore outcomes). True, correlation does not equal causality, however, if we made burglary legal, the only thing stopping it would be how much we fortified our homes and protected our property. Another way of looking at it is how warmer and drier weather "cause" criminal behaviour. The reality is that the weather has nothing to do with a person's inclination for criminal behaviour, but it does provide more or less opportunity. If you were a burglar, would you prefer to carry out your actions when it is cold, wet, and people are more likely to be home (increasing your chances of being caught), or when it is a comfortable temperature and you can "work" without interruption? If you are criminally minded, you will probably commit a crime, but you will do it when the circumstances suit you the best. Apart from free accommodation and food, why would you want increase your discomfort and chances of going to prison?

OK - so burglary and other crimes might be very different things to consensual sexual intimacy, but I'd hazard a guess that most undesired sexual outcomes began with a degree of consensual activity - it's just that one party then takes it further than the other party wants. If we take the emotion and philosophical views out of the picture and take it right back to the mechanisms of cognition and behaviour, I think that it would be hard to say that making condoms freely available doesn't contribute to an increase in sexual activity. The easier it is to have sex, the easier (and therefore more likely) it is to arrive at undesirable sexual outcomes, and while no marriage is perfect, undesirable sexual outcomes are far less likely to occur between a couple in a genuine life-long mutually caring and consensual commitment.

So is restricting access to condoms the answer? Absolutely not - for all the reasons already mentioned by others in this thread. Even in an extremely sexually conservative society, sex outside of marriage WILL occur, it is the nature of the human race (that's one of the reasons why most cultures developed marriage in the first place, and why I believe professions that REQUIRE life-long celibacy are over-represented in undesirable sexual outcomes). Does that mean we should go in the opposite direction and encourage sexual ease and permissiveness? No - that makes the incidence of undesirable outcomes increase even greater, if for no other reason than a simple overall/absolute increase in sexual activity. When people argue that Correlation and Causality are completely separate things. In many cases, a correlational relationship is simply a causal relationship which science is yet to develop a way of proving that causality. remember how long it took to finally prove in court that smoking CAN cause cancer and premature death?? The correlation-not-equaling-causality argument was used to defend smoking corporate profits for the best part of a century...

The simple answer to the question is that changing the attitudes and practices of an entire society is the only thing that will decrease undesirable sexual outcomes, and condom availability is only one tiny contributor to the whole incredibly complex equation. Hence, the "simple answer" is not realistic.

Apart from the challenge of disciplining ourselves to avoid sexual intimacy temptations prior to marriage, the questions of condoms and undesirable sexual outcomes has never been an issue because it was even on our radar. That's the CHOICE we made as a couple (no sex outside of marriage = no undesirable sexual outcomes outside of marriage, and statistically there are far fewer undesirable sexual outcomes within a marital relationship than there are outside marital relationships).

by kimp

I have 3 sons and I would rather them use a condom than have a girl get pregnant also somewhat disease safe.young people will try out sex and
there's nothing you can do about it you can't be with them all the time.Im
still waiting for the pill for males why do we have to take precautions all
The time when they were at living at home I would have dropped it in there milo

by fazee

Well to answer that question properly I think you would need to define irresponsible or bad behaviour.
Preventing and unwanted pregnancy and the transmission of a sexually transmitted disease I would call very responsible.
If the question is should young people be engaging in sexual relationships before they are emotionally mature enough to handle them than that is totally different. This is a question which leads to many other questions so rather than take up any more time. Short answer equals NO.

by Shelley Murphy

I would think they lead to responsible behaviour...but there you go.

by Lydia C. Lee

No way; if they don't have a condom many will go without. Access to condoms just saves many from stds and pregnancy whilst doing what they'd likely do without the condom.

by Valadhiel

I think condoms should be readily available, hopefully to discourge unwanted pregnancies.

by Diana Nairn

I would have to say no. Children are having sexual encountes a lot earlier these days. All the education not to do it falls on deaf ears and condoms not only prevent pregnancy but diseases.

by nat_c

I think access to condoms is necessary. It does not lead to bad behaviour but may prevent a bad choice from ruining someone's life, as in unwanted pregnancy or disease.

by annfi

I believe its responsible rather than irresponsible behavior.

by helga

I think to have condoms available isn't a bad thing,whether they have them at hand or not if they still want to have sex they will do it anyway.

by Diana Nairn