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What If We Regulated #CocksNotGlocks?

#CocksNotGlocks seeks common-sense regulations of guns. How about these common-sense regulations to prevent some of the harms caused by unregulated sex.

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Progressives are orgasming over a University of Texas-Austin event wherein students will bring dildos on campus to protest a new law permitting students to conceal carry handguns. They’re calling it #CocksNotGlocks and they’re very, very excited about it. In that way that young adults can be.

But the comparison of guns to phallic objects sparked an idea. The media are joining their progressive political brethren in calling for everything from “common sense” gun regulations to full confiscation of firearms. Why? Mass shootings, mostly. Following the killing of nine people at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon this month, the total number killed by mass shootings this year in the United States is 23. Shortly (very shortly) after the tragedy, President Barack Obama passionately put the case forward:

We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.

And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.

Let’s return to the cocks in the #CocksNotGlocks formulation. The United States is remarkable in that department as well. We have shockingly high rates of sexually transmitted infections. Look at just this quick side-by-side of three common sexually transmitted diseases and their rate of occurrence in the United States and Europe:

stds-europe-vs-us

Whereas Europe has relatively low rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syhphilis, the United States is showing something else altogether. Gonorrhea rates may have declined but they’re still far higher than in Europe. And hello, there, Chlamydia! How ya doin’? Similar things can be said about HPV, Genital Herpes, Thrichomoniasis, HIV, and HBV.

The amount of sickness, disease, and death from sexually transmitted diseases — and the amount of time and money spent combatting them — is difficult to quantify. But we do have some estimates that put it all in perspective.

The CDC analyzed data from 2008 to find that 110 million Americans have sexually transmitted diseases at any given time. Our entire population is not that much more than 300 million and a sizable portion of that population is below the typical age of sexual activity, so this is a staggeringly high number of people.

Other data points, according to the American Sexual Health Association:

  • More than half of all people will have an STD/STI at some point in their lifetime.
  • 20 million new infections develop each year.
  • Many children, particularly those aged 15-18, are at risk of disease and death from STIs. Each year, one in four teens contracts an STI. About half of all new STDs/STIs in 2000 occurred among youth ages 15 to 24.7. The total estimated costs of these nine million new cases of these STDs/STIs was $6.5 billion, with HIV and human papillomavirus (HPV) accounting for 90% of the total burden.
  • The total estimated direct cost of sexually transmitted diseases each year, in the U.S. alone, is $15.6 billion.
  • With more than 50 million adults in the US with genital herpes and up to 776,000 new infections each year, some estimates suggest that by 2025 up to 40% of all men and half of all women could be infected.

Sexual activity also leads to death. First and foremost, more than 1 million human lives are ended each year in the womb after they begin. Americans have been ending more than 1 million human lives after they begin year after year for decades, a cumulative death toll that we avoid discussing because of how much we value sex at all costs. Even setting those tens of millions of deaths aside, sexual activity also leads to loss of other human lives.

Take HIV infections, which more than 1.2 million people in the United States have. HIV is particularly prevalent among men who have sex with men. The annual number of new infections remains stable at about 50,000 new cases each year. In 2013, an estimated 27,000 people were diagnosed with AIDS. More than 13,700 Americans with an AIDS diagnosis died in 2012 and more than 650,000 Americans with AIDS have died overall.

We’re not even talking about all the people who die from suicides related to sex — everything from auto-erotic asphyxiation (1,000 a year!) to inability to handle the emotions involved.

Millions of deaths, billions of dollars in treatment, untold hours of wasted time. What about some common-sense sex regulations, then? If it saves even just one life, as President Obama has argued, isn’t it worth it?

• Mandatory waiting periods before the instigation of any sexual activity.
• Mandatory background checks of each participant, with rigorous and detailed information about his or her sexual history.
• Launch a federal sexual participant registry with detailed sexual history information.
• A ban on the purchase of sexy clothing and sexual aids on the internet as well as a ban on all internet-based dating.
• An absolute limit on the number of sexual partners anyone can have over the course of his or her lifetime, with a strong preference that the legal limit be 1.
• We must close the loophole on hooking up in bars.
• Restrictions on all high-risk activity, such as sex between men, sex involving alcohol, and sex involving drugs.
• We must rethink the “logic” of permitting concealed genitalia in places like houses of worship, colleges, bars, restaurants and political rallies.
• We must interface all state databases monitoring sexual participation to assess the sex-having population more accurately and effectively.
• A lifetime ban on sex for those individuals who have a fail to meet government standards on emotional well-being and proper risk-analysis.

If common sense regulations on guns are a good idea, so are these common sense regulations on sex. This is particularly true when you consider how much more damaging the reckless and irresponsible use of genitalia is.