Has anyone really wondered about the term “safe sex?” Since when did regular sex become dangerous enough that a new kind of sex was declared? Was it when a combination of factors, including sex becoming so commercialized that its image has lost every meaning except the physical one and the development and continuous improvement of contraceptives, allowed and rather encouraged more near meaningless sex among teens and adults, which in turn created a breeding ground for sexually transmitted diseases? Or was it in a different day and age, when things such as teenage pregnancies and fornication were frowned upon (certainly not put on a pedestal) and when the standard of sexual activity was within a faithful monogamous relationship between a married man and woman? The answer is quite clear.

The term safe sex should not even exist. For anyone using the term safe sex, the adjective safe implies that there was something dangerous about having sex in the first place. Sex is never dangerous and never will be dangerous within the correct context, namely, the one described above. By pulling sex out of the correct context, the word safe has naturally attached itself to sex. Why is this so? Sex as it is depicted now, outside of marriage, is dangerous, both emotionally and, certainly in this age, physically. In contrast, when sex occurs in the right context, the ever-present danger of STDs goes away, and it solidifies the relationship between husband and wife. And what about the other danger “safe sex” helps to prevent? When did a baby become so dangerous that we must kill it before it has a chance to scream for help? Of course someone had to try to make extramarital sex “safe”: When a person uses something for a purpose other than that for which it was intended, bad things happen.

Thomas Hymel, Freshman in Engineering