Editorial | Wednesday, 09 December 2009

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Let’s talk about sex

Where in the world would it make the news that somebody has applied to install a condom vending machine at the university? In Malta? Not really. Condom machines have been around for years, conveniently attached to bathroom walls at catering and entertainment establishments of every description.
Students can hardly be wildly excited at the prospect of such a facility becoming available to them for the first time. If they wanted the product, it is also available at pharmacies and supermarkets across the county.
And yet, ‘MOVE’ – a progressive, leftist student organization – has applied to the university authorities to install such a machine. If not news, that is at least a curiosity. In the above circumstances what has induced this NGO to make this... well... ‘move’? Of all not-for-profit organizations, MOVE seems the least likely to seek to go into business to sustain itself.
The application is symbolic. MOVE want a response from the powers that be: an approval which will open way for commercial providers or a refusal which will expose the university administration to criticism and challenge from liberals and Liberals.
The banning of Ir-Realtà and the reasons given for the ban by the university rector may have something to do with the MOVE application. This is a clash of philosophies and ideologies, a matter of principles rather than a conflict about bathroom furnishings. MOVE are pushing the envelope via the installation of a condom vending machine, an envelope which continues in existence only at the university. It is the artificiality, the transparent pretence which is under attack. Bully for MOVE.
The far more significant issue is the prudishness of public policy which appears to ignore the steady rise in the incidence of STDs and rate of under age and out of wedlock pregnancies. The data is readily available and has been for long ages in the annual NSO publications.
The installation of a condom machine at the university set against this background begins to take on major significance. It could become a watershed in public policy: the absence of a condom machine on the university grounds has become a symbol of the culpable denial of reality practiced by the establishment. Making condoms marginally more available will hardly make a dent on the situation but an admission by the university that it can no longer continue to ignore the world around it could be a major breakthrough.
The threadbare device of acting as a bulwark against permissiveness has become immoral despite its superficial adherence to Catholic doctrine. All such bans act to avoid a discussion of sexual ethics and the practicalities of avoiding the life changing consequences of sexually transmitted disease and the irreversible effects of premature parenthood. For far too many years children have been bringing up children mostly because as the age for the onset of sexual activity continues to fall, we have continued to avoid equipping our youth with the ability to make informed choices.
The majority will continue to be clever or just plain lucky. For one reason or another they will manage to avoid the worst. It is the widening swathe of casualties that has to be addressed.
Ignoring the fate of a small number of the victims of official prudishness never was a defensible position. As the numbers grow, the problem is no longer only of inhumane hypocrisy but one which can have demographic consequences from increased sterility from exposure to STDs to the social effect of an increase in the number of children disadvantaged by being born to single parents who have not had the chance to grow up themselves before they are obliged to care for a child.
Ignoring the problems always was a bankrupt policy. Ignoring them for a little while longer to avoid the political flak from bigots and conservatives is what has extended ignorance and obscurantism for so many decades. It has taken us 70 years to come to the beginning of the beginning of rent law reform. We are still unable to allow divorce. We need urgently to talk about sex and human dignity. How about it? Why do we always seem to wait until we are overwhelmed by the known or knowable consequences of inaction?

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.