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Safe sex: old and wise enough to know better
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If you think practising safe sex is for the young and inexperienced, think again. Sexually transmitted diseases have no prejudice so find out how to keep yourself and your partner protected.
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By Laura Eggertson
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Think risky sexual behaviour is a teenager's concern? That's not so. A study by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada indicates teens can teach their elders a lesson in safe sex.
According to a contraception study (a survey of 1,600 women aged 15 to 44,) women in their 20s, 30s and 40s are just as culpable as teenagers of failing to practise safer sex consistently.
Fewer than 20 per cent of all women who said they had been sexually active in the six months prior to the survey reported they always used condoms. In fact, unmarried teenagers 15 to 17 is the group that's most likely to use a condom consistently. Forty per cent of girls in that age group said they always used a condom, compared with only 15 per cent of the 40 to 44-year-olds (including married women). So much for irresponsible young people.
Some of the women practising unsafe sex don't know the facts. Safe sex talk was not part of baby boomers' sex education.
The facts: AIDS kills. HIV is transmitted by an exchange of bodily fluids. Anal and vaginal intercourse and intravenous drug use are the riskiest behaviours. And male and female condoms, when used properly, are the only effective barriers to HIV transmission.
How to play it safe
Women are physiologically more susceptible to HIV infection because they have a larger area of mucosa, or wet surface, exposed to their partner's semen. Semen remains in a woman for several hours after sex, increasing the length of exposure to HIV. Because there is a high concentration of HIV in semen, the virus is two to four times more likely to be transferred from male to female during unprotected vaginal intercourse than from female to male.
Women are also more vulnerable if they have unprotected sex during menstruation, experience bleeding during intercourse, or have another infection (vaginosis, genital ulcers, genital warts).
Here are some ways to prevent the transmission of HIV:
• Abstain from having sex. Still the safest sex -- and the least popular.
• Use a latex condom or a female condom and a water-based lubricant when you have intercourse (vaginal or anal). The lubricant helps reduce tiny rips and tears in the vagina or anus during sex.
• If you insert your fingers into your partner's vagina or anus, HIV can enter the bloodstream through open cuts or sores on the hand. Use a latex glove and water-based lubricant.
• If you receive oral sex when menstruating, you can transmit the virus to your partner because of the presence of blood.
• When you are receiving oral sex, your partner should use a dental dam or a condom, cut open, or non-microwaveable plastic wrap between the mouth and vagina.
• When you are giving oral sex to a man, it reduces the risk if he is wearing a condom.
• Sex toys can pass on HIV if they are shared. Use a new latex condom on the toy and clean the toy with one part bleach to 10 parts soapy water between uses.
• If you don't use a condom, diaphragms or cervical caps can protect the cervix from infection, but not the vagina.
Sources: The Canadian AIDS Society, and Health Canada's Laboratory Centre for Disease Control.
Learn how to keep the passion alive in your relationship with Sex at midlife and beyond.
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