No, thank you.

That is not a novel thought. It is as old as religion.

Abstinence based sex education has been shown to be ineffective, leading to greater pregnancy and STI transmission. Evidence says your idea won't help. And, well, it's also boring. I'll take my chances with responsible non-monogamy.

Go for it, man. Do whatever you want. I respect a person's right to believe anything they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want.

I did both. Have a look at other responses I gave in this thread. As far as AbEd education, who cares. I never listened to that stuff back in the 80's, and now we have the Internet, so we've got all the information.

We're talking about a looming public health crisis; your and my personal choices aren't particularly relevant to that. Evidence says telling people to be monogamous to avoid STIs does not work.

Nonsense. Public health is the cumulative sum of all our personal choices. This is especially true with STI's.

A bit impracticle given real world data shows that "About 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an affair at some point in some marriage "Monogamy Myth", Therapist Peggy Vaugn"

aka ~50% of couples who think they are monogamous are actually non monogamous (non consensually)

Well, it works well for me. 16 years married, and I have never cheated. In fact most of my friends and colleagues have been married a long time, including my friend Irving. He and his wife have been married for 70 years (they're both 92).

The percentages are meaningless when we're talking personal choice. It is a valid way of avoiding STD's, and a choice I made back in 1990 when I was 20.

Not to be a downer, but you've only effectively lived 1/3rd of your life, not to mention is that you aren't the only partner in your relationship.

Monogamy may work, safe sex pretty much always work :) Most people not only not getting married at 20 if at all these days, they are also having sex at an earlier age.

GL telling 16 year olds to wait, I wasn't going to get married in high school, and I had no intention of waiting then or even with hindsight now.

>these days, they are also having sex at an earlier age.

This is untrue. We have the most prude generation right now. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-millennials-...

Safe sex pretty much always works...riiiiight. Condoms never break.

I remember the term safe sex back in the late 80's. Then the term was changed to safer sex. So let's say you're going to have sex with a person and just before you start to get it on they say "oh, by the way, I have AIDS". Are you still going to have sex with them?

>Well, it works well for me. 16 years married, and I have never cheated.

Well then it's settled. I hope to read your manuscript in Lancet next month. STD epidemics are cured thanks to milesf boundless fidelity!

Oh look! It's the Lancet! http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-67...

And oh, look! Abstinence-only is not very effective, but Abstinence-plus presents all the information, including the closing sentence "Only if they are provided with all the information they need to make their own decisions will they be able to decide wisely."

Huh. Learning about everything and then leaving it up to the individual to decide. What a concept.

Good for you! Self control turns out to be an advantage for many things in life.

It's even better as you get older and begin to appreciate that enduring fidelity actually increases love. But I guess many here don't know that.

Statistics say most people are weak willed. shrug. That's obvious, and still not a reason to live that way.

Are you 100% positive your partner has never cheated?

Is drug abuse a problem in your country? Maybe you should try banning them, with harsh penalties for offenders. Easy!

It's a personal choice. Frankly I am okay with all drugs being legal as well. It's not going to sway my decision not to use them.

That sounds fairly Puritan. How do you define "drug"? That's the bit that matters. Alcohol? Caffeine? Theobromine? Somewhere in your diet and routine is something that meets someones definition of "drug" but not yours.

He said legal.

The question stands, what is a drug?

All drugs. Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, you name it. Legislation doesn't work, it only creates black markets that jack the price up and fund the less scrupulous elements of our society.

Is _that_ an answer for you?

No. I agree that legislation doesn't work. You stated you don't take drugs, and I asked how you define "drug". Caffeine et al can easily be classified as drugs.

Nobody ever cheats on their spouse, so this is guaranteed to work.

And then you find that you are sexually incompatible with the person you married.

> sexually incompatible with the person you married

That's as much of a myth as monogamy. Incompatible just means they're not attracted to you, or you to them. Call it what it is.

So both parties are physically/emotionally attracted to each other lets say but they're both submissive, or one has HL and the other LL (/r/deadbedrooms if you want more), or one's into monogomy and the other is polyamorous.

Just a few examples that confirm it's not a 'myth'.

A few anecdotes you mean. Polyamory usually signals a low quality mate, and is tangential to sexual compatibility at best.

Submissive usually means some disorder with the male.

There are tons of disorders that could impact sexual quality of life, but between 2 healthy individuals who are attracted to each other, sexual incompatibility is a myth.

This is some fucked up shit. Submissiveness is a disorder? No it's not.

Sure we can play this game because it's a tautology. My sexual preferences are different from yours? It's a disorder, doesn't count, you aren't healthy.

Having experienced this personally, no, it isn't.

If I want sex a few times a month and my partner wants sex every day that means I'm not attracted to them? No, it's well established people have differing sex drives and sex drives change with age.

I guess I lucked out, as well as a good number of my friends and colleagues.

Clearly you live on some other planet where people don't have sex before marriage, or they're just quick to deny such a thing ever happened.

Get tested and play safe. Marriage has nothing to do with it.

> Clearly you live on some other planet where people don't have sex before marriage

I admit that I really don't belong here in this world. I'll give you that.

Was I a virgin before I married? No. But when I learned about the facts of sexually transmitted diseases back in 1990, I chose to stop. After that, I got tested twice for STD's: once when I started dating a girl in 1993 who I was serious with, and knew that if I married her she needed to know if I had contracted anything (I was clean, but we parted ways), and once more before I married in 2000 (just double-checking. No STD's).

Still, I haven't seen one response to my comment from anyone else that can explain why monogamy won't work to stop gonorrhea. Why people are so up-in-arms in this comment thread about another person's personal choice seems silly to me. You are free to do whatever you want! I'm not going to stop you. But, we all have to live with the consequences of those choices.

I made my choice. Sorry that so many of you seem to be offended by that, but I really don't care what you think of me. I guess I have to spend my hacker news karma on something :)

Nobody's offended by your choice, that's your personal call, but to think that your particular decision is one other people can or should make, forcing your will on them, is pretty arrogant.

"Sexually transmitted" diseases have been given to people through other means, the primary vector being blood transfusions. They're also something you can pick up from needles either by being careless or having a freak accident. There's many ways you can end up with a disease of this variety even if you abstain.

Factoring in that some people are carriers, they show no outward signs of being infected, means you must get tested if you're intending to participate in any sexual activity if you're looking to minimize risk. It doesn't matter what your history is.

So your "it's easy" answer is actually advice that's misguided at best and insulting at worst.

> Nobody's offended by your choice, that's your personal call, but to think that your particular decision is one other people can or should make, forcing your will on them, is pretty arrogant.

We are talking about physical reality here. Arrogance doesn't even enter into it. We each, as individuals, make choices, and those choices have consequences.

> "Sexually transmitted" diseases have been given to people through other means, the primary vector being blood transfusions.

Primary? Are you serious? The primary means is through unprotected sex, hence the term "sexually transmitted". The blood supplies in most countries have been safe for decades.

http://www.cdc.gov/bloodsafety/bbp/diseases_organisms.html

> So your "it's easy" answer is actually advice that's misguided at best and insulting at worst.

I think your "find" function must be broken. I used the word novel, not easy.

Definition of Novel: Strikingly new, unusual, or different

Anecdata here, but...I live on this planet, have an awesome spouse, great kids, etc. It's seriously wonderful to be monogamous.

For me, at least, marriage has _everything_ to do with it.

You're confusing pre-marital sex with monogamy.

Human testes are much larger than one would expect in a truly monogamous primate[1].

Approximately 85% of all human cultures are polygamous and not monogamous[2].

1. Google "Harcourt testes 1981" and read the Nature article.

2. According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, a scholarly catalog of world cultures.

That's true and if it works for you that's great.

Getting preachy about it isn't going to win you friends or change anyone's mind.

Preachy? Seriously?

I am not here to change minds or win friends. I'm 47. I respect a person's right to believe whatever they want, all I ask is they respect my right to believe whatever I want.

Yes, it does work for me and many other people, and it's a legitimate way to avoid gonorrhea and all other STD's including chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis, HIV, human papillomavirus, syphilis, and all other STD/STI's.

The most straightforward answer is not guaranteed to be the most implementable, especially when it relies on co-ordination power. However, various people behave variously, and there exist those for whom "a twenty mile run at night" is entirely within their power [0].

[0] Commentary on the differing preferred escape strategies of Frederick Burnham and Winston Churchill. https://read.atavist.com/american-hippopotamus

Yup, pretty much. STDs are unavoidable, given promiscuity: there's just too much going on for diseases not to evolve and spread.

The problem is when people don't have sex before marriage they tend to get married to have sex. Then instead of having a heartbreak and moving on they are caught in a miserable marriage.

Have a read up on abstinence education programs and read up on their stats.

Who cares! I remember listening to abed stuff back in the 80's, and chose to have sex anyway. As I mentioned in another comment, in 1990 I heard about the _science_ behind sexually transmitted diseases and chose to stop.

It's so easy, everyone's doing it. Wait...

Here's a novel thought: USE A CONDOM.

Such a Hacker News answer. This is embarrassing.

You didn't detect the note of humour in my comment? :)

I'm claiming Poe's Law here. This is such a neckbeard response it's ridiculous.

"If nobody ever had sex we'd wipe out STDs within a generation!"

If nobody was having sex, you'd wipe out a generation in a generation.

Yeah, but at least STDs would be gone forever. Keep your eye on the ball, man!

Pluralise that please.

Um, I’m not sure that Poe’s law allows any conclusions. That’s kind of the entire point!