Great Conversation

I had a great conversation with a young man. He is 18, and we were discussing why I would not provide condoms to him and his girlfriend so they could continue to have "safer" sex. "Safer sex" is a term used to describe having sex while using any kind of contraceptive or barrier that lowers your risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or pregnancy. The term is used because the proponents of it know that abstinence is the safest way to protect yourself and that no method other than that is 100% safe, so they have come up with the term "safer sex."

He had made it clear that he was not going to stop having sex. He was trying to convince me that giving him condoms was more responsible, on my part, than not doing so because it allowed him to continue his behavior yet be still be protected.

I informed him of the following:

• My message of abstinence would mean nothing if, after my whole speech, I turned around and gave him condoms.


• My job was to speak the truth to him, not if he liked it, but because he needed to hear it. I reminded him that if I gave him a condom and he got an STI or his girlfriend got pregnant, I would be part of the problem not part of the solution.


• If he thought he was old enough to be making the decision to have sex, then he could use his own resources to purchase the condoms (not the best plan, but true!).


• If he was a drug addict and wanted to quit, would it be helpful to give him clean needles to continue to use, even if he died doing it?


• He should not consider sex to be a "stand alone" activity, because God intended it to be attached to marriage for the purposes of intimacy and procreation.


• To continue to put himself at risk emotionally, physically and spiritually in the face of truth is foolish and if he avoids the truth, he does so to his own peril. I also told him I thought he was smarter than that, given our conversation.

He did not agree with everything I said. We did discuss the Gospel and how it could affect his life to have a personal relationship with God. In the end he did admit that I had made some valid points and that he would consider what I had said and that he did not like the fact that I had some good arguments.

Pray for more contact and that the seeds planted would grow!