I want to begin by thanking everyone, all 56,809 of you, who took part in our risky sex survey. No matter what your answers were, I’m sure you learned something just by taking this poll and that’s what is most important: that we all have as much knowledge about sex, and the risks that come with it, as possible.

When I first began on the radio in 1980, I talked about sexual illiteracy. Since I was dealing with people who had problems with sexual functioning, I was really talking about people’s lack of knowledge when it came to how to best enjoy sex.

Yes, I mentioned sexually transmitted diseases and protecting oneself from an unintended pregnancy, but at that time, the consequences weren’t as severe. Only a year or so later, AIDS became front-page news, and that compounded the risks of sexual illiteracy.

No longer was it just sexual fulfillment that was at risk, but the very lives of those in my listening audience. But just because some behaviors are risky doesn’t necessarily make people abandon them. The lure of sex, in particular, is very strong. And combine that with an ingredient that lowers inhibition, like alcohol or drugs, and the likelihood of people engaging in risky sex increases dramatically, as this poll shows.

Given that we know that sexually transmitted diseases are rampant in our society, looking at the results of this poll might lead you to conclude that matters aren’t as bad as they might seem.

One might even find these results to be a hopeful sign. But then you have to look at them in light of some factors that are particular to this survey.

Problem may be even worse
Those who took this poll are not completely typical because they all have access to a computer. If you take some of the trends shown in the survey, with regard to education and income, and adjusted them for the likelihood that people with less education and income are less likely to have access to a computer, you can easily see that the problems with risky sex are more prevalent in this country than this poll shows, and so remain serious.

Another factor one should look at when analyzing this data is that the people who took this poll have a natural curiosity about sex and sexually transmitted diseases, which is why they were drawn to take the survey, and can easily get information about sex online, since we know they have access to a computer.

So in general, whatever their actual level of education, you have to assume this entire group knows more about risky sex than the general population. So again, this points to the problems of risky sex being greater than what we see from these results.

And, of course, if you re-examine these statistics in light of the type of person who took the poll (i.e. people who are better informed than average), we note that even among this group, risky sex is a serious issue, meaning that anyone who was not worried before they saw this poll should certainly be worried now.

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