National Condom Week Begins February 14

For 25 years, National Condom Week has been celebrated in the United States to educate people about how to use condoms and why they should use them.

STDs are more common than you think

Even though you would think everyone knows about condoms and how they can prevent infections and pregnancies, they don’t! The United States has the world’s highest rate of curable sexually transmitted infection.

Chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomonas and HIV/AIDS are all sexually transmitted diseases that you can get from someone if you don’t use condoms. The number of people getting all these diseases is very high.

For example, one of every four people have herpes. This means at least 50 million Americans have it, even if they don’t know it. The number of people with syphilis is more than it has been in the last ten years. Condoms can help reduce some people’s chances of getting both these diseases.

STDs can be very serious. They can prevent women from having children and men from fathering children. They can cause severe infection and even death.

What are you going to do about it?

Okay, so now you know the names of these diseases and that you can easily get any one of them. If you are not going to abstain from sex, you need to learn how to use condoms perfectly! A lot of teens don’t know how to use them well enough to protect themselves from getting an infection or from giving an infection to someone else.

Remember, most of the time, people don't know that they have a sexually transmitted infection - and don't forget the risk of pregnancy. Over half of all teens who get pregnant every year weren’t planning a pregnancy.

Learn about your sexual health and condoms the right way.

• Teensource.org has information on Male condoms and Female condoms
• Visit the Pharmacists Planning Service Condom Museum
• Sex Info's Male Condom Page
• StayTeen.org for information on avoiding pregnancy