The Lost "Rise of the TOB" Contributor!

Hello again!

I just wanted to make sure any readers of the "Rise of the TOB" blog knew that I wasn't really lost. I originally posted back in December (you can search back for that one) when Nolan first invited me to be a part of the blog. But then the craziness of life over the holidays and life since then got the best of me and I failed to come back here to contribute. So here I am again and I will try to make a better effort at posting to the "Rise" in the future. Some TOB thoughts since my last post...

From Christmas to Valentine's Day, I was gone every weekend but one. This included two Notre Dame weddings and two Notre Dame retreats - if I had to be away so many weekends, what could have been better? For me, these were great weekends away - to reconnect with some old friends and to reflect on life in general. After the weddings though, I was really conscious of the fact that I have some pretty solid friends. Both Notre Dame couples did not live together before their wedding and both couples also saved themselves for each other and remained abstinent until their wedding night. For me, this is all "very TOB" as I like to say. I'd like to think that this is normal for twenty-five year olds but as I returned home to NY after many weekends away, I realized that these two couples were really living the counter-cultural message of the TOB - even if they didn't exactly realize it as such. I commend them for being committed to what they believed in their hearts to be true and to what they believed would be the best decision for their future marriage. I thank both couples for their witness to me and to others of God's profound grace when you follow His will. God bless them!

It's Valen-times! The silliness of the "day of love".

A VERY Inconvenient Truth

This article(here) is nearly a year old. I'm sure many blogs have long since covered it. But this truth is not passe. Things have not gotten better.

More Than 1 in 4 U.S. Women Aged 14-59 Has HPV Infection.

Wow.

HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted infection (STI) in America. It is rampant. There are over 100 different strands of it, over 30 of which are sexually-transmitted. What most people don't know is that it is transmitted by SKIN-TO-SKIN CONTACT (not the exchange of body fluids). And you can get it from all sexually activity... not just intercourse. A condom provides no known effectiveness in preventing HPV. Not all strands have recognizable symptoms. If you're sexually active, you could have it and not know it.

Oh, and there is no way to test for HPV on men.

So... what does the drug industry to do? It pushes a drug called Gardasil on young ladies (ages 9-26) . Because they have no self-control of course, heaven forbid we suggest to them that they abstain from sexual activity. What's the drug do? Prevents 4 of the 30 sexually transmitted types of HPV. 2 of which cause cervical cancer - there are other types that cause cervical cancer which Gardasil is not effective on.

You've seen the commercial... "ONE LESS"

One less what? One less person infected by HPV? Only if it happens to be one of the four Gardasil has an effect on.

One less victim of cervical cancer? Only if you aren't infected by the type of cancer-causing HPV that Gardisil doesn't have an effect on.

The "One Less" campaign is a sham. It's a false sense of security. What it really says is that our daughters and sisters are nothing more than animals who cannot control themselves, and so are the young men who are coming after them. Overrun by the instincts, they do not have the mental capacity to say "no". I say, OUR KIDS DESERVE BETTER.

Any doctor who doesn't suggest abstinence as a healthy choice to a young woman should have their license revoked. You want One Less? How about one less sexually active teen. Or one less person who can't wait until marriage. That is the kind of campaign we need.

After years of sex without consequences, it's finally coming back to haunt us. These are trying times. The truth has never been clearer... Chastity is the most healthy choice.