Laziness and price. Condoms are expensive and I DAMN well know my birth control is expensive. *shrug* I would still put laziness at the forefront of the reason. One of my girlfriends tells me all the time she gets caught up in the moment and tells me to just go for it. Not my thing, but hey, there you have it.

lol Uhhhh... tells "him" to just go for it.

Agreed, mondaymoos.

I would also add arrogance and ignorance: a combination of "nothing will happen to ME" and "he/she LOOKS clean so he/she must be."

When I first glanced at the page, the first things I noticed were the tags "STIs" and "tila Tequila" right next to each other and I got a little humor out of that...

That said, I think mondaymoos hit the nail on the head. It bothers me though because I'm in college and price really isn't a factor when you can pick up handfulls of free condoms practically anywhere on campus.

I have never done this....with a stranger or someone ins a causal realtionship. I have only had unprotected sex (I was still on the pill) with serious bfs..after dating them for a while and they have been tested too...an impluse and some horomones with some random stranger is NOT worth having something for life...

agreed. having the "it can never happen to me" mentality isn't going to get you anywhere in life. i'll admit being with my bf for over 3 years there was a few times we had unsafe, but considering almost all my friends have gotten pregnant, i'm sticking to my BC.

I think people are lazy and feel invincible. They never think it will happen to them. I used to work for a pharmaceutical company whose product was an HIV medication. Every day, I spoke to someone with a similar story. They had been careless or their partner had. I think if all people had to speak to someone diagnosed with HIV because they made one mistake and didn't use a condom, all because they got caught up in "the moment" then maybe they would think twice. But then again, if they are lazy enough to not consider safe sex, they'll likely never learn.

People don't feel the threat of something until it actually happens to them, as with most things.
For example, we take for granted the people around us and don't realize we need them until they are gone.
Here, we think we will bypass all illnesses so being a bit risky won't be a big deal. It's not until one is dying w/ AIDS does one realize the threat of one's actions. We go by the way of thinking for a lot things.
It's common and sad. =\

"she gets caught up in the moment and tells me to just go for it. "

haha mondaymoos I def just laughed for like 30 seconds about that one.

I agree with what everyone has said, fersure. I think the state of mind has alot to do with this issue as well. SO many girls I knew from my dorm days made the worst decisions when they were drunk, unsafe sex included. Although I do think some people use alcohol as an excuse for their dumb behavior.

Because it FEELS better! But then again I'm 20 and 8 mos pregnant with my boyfriend of 3 mos at the time...

That said, I think mondaymoos hit the nail on the head. It bothers me though because I'm in college and price really isn't a factor when you can pick up handfulls of free condoms practically anywhere on campus.

Exactly! When i was in school condoms were readily available and their were health fairs pretty frequently. Hell, i still sometimes see booths with health info and condoms being given away for free.
So i wont make the price of condoms an excuse. it'd be a poor one.
It comes down to choice, we all eventually pay for the poor ones we make.

Oh this is driving me bananas. It's running RAMPANT, not "running ramped"...

I agree with those above. People just don't think about the consequences ... or if they do they think "well it won't happen to me" ... or "but it's just one time... what can happen one time?"

One of my high school friends told me that she truly believed you couldn't get pregnant on your first time having sex. Guess what happened on the first time she had sex? Yep she has a little boy now. (she told me this way after her kid was born)

I guess people don't want to offend the other by thinking they're dirty...

I just don't ever tell people I'm on the pill. Then I say I don't want to risk getting pregnant.

Actually, the reason I don't practice safe sex is that I feel like if you have to wrap someone in plastic before having sex with them, then there's something fundamentally wrong with the picture, and you should NOT be sharing your vagina with that person!!

What kind of weird mixed message is that? "I trust you enough to boink me, yet not enough for you to do it without a layer of protection between us"??

Of course I used protection (almost) every time I didn't know a guy well enough to trust him (i.e. know his sexual history and/or have a piece of paper in front of my eyes testifying he was clean) - but EVERY ONE of those times made me feel like crap the next morning, as in "why did I sleep with someone I didn't love?" - so I learned the lesson: if we have to use a condom, then I probably shouldn't be naked with you.

But I've also been on the pill for ages, so condoms are really only a protection for STIs to me - I understand those who use them as birth control, that's just a different story.

(I may be in the minority, so I hope I don't offend anyone...)

What may be fundamentally wrong with the picture is that many STIs do not manifest themselves in either symptom or testing immediately upon infection. Thus, someone who considers themselves STI free or just broke off a relationship and believes that they (and their former partner) are clean may hardly be so.

I do understand the idea that if one doesn't feel a certain level of trust with another individual, perhaps they should not have sex with them. The reality, however, is that people engage in sex with numerous partners and there will always exist countless risk. The staggering and mounting prevalences of STIs in New York City and elsewhere is a testament to this fact.

I think it dangerous to equate comfort and trust with condom-free sex. This conceit is already used by some as a manipulation and vehicle of pressure for protection-less sex. To love someone enough to respect their health and level of comfort by wearing a condom, I feel, speaks far more to affection and caring than eschewing protection for the concrete knowledge of barrier-less sex.

Eilonwy, you raise a great point. Even if you trust that the person you're with would tell you if they have something... well, sometimes people don't even know when they're a carrier for something. Even though STDs are spread through sex for the most part, there are also nonsexual ways of coming into contact with STDs.

Like the saying goes: "Better safe than sorry."

Because they are stupid.

When people are young, they think that they are never going to die. Death is the farthest thing from their minds. They THINK they are so far off from dying that they are invincible. It just isnt even a worry for youths. That is why. Because they are stupid.

karlotta - interesting theory.

My best friend used condoms with all of her boyfriends until she got engaged. Then they stopped using condoms and her fiance gave her an STD. Kind of not the biggest deal in the world, but now she has a lot of medical bills to pay and could get cancer from it and not be able to have children.

It makes me wonder in this day and age when everyone has had multiple partners, (who have had multiple partners and so forth and so on), that maybe even married people should use condoms for the first 5 years, until they are both sure that neither of them has anything!

Unless they dont care about sharing each other's STDs, and some people dont, which is fine when they both know going into it.

LOL I like 356UIK's answer best!

"Because they are stupid." so true.

So true - it's just asinine

Stupid, lazy, uninformed. The list goes on and on. I listened to a local radio DJ claim that there is no form of safe sex and that people would be in the same boat if they didn't use anything. This is a person very against pre-martial sex and birth control of any kind. She is on a popular local radio show that plays Top 40 so lots of people listen to it. This includes teens and college students. It is this kind of misinformation that leads to such a rampant spread of STIs and unplanned pregnancy. Also, it is not possible to buy condoms in most stores without asking a clerk to unlock the glass safe. How many young people are going to do that? It would be embarrassing for them. Even though I think if you are too embarrassed to ask for protection you are too immature to have it. IMO. I could also blame abstinence only education and the parents for not discussing sex with their kids. I am very passionate about sexual education and help to teach teens and college students how to protect themselves but there just isn't enough resources or desire to give the knowledge they need now and as adults to be safe. It is like pulling a pin on a grenade and closing your eyes hoping it doesn't explode...it is still going to happen.

I'm allergic to latex, and while I know you can latex free condoms, they are a lot more expensive and usually health departments don't have them so it's not like you can get them for free, and what guy actually caries around a latex free condom? Plus, the idea of sheepskin as a condom just freaks me out!

Now, the only person I have unprotected sex with is my live in boyfriend of 3 years, but I could see how some one who is also allergic to latex might be like "Screw it" because non latex condoms can be hard to find.

But, it still all comes back down to laziness.

Dearsugar, don't you mean "running rampant," not "running ramped??

bunnyOhare, I laughed out loud at your comment. It was driving me bonkers too!

I have had 2 boyfriends cheat on me by having unprotected sex with other women. Then they had unprotected sex with me. I _thought_ I was being safe because I had both of those boyfriends get completely tested before sleeping with them without condoms, and we were exclusive. So sometimes you just never know when it's safe or when it isn't.

But I don't use condoms with my current BF because somehow despite my past I choose to keep trusting people.

I also think sex w/o a condom feels so so much better.

its simple! unprotected sex = self-hate. Plain and simple.

You dont care about yourself or your partner enough to protect yourself and him/her.

Eilonwy, you stated it oh so eloquently.

thank you RockandRepublic! I love reading your comments too

Instant gratification!! People are lazy, and don't want to carry condoms or root around for it, so they ignore common sense.

Karlotta- I agree with Eilonwy. Ummm... you can trust someone and they could still have something and just not know it. For example, even if you test clean for HIV, don't you have to wait another six months to get retested to be certain? Also, herpes and HPV are not things that are normally tested for, so the person may not have symptoms but still have it. They would not pay to get the test (for herpes I think it cost a few hundred dollars) because they have no reason to think they have it. They could still pass it on to you, and you may get really bad symptoms. Many men do not get tested for STD's to begin with, because they are irresponsible and/or don't want a huge q-tip shoved up their dick. Or, they just get tested for HIV and nothing else. Either way, it's not worth the risk. I agree that if you really trust someone, you will respect that person's body and health enough to use a condom.

Also, I just wanted to add that I think people still engage in unsafe sex because it's human nature to want sex. It is a very powerful instinct and sometimes there is no condom around. Yes, it is irresponsible/lazy but also a part of our instincts. Also, people just think that nothing bad will happen to them, they rationalize it.