Texas: #3 in Barebacking

image from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

This morning there was a little bit of a hullabaloo on the feminist blogs about this accusation from Just Out:

"For all the flack gay men get for their sexual antics, it turns out the ladies have them beat for an oft-chastised but ever-present-in-porn act — barebacking."

Ouch, straight girls. Amanda Hess, beloved writer over at The Sexist, responds thusly:

"What the fuck is this headline? “Women Engage in Barebacking at Higher Rates Than Gay Men.” Hey, way to get personal! It takes two to bareback, so why focus all the shaming on the receptive partner?"

It does take two to bareback (or three, or four...) but among straight people, condom use is often initiated at the demand of the female partner. Yes, I know, it's not fair that the responsibility for condom use is on women who are already mostly responsible for pregnancy prevention. But the priority for most men who are under the fuckluence is putting their dick in the desired hole and rates of condom use are higher among girls who say "Wait! Put on a condom!" than those who don't.

I wondered how different states stacked up on unprotected sex, since the survey that made its way around the blogosphere was done by the NYC department of health. Turns out Texas, as always, is high up on the list. Of sexually active high school students, the % below are those who used a condom the last time they had sex:

• #1: Hawaii, 54%


• #2, New Mexico, 55%


• Tied for #3: Texas and Arizona, 56%
  National Campaign analysis of CDC-YRBS data

Yikes. That means that 44% of sexually active high school students in Texas didn't use a condom the last time they had sex. Even scarier? A mere 13% of Texas high school students used birth control pills at last sex. Guess that goes a long way to explain our sky-high rates of teen pregnancy and chlamydia.