Facebook Leads To Increase In STDs in Britain

ectotherm writes "According to Professor Peter Kelly, a director of Public Health in Great Britain: 'There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected.' Why the increase? People meeting up for casual sex through Facebook. According to the article, 'Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms.'"

Comments

Damn

[Dyinobal]

Dammit so I didn't have to sign up for fuckbook?

Re:Damn

[WrongSizeGlass]

One place this isn't happening is Shatner's myouterspace.com.

Wrong places

[JWSmythe]

    I've obviously been looking at the wrong places on Facebook. Where's the "casual sex hookup" area?

Re:Wrong places

[MikeFM]

My wife is on my buddy list. Does that count? And no STDs.

Re:Wrong places

[Hatta]

That's what you think.

Re:Wrong places

[spun]

You don't live in the UK, do you? Obviously, something has happened to the stuffy Brits. The UK just had to cut down a bunch of trees because people were 'dogging,' or having public sex there. There is evidently an epidemic of sexy times in the North Atlantic Archipelago. When did 'stiff upper lip' turn into 'stiff willy saluting passing motorists?' and more importantly, can you teach us American how to be a little less puritanical?

Re:Wrong places

[TheRaven64]

When did 'stiff upper lip' turn into 'stiff willy saluting passing motorists?'

A little while after we exported all of our puritans to the Americas.

and more importantly, can you teach us American how to be a little less puritanical?

Sorry...

Re:Wrong places

[joss]

There was a nice article in the spectator as to how you people from continental europe list the UK as a favorite destination. This is despite of the food, weather, shitty attitude. It's because we have large numbers of drunken sluts who will fuck just about anything.

Re:Wrong places

[Grishnakh]

It sounds like the answer here is to join Facebook, but use an alias instead of your real name. That way, the people from your past can't find you, and if you need to disappear because one of your new hook-ups turns out to be a psycho, then it'll be easier since you can just create a new alias and start over.

But honestly, this Facebook hookup thing sounds like a lot of work, alias or no. Wouldn't it be easier to just join AdultFriendFinder for casual sex? Probably not; it seems like women want to believe that men they meet might actually be interested in something long-term, even though it's plainly obvious that they're not, so they need men who tell them all kinds of lies, like "my wife are I are married in name only", "we're separated but staying together just for the kids", etc. Then they act all surprised, like Tiger's girlfriends, when they find out that he's been lying to them.

Women, is it really so hard to just be honest? If you want casual sex, stop making men jump through hoops and make up lies for it. If you want a long-term relationship, then find a man who's actually single (not one who's married and supposedly "separated"), and keep your legs shut until you actually know him well enough to know he's the one you want to have kids with, or at least know him well enough to know he's not a psycho or a liar.

Re:Wrong places

[rgviza]

>> But honestly, this Facebook hookup thing sounds like a lot of work, alias or no. Wouldn't it be easier to just join AdultFriendFinder for casual sex

LOL. after my divorce I joined facebook. AFF is a site full of scammers, cam girls and hookers. Facebook is real people.

Within a 2 months of joining I had hooked up with 4 women I knew in the past who had a crush on me and I never figured it out. All were divorced or separated. I actually stayed with 4th for a year before she dumped me because I didn't want to get married for "a while" and she wanted kids *now*. After that I met up with a friend of a friend. Then I stopped using facebook for dating.

Facebook wins hands down vs. AFF ;) to meet new women either use a reputable site for dating (if there is such a thing) or you could leave the house and meet people. That's what works for me. After my initial year of tapping facebook, I prefer to stay out of my network of friends for dating since people treat you differently after a breakup and gossip if you both know them all. That's the real drawback about facebook.

I sincerely doubt that using aliases on facebook would work for dating. Starting a relationship with a lie doesn't usually bode well.

AFF is a scam. Been there, done it.

Oh, and wear a condom for chrissakes. I do agree with one of the parents that google voice is indispensable for dating. Anyone that's ever gotten 150 texts in a day from someone you just broke up with will agree. You can block numbers from reaching your cell with GV. My number is xxx-xxx-[first name]. Freaking awesome.

What?

[Em Emalb]

lolwut? facebook/myspace/craigslist/etc/etc/etc.

But hey, a lot of people are on facebook, let's blame it on that.

Vanessa Kensington: Mr. Powers, my job is to acclimatize you to the nineties. You know, a lot's changed since 1967.
Austin Powers: No doubt, love, but as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners without protection while at the same time experimenting with mind-expanding drugs in a consequence-free environment, I'll be sound as a pound!

You heard it here first, folks:

[PhasmatisApparatus]

You heard it here first, folks: Facebook users cannot figure out how to use condoms!

C!=C

[Sta7ic]

Correlation is not causation. Facebook usage may correlate, but doesn't cause it.

"Don't drink and park. Accidents make people."

Re:C!=C

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation is not causation. Facebook usage may correlate, but doesn't cause it.

"Don't drink and park. Accidents make people."

I'd love to see your data disproving causation in this scenario. Or are you just making a blind guess?

Just because "facebook usage may coorelate" you cannot take the logical leap and say that it "doesn't cause it"

Correlation is often a good grounds for doing a study to determine causation/non-causation.

People who don't understand what "correlation != causation" is supposed to convey should avoid using it.

Really?

[cbope]

Wow, that's about as enlightening as saying bars and nightclubs lead to more casual sex. People socializing more, and it leads to sex? No shit. Doesn't really matter how the contact is made, does it?

Um...

[Pojut]

...I wouldn't say this is a problem with Facebook so much as a problem with fucking stupidity. It's not my place to question someone's sexual activity, but come on...who has sex with a stranger without using a condom?

Re:Um...

[char70ger]

Why would you want to have sex with a "stranger" even if you did have a condom?

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's fun? And they are less of a stranger afterwards.

Re:Um...

[Pojut]

I personally wouldn't, but plenty of people would. Like I said, it isn't my place to judge someone's sexual appetites...but I'll judge the hell out of someone recklessly screwing around.

same old

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

Hey, look, an interesting statistical effect. How to explain it? Rigorous analysis? Nah, let's just blame it on new technology, 'cuz that wasn't around before and now things are different - obviously, there's a meaningful correlation!

Reminds me of the piracy/global warming graph: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/~pdeh/piratesarecool4.gif

Fuckbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try SitOnMyFacebook.

..as reported by Murdoch's newspapers

[RMH101]

...as they pointedly do NOT mention MySpace. Hmm. Wonder why that could be, NewsCorp?

Murder!

[DIplomatic]

Hmmm... that's a pretty good shock-headline-mostly-unrelated-to-the-facts, but I bet I can do better.

"Levi Jeans are Murdering Texans"

In a whopping 80% of deaths in the state of Texas, the deceased was wearing denim jeans - says a study conducted by the University of Jumping-to-Silly-Conclusions.

False report

[Anonymous Coward]

The german media watchblog BILDblog just reported (in german) this to be a hoax. The connection between Facebook and STDs was constructed by The Sun, not by Prof. Kelly.

The Department of Public Health even issued a counterstatement according to the BBC.

Re:False report

[Faluzeer]

If correct that does not surprise me. The Sun is well known (in the UK) to never let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially if the story involves sex.

Public awareness campaign

[ThreeGigs]

So someone says social networking sites are to blame, instead of the amazing coincidence that syphilis cases increased as the government stopped their public awareness campaigns against STDs. I'm thinking someone needs to expand their search for causalitis.

"These are your genitals. THESE are your genitals on Syphilis. Any questions?"

UK

[TheMeuge]

Well, it's the UK, so I doubt I'd be the first:

"Ban Facebook now!"
"They're corrupting our innocent children"
"It's all the work of secret terrorist pedophiles... we must root them out by recording all facebook conversations and having a central database"

Sounds good?

Facebook?

[Broken scope]

I'll state the obvious then.

This is about sex education and access to reproductive health services/products. Facebook is just a way to shift blame.

Wrong. FB leads to increased casual sex.

[Kenja]

Its all the stupid people having sex that leads to the STDs.

Re:Really?

[nelsonal]

How bout, facebook makes it easy for women to filter and select the few men they all want to sleep with, so those men sleep with huge numbers of women (and disease spreads rampantly).

I've Never Had Casual Sex

[mindbrane]

Pleading, desperate, begging, even grovelling sex, sure, that's pretty much my norm, but casual, no. My ex, I'm pretty sure she had a lot of casual sex, even disinterested sex, at least it seemed that way to me, but then I really didn't care. I was just so grateful just to be getting some.

Re:i call

[icannotthinkofaname]

I swear to God, I'll pistol whip the next guy that says "shenanigans"!

Facebook Suggestions

[Tetsujin]

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Re:Network promiscuious mode

[natehoy]

Young whippersnappers hanging their ports out promiscuously.

Get off my LAN!