Local 6 News in Orlando, FL, reports that STDs are running rampant in my retirement community, The Villages. As my brother, Dan, says, “There must be a joke in here somewhere.”

As a youth leader in our church, we find that the biggest fear of teenagers in relation to sex is pregnancy. Their fear is mis focused. Their greatest physical fear should be STDs. Pregnancy is not permanent and it’s fixable. Birth usually cures pregnancy, and I’ve know several teens who have made the pregnancy mistake and are now doing nicely, thank you.

Some STDs, however, are more permanent. In the 50’s there were three known STDs, today there are 30 and 30% of those are incurable. Some forms of STDs can make the STD sufferer sterile.

People who have multiple sexual partners (or those who have sex with someone who’s had multiple sex partners) are four times more likely to contract an STD than get pregnant.¹

Obviously, retired folk have the same mis-conception (pun intended) that teens do.

1. They’re 10 times more likely if they’re on birth control [↩]