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Thursday, February 8, 2007

Sex in the Media: I Smell Sex and… Politics

filed under: We Are The Sex Media, Smart. Safe. Sex. by Lux Nightmare

Last summer, the world’s first cancer vaccine was approved by the FDA. As part of its approval, the FDA recommended that the vaccine be given to children around the time they’re entering middle school: the same time when they receive a whole host of other mandatory vaccines. Parents across America, relieved that their children would be safe from one more life-threatening disease, lined their children up to receive the vaccine, and clamored for the federal government to make the vaccine mandatory.

Right?

Not exactly.

The thing about this “cancer vaccine,” is that the cancer it protects against is cervical cancer. And the thing about cervical cancer is that it tends to be caused by some strains of the human papilloma virus. And the thing about the human papilloma virus is that it’s sexually transmitted.

And once you introduce sex into any discussion of public policy, everyone loses their shit.

Let’s take a moment to examine this notion of Gardasil (the vaccine’s brand name) as a cancer vaccine. Because, you know, that’s how it’s being marketed: it even says so, in big letters, on the vaccine’s website.

Now, Gardasil is a cancer vaccine, in that it protects against two of the strains of HPV that can lead to changes in the cervical cells that, if not treated in time, can lead to cervical cancer (of course, even without Gardasil, cervical cancer can be prevented relatively easily through proper screening and treatment: that’s the whole point of pap smears, colposcopies, and a few mildly unpleasant procedures that remove precancerous cells from the cervix).

Gardasil is also a genital warts vaccine: but you won’t see the women in its ads proclaiming that they want to be “1 less” affected by genital warts. Because “genital warts” screams sex, and sex apparently does not help sell vaccines.

So we’re calling it a cancer vaccine, because then it’s a vaccine for the people, not just the whores. And if it’s a vaccine that prevents cancer — something life-threatening, something scary, something that happens to good, upstanding citizens — then we might stand a chance of getting it administered to the youth, who are actually the ones that need it (because, since this is a vaccine that protects against a disease transmitted through sex, it would be helpful to give it to people before they actually end up having sex and being put at risk for transmission.).

And it’s a nice thought, sort of, but it’s also painfully misguided. Because the thing is, everyone knows that the whole cancer thing is only part of the story. Everyone knows that Gardasil is a vaccine that’s about sex: and again, when you add sex to a discussion of public policy, all rational thought goes out the window.

The Christian right knows that Gardasil is a sex vaccine, and they’re up in arms about attempts to mandate it for school age children (and believe that parents should be able to opt out of this requirement), because apparently the only thing that’s keeping our children from running wild and crazy and having lots of sex is fear of an STI that most of them haven’t even heard of. And as soon as we eliminate that fear, we’ve automatically sent the message that kids having unprotected sex is just fine and dandy: regardless of HIV, pregnacy, or any of the other risks associated with sex.

And so what should be a relatively simple public health discussion (here is a vaccine that prevents a common, and potentially life-threatening, disease; it is most effective when given to children; let’s mandate it for school age children) has become a tortured, complicated, political battle full of doublespeak, innuendo, and misinformation. And all because of sex.

Because, you know, we can’t talk about sex. Even when our health (or the health of our children) depends on it.

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