Gonorrhea

Not a very happy title I know. Here is some more happy news from Medical Xpress.

(Medical Xpress)—The CDC has issued a report detailing its findings in attempting to trace the increasing difficulty in treating gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that can cause severe discomfort, serious medical problems (such as sterility) for both genders and in very rare cases, death.

Gonorrhea is a bacterial disease that has been around for thousands of years, if not longer, plaguing human populations. In more recent times, it's had to evolve to survive as humans learned to treat it using penicillin and other antibacterial agents. Over the past thirty years in particular, gonorrhea has evolved to the point that there are very few treatments left (ceftriaxone along with either azithromycin or doxycycline) and now, it looks like its poised to get the best of those as well, which will mean those who contract the disease in the very near future will find that doctors have no way to cure them. 

Well at least you can be happy that I will post no pictures!  

Hmm, do I need to point out the obvious? Yes, I guess we need the obvious. In a world with incurable venereal diseases monogamy is an obvious choice, yet marriage keeps declining as a percentage of the population especially among those with the lowest incomes. 

Years ago I saw a skit on the comedy show “Living Color.” Two people were about to have sexual relations. They talked about their previous liaisons. Suddenly every person either had ever had sex with appeared in the room. The woman was clearly upset that some of the man’s previous partners looked better than she did. The man that appeared in his group was explained by the man saying “I was in jail once.” The skit never did explain the white (both actors in the skit were black) meek accountant that appeared on the woman’s side of the bed.

Often comedy can bring forward important points in a memorable way. When you sleep with someone you are also sleeping with every person they ever slept with. 

I Corinthians 6 talks about this issue:

¹² ”I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷ But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

 ¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.