NEWS that a 14-year-old girl from Mansfield had been allowed by advisers at her school to have a secret abortion without her mother's knowledge made national headlines last week. Today the Daily Post has revealed that Condom Solutions, a Cheshire-based company, wants to put condom machines into schools to try to destigmatise contraception for the young.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that the government should review federally funded sexual abstinence programs, under fire from Democrats who say they contain false and misleading medical information.

WASHINGTON - How should you talk to your children about sex? Tell them no sex, says a new government Web site that proclaims "abstinence is the healthiest choice." That's dictating values, say organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union and gay rights groups, and they want the site taken down.

Last year, when a profound schism erupted between the American scientific community and the Bush administration, a key point of contention concerned the alteration of sexual health information on several government Web sites. A National Cancer Institute fact sheet temporarily suggested the possibility of a link between abortion and breast cancer (scientists say with near unanimity that there isn't one). A statement explaining why educating teens about how to use condoms does not increase sexual activity was deleted from a Centers for Disease Control fact sheet. And so forth.

This is one of those stories that makes me wonder: How can anyone so stupid be in charge of education?

The Montgomery County, Md., school board is getting scorched by parents and churches for plans to teach 10th-graders how to put condoms on cucumbers, and teach eighth-graders that experimenting with homosexuality is as normal as white socks in gym class.

Condoms. They're rarely used for pleasure.

Rather, they act as a means of protection from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

But one condom company wants to change the way some couples think of condoms -- as a hassle and pleasure barrier.

Ansell, based in Australia, is making novelty condoms to spice up sex lives while promoting safe sex. And it's working.

Perhaps the Bush administration has forgotten what it's like to be a teenager. The administration's idea of a good parental-child sex chat is outlined on government Web site 4parents.gov. This site advises parents to emphasize abstinence as the only way for students to completely protect themselves, and also features a questionable chart listing common STDs and the effectiveness of condoms.

One in five U.S. teenagers say they have engaged in oral sex, an activity that some adolescents view as not sex at all and certainly less risky than intercourse, according to a report obtained by Reuters.

The survey of 580 children with a mean age of 14-1/2 found 20 percent said they had engaged in oral sex, compared to 14 percent who said they had engaged in sexual intercourse, Reuters reported.

Teenagers are confused over sexually transmitted infections
Teenagers are putting themselves at risk by inconsistent and incorrect use of condoms, a study says.

Only about a third of those aged 16 to 18 used condoms regularly, the sexual health charity Brook found.

The study also showed some were not using condoms properly and were using them only as a form of contraception, rather than to prevent infections.

Researchers called for sex and relationships education to become a compulsory part of the curriculum.

East High School junior Cary Shapiro keeps a condom in his wallet even though he says he's never had sex. He picked it up at a concert.

Shapiro is among students who say it's time for Denver Public Schools to make prophylactics available to all high school students who want them.

MISSION, Texas -- With at least six classmates pregnant, including the valedictorian with her second child, it was clear to a few girls at Mission High School that more information was needed on safe sex.

So the four students at this school along the Mexican border -- where the teen pregnancy rate is among the highest in the nation -- decided they could help send the message by making their own movie.

The sex educators in Montgomery County, Md., have devised a film for 10th-graders that features a young lady putting a condom on a cucumber. You do wonder, when you read about these things, why they stop there.

After all, if the assumption is that kids are too stupid to know how to unroll a condom unless it is demonstrated for them, then why would they be smart enough to know that it goes on a penis and not on the contents of the vegetable bin in the refrigerator?

When Scott Kellerman, recently appointed by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg as Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Services (NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene) said recently in the New York Post, "We need to cover this city in latex" ... it was no surprise that Ansell Healthcare was able and willing to meet the challenge.

Building off an almost 30 year history in the Public Health Sector to help promote safer sex, Ansell Healthcare was well positioned to assist Scott Kellerman and the city of New York in their renewed efforts to educate the citizens on the importance of protection against sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

Maine is right to reject federal funding that requires the state to focus solely on abstinence-only programs rather than offering comprehensive sex education, including abstinence. There is no evidence that programs that tell children to wait until marriage to have sex actually work. Worse, there is evidence that teenagers who participate in the abstinence-only programs are engaging in risky sexual behavior, increasing their chances of contracting diseases or becoming pregnant.

In the past 15 years, New York City public schools have distributed thousands of condoms to high school students, and with them lessons about the importance of safe sex.

Still, a city health department study three years ago found teens weren't necessarily listening. One in four students who said they were sexually active reported they hadn't used a condom the last time they had sex. And nearly 20 percent of the sexually active teens said they had had at least four partners.

More Massachusetts teenagers who are sexually active are using condoms, according to a state survey released yesterday, 11 years after a landmark court ruling said schools could make them available to students.

The state survey, given to 3,500 teenagers in 51 high schools last year, shows that condom use has increased steadily since the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that schools could hand out condoms without parental consent.

Many college students may be left ill-informed about safer sex and more at risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies because of a lack of access to information about sexual health and availability of condoms at some schools, according to the Trojan Sexual Health Report Card

Statistics show that one of the major reasons why a condom fails is because the user puts it on upside down or the condom is damaged while opening the package. Here are some useful facts to keep in mind:

AUSTIN - Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders on Monday said condoms are more likely to protect teens against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy than vows of abstinence.

"Many of our children don't use condoms because we don't teach them about condoms," she said. "Our government tells them that condoms will break. I always say, the vows of abstinence break far more easily than latex condoms."

Condoms are an incredibly cool invention. They prevent disease and, if you're willing to give them a chance ... they can be fun! Several hundred years ago, people made condoms out of pigs' bladders ... but today we can buy condoms that science and technology have almost perfected for our safety and enjoyment.

When condoms fail, it is almost always because they've not been used properly. So here are the top ten tips for using condoms: