Participants in the “living display” hold up signs during the Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month kickoff event at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., April 1, 2016. The display included individuals holding signs depicting sexual assault statistics in order to raise awareness of the crime. (U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Airman 1st Class Denise M. Nevins/Released)
Participants in the “living display” hold up signs during the Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month kickoff event at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., April 1, 2016. The display included individuals holding signs depicting sexual assault statistics in order to raise awareness of the crime. (U.S. Air Force photo illustration by Airman 1st Class Denise M. Nevins/Released)
This week’s column was supposed to be about the alarming increase in rates of certain sexually transmitted infections recently reported both nationally and in Maine. I wanted to write about how transmission happens, what prevention looks like, how treatment works, and how this is a crisis of our policymakers’ own making — the inevitable result of slashing public health spending while wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on abstinence-only education programs that have been repeatedly shown not to work.
I really wanted to write that article. I tried several times. But I can’t.
