July 30, 2004

Our son Justin just graduated from college and came home for a few weeks to regroup before heading off for a new life in Florida.

Sorting through his belongings and packing boxes, we came across the twelve VCR tapes of James Bond movies Justin recorded many years back during a week-long Bond marathon on television.  Forty years of 007 tradition…Moneypenny, “M”, vodka martinis, shaken not stirred, gadgets in watches, cars that sail and fly into space…all of it tightly packed into a box headed for Florida.

Bond, the ultimate Man…always clever, swift, rough, rugged, deft, handsome, smug, suave, debonair.  Bond…always a survivor.

Not anymore.

But it’s not what you might expect.  Bond is not in danger of death from villains, double-crosses, guns, crossbows, or bombs.  Nope.

It’s the action under the sheets that has Bond one step from the grave.

Professor John Ashton, a director of public health in the UK, has just pointed out the obvious. If James Bond were a real person, the good professor tells reporters, he would have almost certainly been HIV positive.  007 is more at risk from careless sex than he is from any arch enemy.

Beginning in 1962 with Ursula, Eunice, and Daniela, straight through forty years into the new millennium with Denise and Elektra…The World is Never Enough when it comes to Bond and his women.  No matter how swift the action and dangerous the situation, in each and every movie 007 always has time to “make whoopee” with a new Bond woman.

Liberated by Hollywood magic, Bond and his eternal harem are free to flow with their sexual urges.  No matter how short the friendship, or how fleeting the relationship, 007 and his woman of the moment inevitably merge in a big-screen sexual romp.

According to Hollywood, sex is everything wonderful…anytime, anywhere, and with anyone.

According to medical realities, sex is only wonderful…in the right time, in the right place, and with the right person.  And no gadget known to mankind will save Bond…or the rest of us…from the inevitable.

Medical realities are amassing in data to prove the truth of what abstinence educators have been teaching over the past twenty years.  Professor Ashton raises the same alarm.  Sex has consequences, both good and bad.  And the bad consequences of sex will not disappear, no matter how big the denial is from those who promote condoms and “safe sex.”

The medical realities are these.  The world is engulfed in a major STD epidemic.  We now have over 20 serious STDs responsible for death, infertility, and incurable infections.  New national figures just released for England, where Professor Ashton lives, show a dramatic increase of STDs.  Syphilis is up 28 per cent from the previous year, and chlamydia is up by nine percent.  No wonder.

Condoms are not fail-safe.  They are subject to failure…and lots of it.  For teens and pregnancy, condoms fail approximately 20 percent of the time.

Condoms are never fail-safe.  They have no documented effectiveness in preventing humanpapilloma virus (HPV) infections, the virus responsible for over 97 percent of cervical cancer. Genital herpes viruses infect one in five people over the age of twelve… partly owing to the fact that they live on body areas not covered by the condom.  These are just a few of the realities that never touch Bond.

Hollywood profits from building the illusion that Bond will never die…from anything.  This makes for great movies.  But in our hearts, we know the truth.

We know it’s an illusion when we see 007 dodging a hail of bullets, skiing off the top of the Alps and landing with a downhill swoosh of grace, sailing down the slope, around the trees, and over the rocks…his hair unmessed and his body unsmashed.

In bed, the illusions are no less spectacular. Bond has been allowed to dodge STDs, pregnancy and abortion through ignorant movie “madness.”

Illusions make great movies.  But they are deadly in real life.

No doubt about it.  If you want to Never Say Die, take note.  Bond is a great thrill to watch.  But he is no role model for living a life in the real world…on the slopes…in space…or under the sheets.

 

April 30, 2004:  Condoms: A Failure to Protect

 Question:  Did James Bond ever marry?

Answer:  Come back next week for the answer…

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