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THESE DAYS SEX education in most schools will cover aspects of contraception, using protection and how to avoid pregnancy. And that’s if you’re lucky. But realistically, sex ed in Ireland isn’t much more than an advanced ‘birds and the bees’ talk.
I’m 23 and don’t think I ever heard the word condoms mentioned by a teacher in secondary school. SPHE didn’t come into schools until I was in second year so I missed that vital hour a week of knowledge. Most of my sex ed has come from friends and the internet. I think what happens with a lot of young people, is you pretend you know more than you do until you get the chance to Google it. I know I did.
Lack of education
And while I think people are more aware of STIs in Ireland, they’re still not doing a whole lot about them. This can be for a number of reasons; lack of education in school, in the home and the age-old stigma around talking about getting tested for STIs.
I’ve only recently learned how to spell gonorrhoea and you can be sure the topic has never come up in conversation with my friends, yet there have been over 1100 cases of it in Ireland since January. A lot of young people think that if they’re on the pill or some form of contraception that they’re sorted.
So much of what we hear about sex in school is how to avoid getting pregnant and less around STIs. But, while sexual education in Ireland needs to change so do people’s attitudes.
Protection
A survey published by the HSE last year found that almost a quarter of Irish adults believe women are ‘easy’ if they carry condoms and if this mentality is still so prevalent in Ireland, it’s no wonder so many STIs are on the rise.
For years I was of the impression that I’d know if I had an STI, but so many STIs are symptomless, that you’d never know if you or your partner have an STI unless you have been recently tested. Another issue is that most people are unaware that STIs can be also be transmitted through oral sex.
Most people who do get tested for STIs do so because they have symptoms. An itch, a rash, warts, whatever it may be, but the thing people don’t realise is that the majority of STIs don’t have symptoms for quite some time. STI tests are painless and confidential so there’s no excuse really, especially considering STIs like gonorrhoea, untreated, can have serious and permanent health problems in men and women, such as infertility.
Cost
One reason that puts some people off getting tested is the cost. If you go to your private doctor, it can be anything over €100 depending on what you’re getting tested for. A lot of people don’t realise that it’s free to get tested in a lot of public hospitals and clinics.
And there’s the plain and simple reason also of ignorance being bliss. People don’t want to know so they can avoid having an awkward conversation with your partner or having to get back in contact with that one night stand. It can be embarrassing but there needs to be more openness around having a chat with a partner about getting tested, especially if you do have an STI, because if you don’t tell them, they could end up re-infecting you if they have it too.
Some people may argue that the simple fact we can see what STIs have been reported in the last year show people are getting tested but last year a survey of students in Ireland found that three out of four students have had unprotected sex, while 70 per cent of students surveyed said they had never been tested for sexually transmitted infections.
This needs to change.
This week Dublin Aids Alliance, USI, SpunOut.ie, Crisis Pregnancy Programme and HSE Health Promotion are running a campaign to get gonorrhea trending and raise awareness around getting tested for sexually transmitted infections. But unfortunately it’s not just gonorrhoea; chlamydia, herpes, HIV and syphilis are all on the increase in Ireland. So it’s vital to get tested.
Check out SpunOut.ie/sex to find out where you can get tested for free as well as a list of places where you can get free condoms.
Tricia Purcell is 23 and a graduate of the University of Limerick. She currently works for youth website, SpunOut.ie.
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Why don’t they just show them and then people wouldn’t have to illegally access them?!
Because they don’t have the rights to do so, and in order to obtain the rights they would have to charge a much higher subscription in a country the size of Ireland.
Can we just clarify: it is 100% legal to use services to bypass geoblocking. The only potential illegality is a beach of content between the content provider and the distribution channel (Netflix, RTE etc…).
I think, for Netflix at least, it violates your terms and conditions. However, it seems Netflix are pretty lax about it.
Why pay for Netflix? Use Showbox it’s free… House of cards Season 3 was on it 1 day after it was on Netflix.
I like having Netflix available on several of my devices (PC, Mac, iPad, Smart TV, Playstation). I’m not arsed sorting out an Android app to run on my TV.
Still prefer utorrent.
I pay for Netflix and Spotify because they make media available to me for a reasonable price, legally. I’m ok with paying for access to media as long as it’s reasonable. Why pay for food when you can just dine and dash? Why pay for internet when you can just sit outside Starbucks and get their free wi-fi?
This is a complicated copyrights issue which is really a legacy from before the growth of internet streaming etc when media companies business models were based around buying rights to show program’s and selling ads around them in the various countries , with the advantage of global players like Netflix the old order in crumbling but don’t expect this to be resolved anytime soon and certainly not without a fight for more money from Hollywood and program makers etc. , this is not an easy issue to resolve , look at mobile roaming charges around Europe , how many years the rip off continues and even recently got kicked back – it’ll be good when it’s resolved but don’t hold your breath . The US Netflix has more on it but a huge amount of the additions good stuff is actually UK TV stuff from BBC and UTV and we already get to see here from our cable / satellite companies like Top Gear ad nausea on Dave ;)
Yeah, I’d actually happily and willingly pay two or three times more for Netflix if it was to films what Spotify is to songs. Spotify is incredible value. Netflix is just alright.
The American one is shite also. So is the Belgium and Pretty much all of them. Hopefully H.B.O start up in Ireland shortly.
I’m surprised there isn’t an obvious answer why programs are blocked, could it be that certain firms have an exclusive license to broadcast the in London but not in New York ? Makes sense.
Because people who make programs need to be paid in order to keep making them.
Hi do you need to use your e-mail address to use showbox thank you
No you do not have to register… but for anyone that downloads… look at plex… been using it for years and it’s pretty much a personalised Netflix :)
While it would be great news, it’s interesting how thing like that only ever come to EU lawmakers attention when it’s their own personal issue…
“I, for one, cannot understand why I can watch my favourite Danish channels on my tablet in Copenhagen – a service I paid for – but I can’t when I am in Brussels.”
I think youre mistaking her comment for sincerity. This isnt a woman who sat at home one day trying to watch her soaps, felt the plight of us everyday people when she was unable to watch them and so decided to take on big business and their geo-blocking for the good of Europe. There are huge vested interests in making this happen for the Union. A unified digital market and all of the laws and regulations that would come with it would be huge for the EU and is likely another baby step towards a unified Union. Not to mention the fact that it would probably reduce the number of people going to illegal streaming or torrenting sites which are not easy to monitor and are revenue blackholes for the industry.
It is legal already – unblockus.com
As stated in the Article there is nothing inherently illegal about using a VPN but accessing Netflix through one does violate their terms of service
Still not breaking any actual laws as the sensationalist headline would have you believe. Worst case scenario Netflix cancels your subscription. The fuzz won’t be at your door though.
Netflix isn’t available in China, yet there’s a significant amount of people in China using it. I imagine a hefty loss for Netfilx if they were to strictly enforce their terms and conditions:
Download Hola Extension on Google Chrome. Chose US as your location, load Netflix. No need for the EU!
I wouldn’t use that hola extension. It turns your computer into a proxy so that another user of hola can pretend to be from your country.
So that other user could download a load of child porn and it will appear to have been downloaded through your Internet connection.
“I, for one, cannot understand why I can watch my favourite Danish channels on my tablet in Copenhagen – a service I paid for – but I can’t when I am in Brussels.”
Because, legally, they need to figure out a way to make you pay to view the same content again. Akin to MP3′s replacing CD’s. Hi-Res audio replacing MP3 or Burger King replacing Jan Molby… no wait a minute, sorry…
As far as content is concerned, European Netflix customers are getting ripped off when you compare the titles available to the U.S with Ireland/England. If you’re going to pay for a Netflix account, then you’re better off paying £/€ 3-4 for a (reliable) VPN service (I know there are free browser plugins).
I use the same VPN service to get access to RTE/TV3′s live stream and ‘on-demand service’. I see now RTE intend on providing some paid-for international service. Frankly, there’s times when I want to watch something live; for example, when Love/Hate was on, there was no point waiting until the day after to watch it, as Facebook/Twitter/Radio was riddled with spoilers almost immediately.
Using an VPN service in Ireland is still 2/3rds cheaper than what RTE are charging for a service that gives you less content (and no live service), compared to a VPN.
Ya should check out unotelly, they are a fantastic vpn with contracts with a lot of the TV companies in America and Europe. ..
Breaking Bad is available on US Netflix – just watched the entire 5 series on it.
It’s also in the UK one. Along with Better Call Saul.
Zen mate or Hola chrome plugins work very well against geoblocking… Zap!!
Just download Hola it allows you access to the us netflix
That’s all we need another excuse for the great unwashed to sit on their arses watching tv.
When I do sit my arse down in front of the tv I want brilliant entertainment.
Ain’t got time for shite.
The Great Unwashed? This coming from an animal who lives in a dustbin…..
Would the unemployed be expected to walk around all day to drive everybody mad knocking on every door to ask for a job and ask them to stamp a card or something to say they did precisely that?
That would be of course, after they were dragged off by someone or other (note job opportunity) to have a wash as they do not in the world according to your version. I look about and see something wildly different but there, we do tend to look with our prejudices and not with our eyes.
Just get Hola Unblocker on chrome and log in as usual to access it
The example the minister gave was a European show being inaccessible in another European country. I don’t think American/non-EU content will be affected at all.
The content owners sell the rights to stream/broadcast their products to different markets at different prices. I don’t see how the EU could make that illegal for companies based in the US. Maybe it will mean the likes of AMC/NBC/Fox selling a streaming rights package to the EU as a whole rather than to individual countries, but streaming rights are tied up with broadcast rights. It’s hard to see how you can sell streaming rights to the EU as a whole and still get broadcasters in individual EU countries to pay top-dollar to broadcast them in their own territories.
The ability to sell rights by country is why Ireland gets to broadcast many shows a week before the UK, and why apps like 4oD and the BBC iPlayer allow catch-up on American shows. An EU-wide market might put an end to that, and may well see the likes of Netflix getting rights to shows long after they have exhausted any broadcast value, but hopefully it will mean the likes of the iPlayer becomes accessible EU-wide.
Good idea.
Abolish intellectual property laws.
The only reason every single movie, tv show, album, book, comic, and piece of software couldn’t be made available right now for free online are copyrights, patents and trademarks; state enforced monopolies on freely replicable goods which creates artificial scarcity where real abundance exists.
Then develop a new system for remunerating artists and entertainers for the work they create which still allows it to be distributed free of charge to consumers.
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