Valentine’s Day is a very important day in the sexual calendar, a day when relationship wellness and wellbeing are celebrated, but when STDs are also at their highest risk. This is because people get swept up in the ‘romance’ of the night and often forget that, however unromantic, it is still important to use protection. This Valentine’s Day, people throughout the world gave out much more than chocolates and flowers – they gave out free condoms. Safe sex awareness events were held all across 13 countries, during the ‘season of love’.
World Condom Day is now observed at the same time as Valentine’s Day in order to promote the idea of safe sex on one of the most sexually active days of the year. The theme for the celebration this year was ‘Love is the Best Protection’.
This theme was designed to help spread a message of love as a way of preventing both HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The thinking behind this is that the best way to show love both for yourself and for other people is to choose to use a condom. This protects everyone against unplanned pregnancies, and also improves the sexual health by protecting against HIV and other STDs. World Condom Day aims to ensure that people have greater access to free condoms than ever before, whilst educating them on the importance of choosing to have safe sex.
Condoms – when used correctly – are the only form of protection that helps to protect against contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
This is particularly important now, more than ever before, as experts have been reporting that a new STD has arrived which could be even more deadly than AIDS. If this super bug is not harnessed, it could cause the most devastating epidemic the world has ever seen.