Nuns Spread the Word About Condoms, AIDS

Although some public officials are embarrassed into silence by the word, and even network television gets the shakes, that old standby of budding nightclub comics--the Catholic school nun--has whacked down her ruler with the usual fearlessness on the matter.

The word is condom.

“We have had more response from Catholic schools than from public schools” in a five-year campaign to educate young people about the deadly AIDS virus, Lyn Paleo of the pioneering San Francisco AIDS Foundation said recently.

“The nuns tell us, ‘You tell them everything they need to know, whatever you need to say,’ ” Paleo said of foundation education teams that visit high schools.

“One nun said, ‘We preach 364 days a year about abstinence,’ ” Paleo said. “You tell them what they need to know for the other day in case our preaching hasn’t worked.”

Paleo, the education director of the foundation, is a national leader in the battle against acquired immune deficiency syndrome among both gays and straights. She and the 7-year-old organization have one of the most frustrating education jobs in the world.

The reason is that, from the halls of government to the intimacy of many bedrooms, nobody wants to talk about it, she said.

AIDS Prevention

“Condoms and condom use are the true cornerstones of preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus--using them is a way to save lives,” she said. “If they remain intact, they prevent the passage of the AIDS virus, period.”

But selling the idea is another matter, she said.

“We have to be able to talk about them so that individuals can learn about them. That’s the bottom line. And right now, despite what we know, the silence is deafening and deadening.”

The silence is most pronounced in the field of television, she said.

“For so many Americans, TV is the role model, so if TV is not talking about something, then people aren’t talking about it,” she said.

“Television has the power to influence millions but we do not see messages about using condoms and incorporating safe sex behaviors,” she said.

The C-word, as she calls it, has, however, crept into at least two popular programs, “L.A. Law” and “Hooperman,” and into some soap operas. “But we have to cross our fingers that the scriptwriters are getting things right” about proper use, she said.

The silence also is pronounced at the government level where, for example, it is the “unofficial” position of the California Department of Health Services, which funds some AIDS programs, that the word condom not appear in any official documents.

Word Can’t Be Used

“They don’t like frank discussion of condoms,” she said. “They cannot use the word in their contracts. I can’t talk about condoms. I can say we are distributing safe sex kits, but I can’t use the word in writing a contract proposal.”

The C-word is discussed more and more among straight single people, now themselves confronting the possibility of getting AIDS through direct or indirect contact with high-risk drug users who share needles, she said.

But the message is only starting to catch on, she said.

A recent study of 300 sexually active straight single people in San Francisco, the second commissioned by the foundation in three years, showed that there was more awareness of safe sex “but that it has not translated into the kind of behavior change we know is necessary.”

The study indicated that most “had an average of 21 sexual contacts outside their primary relationship in the last six months but used condoms with only about a third of them,” she said.

“The main reason was that they said they could trust that their partner was not infected because they knew the partner,” she said.

“You could know a lot about a person, that they work hard, return library books, walk their dog, and say, ‘OK, I know this person.’ But there may be things you don’t know which that person isn’t going to talk about, such as their sex life or drug use.”