Asahi: Flagging condom use and rising HIV infection spur new campaign
...Domestic shipments of condoms have fallen from a peak of 684 million units in 1993 to just 422 million in 2004. Meanwhile, the number of newly reported HIV infections and AIDS patients hit a record 1,199 in 2005...Health experts are fighting back with a concerted campaign to encourage the use of condoms to prevent AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases....The campaign faces an uphill battle. In a 2000 poll by Japan's largest condom maker, Okamoto Industries Inc., many people said they found condoms "troublesome" and "distracting." Okamoto official Toshiaki Ishii, 57, said that at first he thought the decline in condom use was a result of the lifting of the ban on low-dose birth control pills in 1999. But use of the pill remains uncommon in Japan. Ishii now suspects the culprit may be what he calls the increasingly "sexless" lifestyle of young people, who are spending more time on the Internet or at karaoke bars and other dusk-till-dawn entertainment facilities. At the same time, says Ishii, young people are getting the wrong message from adult web sites and porn videos. "Condoms are rarely used" in the videos, he says. "As a result, young people might think that's what sex is like"...more...
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