The lack of risk perception and pornography is behind in many cases the increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among young people under 25 years of age and especially adolescents. It is enough to ask a group of young people on the street for them to recognize without much problem that they watch porn and “do not use a condom.”
“Education and prevention is the basis of everything” according to Dr. María Palomo Lastra, doctor of the Infectious Diseases Service of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital, and at this moment “they encounter porn at increasingly younger ages, even if they are not looking for it.”
The use of barrier methods is decreasing due to a “false sense of control and condom use is increasingly anecdotal.” Furthermore, “boys have sex earlier and this makes it easier for the infection to start with complications because women are often asymptomatic.”
Young people, he says, have more problems getting help because “going to the doctor and recognizing that they are having relationships is not always easy for them.” “We must promote the use of condoms and maximum respect, no is no in any case and in any circumstance.”
The STI situation report from the Carlos III Health Institute indicates that in the last year, Chlamydia trachomatis infections increased by 10.2%; gonococcal infection, 7.2%; of syphilis, 6.7% and of lymphogranuloma venereum, 10.2% more than the previous year.
