Not wearing a mask is like not wearing a condom

[countryroses]

IMHO
You don’t like it, because it doesn’t feel as good.
It doesn’t work, if not used properly.
It doesn’t protect 100%.
Even if you don’t wear it, you may not get pregnant or get STD. Even several times.

But are doctors now working without masks?
Can you be covid contagious without symptoms?

Sorry for the moan but have just had from our association a 10-page covid document, which the committee have clearly sweated over for hours, but where [masks] face coverings have barely a mention. Still seems taboo in England. I went through the whole document replacing it with “having sex” and thinking how all the washing hands a gogo is not going to stop all the members getting pregnant or STD. The measure (mask) is as cheap and simple as a condom but England is in the 1980s and moaning instead.

Completely agree @countryroses and the thought had crossed my mind (particularly because Dr Fauci in America was so instrumental in identifying prevention of HIV when it was first identified) but then we live in a world where a significant percentage of people don’t wash their hands after going to the toilet so...

How would wearing a mask prevent pregnancy or STDs?

Being stuck in with your children for 5+ months is fantastic contraception- by abstinence. Malthus would be so proud.

It's an opinion

Not one I share

I can see the value in condoms.

Masks - nah, and extensive reading, including that suggested by other mask advocates, has done nothing to convince me they are anything other than virtue signalling vectors.

I can't see being seen to wear a condom to do the shopping catching on in Waitrose.

We don’t use condoms 🤷🏻‍♀️

Haven’t used a condom for years, didn’t realise we were supposed to

Oh crikey - I think I've been wearing mine wrong!

@WhoWouldHaveThoughtThat

Oh crikey - I think I've been wearing mine wrong!

Condoms don’t give me panic attacks due to severe claustrophobia.

I’m so bored of this condom comparison. For months now people have been trotting it out and it still sounds just as ridiculous.

It’s not a great analogy is it, really.

A mask stops me from infecting a random stranger with Covid. Using a condom stops me getting pregnant. Don’t think the incentives are aligned in both those examples.

A mask (maybe, possibly) prevents you spreading Covid if you are one of the tiny percentage of people who have it. A condom prevents sperm that the man wearing it pretty much definitely has from splashing about willy nilly (pun intended).

Fairly key difference.

The more accurate comparison would making a man who has had a vasectomy wear a condom, because some vasectomies fail.

Cloth face coverings are not nearly as effective at preventing the spread of coronavirus as condoms are at preventing the spread of STDs and preventing pregnancy.

Avoiding sex altogether is much easier than avoiding the need to buy milk or get on a bus.

It's a shit analogy. Just stop it.

Masks are an additional helpful tool that's all, they are not a magic bullet. Masks alone will not save us.

The basic best strategy has remained the same since January - find, test, isolate and care for every case, trace and quarantine every contact. It's taken our government seven months to be dragged round to doing most of this and there are still gaps.

Wear your own mask and mind your own business.

Spend the rest of your energy on campaigning for decent support for people who need to isolate or quarantine because if the support is not there they just won't do it. Nobody will take 10 or 14 days off work if this means they can't pay their rent or they risk losing their job.

Your argument makes it sound like in the 40 years since the 80s, everyone now just wears condoms without fuss. Yet, a look at MN will show any number of posts from women who are pregnant because their partners didn’t want to wear condoms or ‘couldn’t’. It’s why in films, books and TV the vast majority of people who have sex for the first time don’t discuss contraception or reach for the condoms (yet never get pregnant, unless the story calls for it). It’s why STDs are still prevalent. It’s why women will take hormonal contraception for years and years, because people don’t like them.

I agree, it might take 40 years for people to wear masks when ill. I’m hoping the pandemic is over with by then though.

Ah, so only men need to wear masks then?!

It’s a rubbish analogy.

That's actually a really good analogy and certainly food for thought.

What happens when I have been tested for STIs and found to be clear? I am in a committed relationship with someone else who is also clear. We make the decision to have children together. We neither need nor want a condom. My usage of a condom does not have any impact on anyone else other than me or my partner and certainly not in the context of going to Asda!

Like this?

Terrible analogy.