Condom use declining among students despite increased gonorrhea infections

Despite an alarming increase in gonorrhea infections, young people are less and less likely to reach for a condom during sex. They feel weird to suggest it, say it makes sex less pleasurable, or say they’re too expensive, AD reports.

According to the RIVM, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are increasing mainly among highly educated women and men under the age of 25. The number of young women with a gonorrhea infection increased by 78 percent last year. In 2023, 43 percent of young people indicated that they did not use a condom with their last partner, up from 31 percent in 2012.

“The risk of an STI is worth it,” Pim, a 17-year-old from Zeist, told the newspaper. Several students said they don’t even discuss using a condom because it interrupts the moment. “You feel less when you use it. I heard from friends that the experience is better without it, so I wanted to try it too,” 16-year-old Faas said.

“I’d rather not have an STI, but it is not a drama. If you get one, you take a treatment, and it is done with,” 20-year-old Floris, a student in Utrecht, said to the newspaper. He added that STIs are “certainly not a rarity” in his circles. He knows people with gonorrhea and chlamydia. If he does use a condom, it is more to prevent pregnancy than an STI, but he isn’t too concerned about that either. “I assume that women are on contraception, and otherwise we will get a morning-after pill together.

General practitioner Rinske van de Goor sees this reflected in her practice in Utrecht’s city center, she told AD. “Young men and women who contract an STI shrug their shoulders indifferently: I’m a student, it’s part of it. As if an STI is a cold. But it is really not that innocent,” Van de Goor said.

The GP pointed out that infections like chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, and syphilis can have long-lasting consequences. Some genital warts are so persistent that it can take years for them to disappear, and the painful blisters of herpes can keep returning. Chlamydia is increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Every year, about 500 women become infertile because of it. Men can suffer from prostrate infections and persistent burning of the penis due to STIs, she said.

Van de Goor worries that condoms’ declining popularity could turn students into “STI superspreaders,” she said. “The image now is: you are wild and impetuous and do it with out a condom, that is rock ‘n’ roll. It used to be: a man who had a condom in his wallet was ready and prepared for adventure. We have to get back to that.”