“The failure rate for condoms is almost 20%, and with anal sex it’s estimated to be as high as 50%. Not very good odds when the results are either dead, aborted infants or homosexuals typically dying of AIDS in their 30s.”

Just because we cannot (or have difficulty) making progress on one issue does not mean we cannot make progress on another. Nor is society obligated, in any way shape or form, to prioritize problems. Nor to schedule them, either. Politicians are responsible for a great deal of this and, in this case, I think that’s a good thing overall.

Your example of smoking is telling. There was a time when smoking was nearly immune to any kind of pressure no matter what the facts said. It took a long time to change cultural norms and they still haven’t changed in most of the developing world.

Also, I find your need to cast this issue in political left versus right objectionable. Your very posting name hints at a monotonic need to ride that hobby horse at every turn. I saw a similar behaviour a few years ago. It was in the Granma newspaper in Cuba.

Similarly, why do we hammer smokers day in and day out for endangering their health while making not a peep about the reckless sexual behavior of so many homosexual men, behaviors which kill them in far greater numbers and at far earlier ages than cigarettes ever could – even smoking a couple packs a day.

Hell, society has deliberately shamed smokers into hiding and made of them second class citizens. However, this very same culture absolutely refuses to make a peep about what homosexual men are doing for fear of offending their powerful Pink Lobby in DC. No, instead we are spending billions of taxpayer dollars trying to find a cure for AIDS. Gee, following this same logic we should also be spending billions trying to find a “cure” for lung cancer associated with smoking. There is not a whit of difference to the extent that AIDS in this country is overwhelmingly a function of male homosexuality.

So, my answer to you is to make reckless sexual behavior taboo, as it once was. Do with these people what we did to smokers…shame them and ridicule them mercilessly.

As for Brians comment, “Of course the teens can still win by engaging in sexual activity with condoms,” this is rather like saying you can “win” at Russian Roulette by using one bullet in the chamber rather than two. The failure rate for condoms is almost 20%, and with anal sex it’s estimated to be as high as 50%. Not very good odds when the results are either dead, aborted infants or homosexuals typically dying of AIDS in their 30s.

You say: “the teens can still win by engaging in sexual activity with condoms”

EVERYBODY wins if the teens have sex with condoms! =D

A highly likely outcome is that many of the targetted youngsters will attempt to take the money and still be sexually active. Why not have it all?

It’s illogical of course, but put yourself in the shoes of a teenager. Free money is on offer. You say yes, that’s a no-brainer! Now when the boyfriend/girlfriend thing is getting hot and heavy, caution and the future goes out the window. Maybe they even get away with it, at least for a while.

Overall, I expect success rates for such a program to be on the low side. It might be worth it even then though. You are working on the margins, preventing a chronic disease (and often fatal in impoverished areas). As long as the payment is not made until after the agreed timeframe has lapsed.

Of course the teens can still win by engaging in sexual activity with condoms.

It worked for Rome. Until they could no longer afford to pay the Visigoths of course. But for close to a century it worked. But I guess that is too literal a contradiction to your contention of "barbarians."

And lefties hate markets and profits. So this would be conceived by "secularists" who is knowledgeable in the workings of markets and behavioral economics. And bully for them.

They’ve done these kinds of experiments before. They’ve worked.

The phenomena you’re referring to – AIDS and rape and such – are considerably more complex than you suspect, and while I hate idiots who have the opportunity to protect themselves during sex and don’t take it and/or rape people as much as the next person (and idiots in general, one of them being you), you’re blatantly ignoring actual published research on the subject.

It’s a study to see how people behave under certain conditions and to see what can be learnt.

It’s a study fool. Without studying there isn’t any learning and if every scientist in history had this reaction to possibly ridiculous subjects we’d be nowhere today.