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Why Aren't Gen Zs Using Condoms?

April 1, 2025

Why Aren’t Gen Zs Using Condoms?

Despite our many weird and wonderful advances in the world of sex tech, condoms—the old reliable of the birth control cinematic universe—are still, in 2025, the cheapest effective contraceptive on the market. Yet among Gen Zs , the sheaths seem to have lost their sheen: in the last decade, the World Health Organization has documented an “alarming decline” in condom use by sexually active adolescents around the globe. Add that to the recent resurgence of the Big Three STIs (syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia), an unprecedented uptick in Canadian HIV diagnoses and a wave of politically motivated funding cuts to international AIDS orgs (thanks once again, Trump) and it’s kind of a scary time to be young and doing it. To Shamin Mohamed Jr., however, this generational condom apathy is a new manifestation of a very old problem. More than 20 years ago, when he was just a teen himself, Mohamed founded LetsStopAIDS, Canada’s largest youth HIV charity—now active in 72 countries. Last year, when LetsStopAIDS released the third installment of its national Sex Lives Report, the data spoke for itself: yes, young folks are still having sex. No, many don’t see condoms as necessary anymore. And yes, social media does have something to do with it. Mohamed recently spoke to Maclean’s  about how to solve Canada’s youth protection problem. You started LetsStopAIDS when you were just a youngin. What compelled you to tackle HIV and AIDS in particular? I went to a school in the northwest end of Toronto that was full of students who were… I guess you could use the term “at-risk.” A lot of my friends and other people I was close to were getting pregnant or contracting STIs. Some took time off or dropped out of school because of it. Back then, a lot of the onus to know about or find condoms was on young men—we weren’t taught a lot about that. After I learned about HIV, I realized no one wanted to discuss that, either. Eventually, I brought up the idea of starting a sexual-health organization to my principal; I think she thought I was starting a scam. But soon, I was on all the local morning shows and in the city papers talking about it. I wanted to make HIV something that could be chatted about at the dinner table. But today, people still don’t want to. We’re repeating history. How much of your friends’ experiences do you think had to do with a knowledge gap around sexual health? Talking about sex was okay if it was happening in rap songs, but not when it came to real life. There are also certain cultural norms—that sex is dirty, or something you shouldn’t do—that still exist now. As we know, young people are going to have sex regardless, and they’re facing a lot of challenges: embarrassment, yes, but also unsafe conditions. Canada has the worst prevention rate for new HIV infections of any G7 nation; the per capita rates are extremely alarming. Canadians often talk about these problems as if they’re “over there,” in places like Africa or other parts of the world. No, it’s happening to our people and in our communities, too.  Birth control is, broadly speaking, more available and acceptable than it’s ever been. Then, last year, the WHO reported a dramatic drop in condom use among sexually active youth. Did that come as a surprise to you?  It seems surprising to the general public. But as someone who’s been preaching about sexual health and condom use for as long as I have, it was nice to finally see an international body recognizing a concern we’ve had for a while.  What do you think is causing this widespread condom abandonment? There are three main factors behind it, and the first is personal choice. We’ve reached an exciting moment in health care where we have tools like birth control—which has been around forever—but also PrEP, which can prevent you from contracting HIV. DoxyPEP, taken immediately after sex, can lower your chances of getting an STI. So many young people simply don’t view condoms as necessary or important anymore. To them, using condoms is a bit like doing preventative maintenance on a car—it gets put lower and lower on your to-do list until a life-or-death moment. They’re not just a prevention tool, though. They’re a part of sex. What are the other factors? Another is access. There are free-condom programs at clinics, but they’re still not universal. And getting care at a standard walk-in clinic is a nightmare in this country, never mind a sexual-health clinic. Access also isn’t simply about whether condoms are available; it includes the social barriers to getting them. It takes confidence to walk through the aisle at Shoppers Drug Mart and buy them. What if you have to talk to a cashier? If you live in an urban area in Canada, you may know the person working there—or the person doing testing at the local clinic. The final issue is affordability.  The cost-of-living crisis strikes again. Condoms are still the most cost-effective tool to prevent STIs and unplanned pregnancies, but for a young person without a steady income, they can be expensive. They may even have to borrow money from a family member who will probably question what they’re doing with it. One of our employees just told me a funny story about how she once called her son and said, “I’m at the store. I know you’re going on a date. What condoms do you want?” He was like, “I’ll get them on my own.” I said, “You know, not every parent would be able to do what you did.”  God no. Back to HIV, though: Canada saw a 25 per cent increase in new HIV diagnoses between 2021 and 2022. That’s a massive jump within one year. A lot of time has passed since the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s, but I hardly see any PSAs about HIV/AIDS anymore—and almost zero directed at teens. Could that uptick in diagnoses be related to a general complacency around communicating the risks of unprotected sex? Absolutely. In the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, there were massive ad campaigns around using condoms. That conversation has really dwindled. Well, no one is watching the same channels anymore—if they’re watching “channels” at all. For sure, but young people still need to have information about things like condoms, morning after pills, et cetera. And they’re seeking it out: we recently published a report looking at digital engagement, and it showed that youth are using the internet to get it. Not just social media—I mean search, too. So there’s still value in an old-school mixed approach, and that includes PSA on television. Now, that might mean they’re on Crave and Netflix. How much of the condom conundrum has to do with political factors? One of the most obvious ones I can think of is the conservative pushback on teaching sex and gender in schools. Unfortunately, those topics are increasingly politicized, so they’re being left out of provincial curricula. We need comprehensive sexual health reform in Canada. In South Africa, they start sex education at age four or five—not about full-blown sex, but topics like what kind of touch is and isn’t appropriate and when you can say no. It’s about building confidence. In Canada, our education system hasn’t given students that opportunity. The backlash doesn’t just hurt student’s confidence, either—it makes it more difficult for parents who are already uncomfortable talking about this stuff. Even for students who do receive sex ed, the lessons can be, um, lacking. Back in the early 2000s, I remember my teachers would get out a projector, put up slides of, say, vaginas and point to them. And I was like, “Okay, how is this going to protect me?” It was an anatomy class. Now, young people want to learn about consent, abstinence, sexual rights, women’s health and gender identity. You don’t just magically learn these things the minute you turn 16. And current sex ed isn’t giving young people information they find relevant. It’s not engaging. It still relies on fear—of getting pregnant, of getting infected. Scare tactics have been around forever. Remember that Mean Girls bit? The gym teacher, Coach Carr, says “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die!” A classic. Yes, but there are different scary things out there now. If kids aren’t learning about condoms in class, for example, they resort to what they can find—on the internet—and it may not be fact-based. The real elephants in the room are porn and pop culture that portrays sex that’s unrealistic and sometimes violent. You rarely see condoms being used there. A main method of sex ed is social media. That’s especially worrying in 2025, when many of the barriers that used to filter real from fake have disappeared. A lot of youth also don’t know their sexual rights. In one of our recent studies, 14 per cent said they felt unsafe during a sexual interaction. Some were with a person who removed a condom without their consent. That’s called “stealthing,” and it’s a crime here in Canada. The really troubling part is that half of the teens who experienced it didn’t seek help or talk to anyone. And after Trump was elected in November, the “Your body, my choice” movement started to gain popularity among young boys and men online—in parts of Canada, everywhere. It’s a terrifying trend. So how do you permeate that mess of misinformation?  First, we need to understand the reasoning of youth who aren’t using condoms. Our study found that one in five have never used a condom during sex. When we asked why not, they gave answers like, “I’m already having orgasms and condoms would make that impossible.” “They make things dry.” And: “They’re bad vibes.” Then we get to work on debunking those things. It’s not just about shoving condoms into their hands; we have to empower them to say, “I want to have sex with you, but we have to use a condom.” We live in a time where there’s a relative ease of access to quick sex, with the rise of apps like Grindr and Bumble and Hinge. If, eventually, young people use these apps and finally meet someone in-person after a lengthy online conversation, will they feel confident enough to make that boundary known? I think we agree that a Boomer gym teacher with a banana isn’t the ideal messenger. What about influencers? Can we spread the word about safe sex that way? Sell condoms via brand deals with TikTokers?  Making these discussions not-boring is definitely going to take some innovation. We just went through COVID, which spawned a generation of kids who feel more comfortable at home—who maybe didn’t grow up going out for dinners or on dates. Maybe they missed their formals or experienced their first crush virtually. All of that means more sexual decisions are going to happen behind closed doors. That  means we’ll need to create more content so they can, for example, share a video about prevention medications or HIV myths to correct their friends. And those moments need to happen a million times. They don’t necessarily need to come via influencers—young people can spot an ad. It just needs to be sincere and delivered by someone they can relate to.  Are those messages really still meaningful—do they carry the same weight, I mean—if they’re delivered quickly and digitally? Sexual-health discussions should still happen through community events, through parties, et cetera. (LetsStopAIDS has hosted events at Pride, for example.) But most of our relationships and discussions are actually digital—so, yes. We spend a lot of time trying to teach students safer methods to protect their identities and personal information, like making sure they send disappearing messages or thinking twice about who they send images or conversations to. We also remind them there are still real-life consequences.  What are some of the other more creative non-school, non-scary, not-lame sex-ed attempts you’ve seen (or tried) lately? AI has a lot of potential to do good—I’m very confident that young people are asking ChatGPT about sex—but organizations like ours will need to have some input at those tables to make sure there are some basic guardrails, like fact-checking. A non-AI example? LetsStopAIDS runs gamified workshops called Peer to Peer, mostly in Ontario and Saskatchewan. It’s an Amazing Race  type of thing, with fun challenges: they’ve got role-playing, trivia, puzzle-making and no lecturing. It’s all led by youth. In 2024, we met with 1,800 students.  At the start of the workshops, less than a third of students understood what HIV was and how to prevent it. After them, that number jumped to 72 per cent—and they retained that information. I’m not saying this is a cure-all: we still face backlash all the time from parents, and even principals, who want us to remove the condom portion, because of the association with pregnancy. But we’re able to make a significant impact in one day. One of the most shocking parts of it was actually the teachers’ reactions. Some took photos of the materials and said, “You know what? I didn’t even know this stuff!” Having said this, is there reason to hope that condoms will make a comeback? We’re not on a path to the condom issue being fully cleared. After we released our latest report last year, we went to Ottawa to present it to several MPs and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Even getting a meeting was difficult because of the taboo around STIs and HIV—nobody wants to be too public of an advocate. We’re also seeing less funding going toward sexual-health initiatives and fighting HIV and AIDS internationally—and this started well before Trump froze funding to PEPFAR. We’re never going to solve those epidemics without health service organizations, NGOs, schools, governments—everyone—seeing them as a priority.  This summer marks the first time Canada will host the C7, a gathering of civic organizations during the G7 in Ottawa. I’ll be there saying, We need to take what’s happening with youth more seriously . It’s a small world, and people need to be reminded that we’re all connected. When you take care of yourself, whether that means getting condoms or getting tested, you’re also taking care of others. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

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Cover Page for Toronto Star News Article - The sex lives of teenagers are showing worrying trends. These teens say misinformation is playing a part

news - January 12, 2025

The sex lives of teenagers are showing worrying trends. These teens say misinformation is playing a part

By Omar Mosleh

At the Flemingdon Health Centre, a 17-year-old boy paces and speaks nervously into his phone. “Yo bro. Yeah, I’m at the sexual health clinic. I was just thinking it’s a good time to get tested, after … yeah, that,” he stammers. A receptionist approaches and asks his name — to tag him in a photo she’s posting on social media — before launching an interrogation: Aren’t you a little young to be having sex? Are you one of those guys who sleeps with a girl and doesn’t call her back? And perhaps most worryingly: What are your parents’ names and phone numbers so we can tell them you might have a sexually transmitted infection? If the inappropriate and invasive questions weren’t enough to show this is a fictional scenario, the doctor emerging with a cartoonishly large syringe and cautioning “This will only hurt — a lot!” should give it away. The skit, titled “Clinic Myths,” is performed by youth in a program called SExT — Sex Education by Theatre. Young people dress up as characters such as Captain Condom, Karate Chlamydia and Sneaky Syphilis and roleplay various scenarios that teach and talk about safe sex, including contraception, STI prevention, and communicating and respecting boundaries — before taking it to the stage across the country. While the clinic skit may seem outlandish, it was created based on the real misconceptions and fears youth expressed about visiting a sexual health clinic, said Shira Taylor, a public health researcher and adjunct professor at York University, who created the program. Those fears are believed to be a major driving force in some worrying trends in young people’s sex lives, highlighted in a recent report by advocacy organization LetsStopAids . Regular condom usage is down, rates of certain STIs and HIV have skyrocketed, and knowledge around consent and the importance of testing for STIs is lacking, they found. Emma and Shivam, both 17, are in many ways average teenagers. Emma enjoys playing piano and attending concerts, while Shivam likes to keep busy with sports and computers. They come from different backgrounds: Emma, who is bisexual, grew up in a family that openly discussed sexual health. Shivam, who is heterosexual, was raised in a household where the topic was more taboo; his family, who came to Canada from India, didn’t discuss sexual health and his father was at first uncomfortable with his son attending Pride parades and volunteering with an organization dedicated to raising awareness about AIDS. What unites them is that they’re outliers among their peers, with considerable knowledge around sexual health from their time as peer educators with LetsStopAids. And they’ve both noticed that their friends are lacking knowledge when it comes to healthy sex and relationships. Shivam said there’s a disconnect between what youth are learning in schools versus their actual experiences. Sex-ed in schools often doesn’t feel relevant and isn’t engaging, he said. “There’s these intense diagrams and things that are incomprehensible,” he said. “And I remember a lot of my classmates were just on their phones scrolling through TikTok and Instagram.” As a result, much of what they know is from social media, which is full of misinformation, perpetuates myths and encourages problematic behaviour. https://res.cloudinary.com/letsstopaids/image/upload/v1736786910/LetsStopAIDS%20Website/Media/LetsStopAIDS-Media-News-TorontoStar-Sex-Lives-of-Teenagers-Shivam.jpg Shivam, 17, pictured in his home in Adjala-Tosorontio in Simcoe County. Shivam is a peer educator with LetsStopAids, and works to debunk myths and educate other youth on what safe sex and healthy relationships actually look like. (Michelle Mengsu Chang Toronto St) Emma, who attends a private all-girls school in Toronto, said issues around consent and STI transmission were discussed “extensively” in school. But those conversations aren’t necessarily filtering down to her peers — particularly boys, who she said she mostly interacts with at parties and social functions. She said while movements such as #MeToo have moved the dial on conversations around consent, she feels we’re moving backwards in some ways — pointing to a recent “terrifying” social media trend of boys posting #YourBodyMyChoice since Donald Trump was elected president in November. She said this highlights how teenagers are more likely to be influenced by what they see on social media instead of public health campaigns or sex-ed in schools. “I’m very worried … it feels like teenage boys are once again falling for, like, the trap of ‘We own you,’ ” she said. She said that discussions around STIs are often framed as an “extreme example that could happen to you if you’re not careful.” “Teenagers don’t really expect that any of us would have an STI so we don’t really talk about it … I’ve never heard of anybody my age getting tested,” she said. There’s no definitive answer for why today’s youth are lacking knowledge about safe-sex practices, but experts said there are a myriad of reasons: Peer pressure, stigma, unequal power in relationships and barriers in accessing contraceptives and sexual health treatment are all factors. LetsStopAids surveyed 1,105 Canadians ages 18-24 nationwide and found that seven in 10 have never been tested for HIV or STIs, despite 61 per cent saying they’ve had more than one sexual partner in the last three months. Condom usage is down — 64 per cent of sexually active youth reported inconsistent condom use, with one in five never using condoms. The percentage of surveyed youth who reported using condoms “all the time” fell from 53 per cent in 2020 to 24 per cent in 2024. When it comes to condom negotiation, two in five felt uncomfortable having those conversations, and seven in 10 who experienced unsafe sexual encounters around condom negotiation did not seek help. About half of youth who experienced “stealthing” (non-consensual condom removal during sex) did not seek treatment. All of these factors are believed to be fuelling one of the most stark trends in the report: a substantial rise in STI rates. Between 2011 and 2019, chlamydia rose by 26 per cent in Canada, gonorrhea spiked by 171 per cent and infectious syphilis skyrocketed by 389 per cent, while rates of HIV diagnoses increased by 35 per cent in 2023 from 2022, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Shamin Mohamed Jr., who started LetsStopAids 20 years ago when he was 15, said sex-ed in schools “tends to rely heavily on fear.” Open conversations around condom use, in particular, are far less common than they used to be, he said. https://res.cloudinary.com/letsstopaids/image/upload/v1736786509/LetsStopAIDS%20Website/Media/LetsStopAIDS-Media-News-TorontoStar-Sex-Lives-of-Teenagers-Shira-Taylor.jpg Shira Taylor is the founder and director of SExT, a program that educates youth about sexual health and healthy relationships through theatre performances and workshops.(Shira Taylor) “If you grew up in the ‘70s or ‘80s, the topic of condoms is well understood … because there were so many mass campaigns that went out,” he said. “But if you look at anyone born from the 2000s, you’ll notice that it’s not a topic that’s actually ever brought up.” Even when equipped with knowledge, youth seeking contraception or STI treatment still face a lot of barriers. Condoms and other forms of contraception can be expensive for youth who are unemployed or working part time, and it takes confidence for them to even go out and buy them, said Mohamed Jr. Emma said it’s almost expected for girls her age to be on birth control, which gives teenage boys an excuse to not use condoms. “It feels like there’s a lot more of a pressure on us to be using birth control when it literally messes up our hormones,” she said. “And there’s so many adverse effects.” According to a 2020 Statistics Canada report that surveyed 15- to 24-year-olds, the main reasons young people said they weren’t using condoms was because they were in a monogamous relationship (47.6 per cent) or because they were using another method of contraception (47.2 per cent), such as the birth control pill or patch. But those methods don’t protect against STIs, and it’s possible for transmission to occur when no symptoms are present. Mohamed Jr. said one of the most distressing findings in their survey was that 34 per cent of youth who were diagnosed with HIV or another STI did not receive treatment, up from 27 per cent in 2022. This shows that even if they’re going out of their way to get tested, they’re still facing obstacles in getting treated, including the cost of medication, but also the stigma around having an STI or HIV, he said. Ibraheem, 17, a participant in the SExT program, said teens aren’t typically having proactive conversations around contraception, which usually comes up “in the heat of the moment.” He said attending SExT’s workshops has taught him how to navigate those conversations and set boundaries. “One of my exes … would often pressure me into doing things. And from this and support of my friends, I learned how to get out of those situations,” he said. Taylor said the numbers are “alarming but not surprising.”  Since 2020, many youth feel like it’s safer to be behind a screen, and they’re having trouble making connections in real life, she said. “With the pandemic pushing young people more online, those kind of negotiation skills and how to have difficult conversations, they’re having those less and less,” Taylor said. Shivam, with LetsStopAids, said he’s noticed that trend among his peers. Increased screen time and fewer in-person interactions during the pandemic created a “false, unrealistic” view of what healthy sexual relationships actually look like, he said.  He said many of his friends are still scared or shy when it comes to talking about sex. He’s been able to help foster those conversations, not only among his friends, but also within his family. “It doesn’t happen overnight, but over time … it was really amazing to see,” he said. “Like, wow, I can have an impact on my own parents.”

Two youth engaging at a party. Photo from GettyImages, featured on TorontoSun

news - October 21, 2024

HIV and STIs go untreated in more than 30% of infected youth: Poll

By Jane Stevenson

About one-third of youth diagnosed with an sexually transmitted disease or HIV did not seek treatemnt, according to a poll by a charity dedicated to HIV prevention. The 2024 Sex Lives Report by LetsStopAIDS found 34% of youth diagnosed with an STI or HIV did not receive treatment — an increase from 27% in 2022. “This year’s findings demonstrate that our current approach to sex education is not working for todays’ youth,” says Shamin Mohamed Jr., founder and president of LetsStopAIDS. “We need to ensure that young Canadians are equipped with the knowledge and tools necessary for safe and healthy sexual relationships, and this starts with having honest, open and knowledgeable conversations, and enough resources.” The study also found 70% of sexually active youth who experienced unsafe or uncomfortable sexual encounters involving condom negotiation didn’t seek help. And the same goes for 51% of youth who experienced stealthing (non-consensual condom removal). While the average age of first-time sexual intercourse is 15, discussions about STI and HIV testing typically occur at age 17, according to the report. Data also shows a whopping 96% of respondents did not feel familiar with STI and HIV disclosure laws, contributing to Canada’s troubling trend as the only G7 country with rising HIV rates. The report says 67% of young Canadians have not had health-care providers proactively discuss STI and HIV testing with them. Conducted March 28-April 9 by Angus Reid, a probability sample of this size — a poll of 1,105 Canadians, ages 18-24n — has a margin of error of 2.9%, 19 times out of 20.

Image from the Sex Lives Report 2024 Video Campaign, showing a girl and a boy having an intimate conversation on the couch

news - October 8, 2024

Report suggests decrease in condom use among Canadian youth, lack of safe-sex education

By Hannah Alberga

A new report that looks at the sex lives of Canadian youth suggests more needs to be done to encourage safe sex, including reversing a decrease in condom use. In a survey conducted by Angus Reid for the charity LetsStopAIDS , 24 per cent of participants said they use condoms "all the time." That's compared to 53 per cent who said they always used condoms in 2020. One in five said they'd never used a condom. LetsStopAIDS released Tuesday the results of its annual national survey of more than 1,100 Canadians aged 18 to 24. Six per cent of survey respondents said they were diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection or HIV in the previous six months -- up two per cent from 2023. And seven in 10 sexually active youth who experienced unsafe or uncomfortable sexual encounters involving condom negotiation said they did not seek help. The organization's founder and president, Shamin Mohamed Jr., says proactively discussing how condoms can prevent STIs and HIV would better prepare youth, and "in turn help Canada have a lower STI rate, a lower HIV rate." He highlights barriers he says are standing in the way: sex-ed in schools is outdated and health-care providers aren't discussing HIV testing with young patients. Sex education in the classroom has become a political battleground in Canada, he says, such as in Alberta, where the government has proposed a law that would make parents opt-in for their kids to be in sex-ed. Addressing sex-ed curriculums across the country, Mohamed Jr. says, "It's not covering key topics like consent,gender equity, women's health, sexting and protecting your privacy. These are relevant discussions that actually lead to riskier sexual health and behaviours." The result is that young people are left with little practical knowledge to initiate safe sex, Mohamed Jr. says. A recent report by the World Health Organization also suggests condom use is declining among youth. In Canada, 31 per cent of 15-year-old males and 25 per cent of females said they did not use a condom or a contraceptive pill the last time they had sex. Data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows a 25 per cent increase in first-time HIV diagnoses in 2022 over the previous year. "Young people are going to continue to have sex. So it's important for this information be provided," says Mohamed Jr. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.

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