Would everyone whining about how taking safer sex precautions is such a hardship (you know who you are) just stop? Honestly, you’d think it was an oppressive, difficult process required by some big meany trying to squeeze all the fun out of life, rather than a quick, easy way of avoiding all sorts of nasty consequences.

And it’s hardly new. People have been using barrier methods of one sort or another since someone noticed the relationship between the penis and pregnancy — although women usually bore the brunt of responsibility for taking those precautions. When the relationship between the penis and “the pox” was noticed, men started taking a more active role. After all, nobody really wanted any important appendages covered with painful, oozing sores. Of course, way back when, there wasn’t a cure for most STDs and treatments were often horrific, so carelessness immediately cost a lot.

Now there are cures for many STDs, and treatments for the others, so it seems that we’re getting a little careless about where we put our appendages and how.

You probably already know that the fastest growing group for HIV infection is men under 40 who have sex with men. We could be convinced to cut a little slack for those ages 18-24, on the grounds that recently the Republican Administration has been deliberately designing our educational system to keep any helpful information on sexually transmitted diseases as far away from schools as possible — as if keeping the most sexually active group of people ignorant would somehow protect them. However, if you’re over the age of 24, you have no excuse for not using condoms; you’re simply an idiot.

Do you think you’re immune? Why? Because you’re young? Because you’re good-looking? Dream on. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.

And don’t even say in jest that AIDS isn’t scary anymore because it doesn’t kill you within months and make you look hideous while you die in front of everyone’s eyes, that, in fact, some men look even better when they start on testosterone treatments — we’re trying to retain our faith in the human race.

If you can’t be bothered to worry about your own health, what about your friends and your family (biological or chosen)? They face the prospect of years of worrying about every sniffle you have until you finally succumb, leaving them to nurse you on your deathbed. Not only that, everyone you know has to pay for any medical bills you can’t cover.

What about insurance and government programs, you ask? Sure, if there’s money left by the time you need it, they’ll pay, but in the end the money comes out of everyone else’s pocket — the same way that the money for government-funded HIV/AIDS programs is coming out of your pocket right now.

So you think sex feels better without a condom? Well, that’s arguable, but even if it were indisputably true, who cares? Being independently wealthy feels better than having to work for a living, but most of us don’t get to do it.

Are you thinking of pulling out that argument that you must have sex without a condom in order to experience real intimacy? Bullshit. If you’re looking for real intimacy, it has nothing to do with the penis and everything to do with the head and the heart.

If you are truly intimate with a lover, odds are you can get away with not using a condom together because you’ve been tested, you’ve been together for a long time, and you do not have unprotected sex with anyone else. Ever.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the AIDS argument that we forget there are other nasty diseases to worry about as well. For instance, herpes. Once infected, you develop periodic painful blisters on the genitals, buttocks or thighs, particularly during times of stress. You’re contagious during an outbreak and sometimes even when you show no symptoms. There are treatments but no cure.

Gonorrhea can infect the genital tract, the mouth, and the rectum. Symptoms include pain, pus discharge from the penis and severe burning sensations during urination. Symptoms of rectal infection include discharge, anal itching, and painful, bloody bowel movements. Untreated it can spread to infect the joints, heart valves and the brain.

Syphilis, which is beginning to show up in frightening numbers among men who have sex with men, starts as a small sore that you might not even notice. It will go away on its own, but after about six weeks you will probably develop a rash of brown sores on your hands and feet, and possibly over your entire body. Eventually, untreated syphilis can cause serious heart abnormalities, mental disorders, blindness, other neurological problems and death. It also increases the risk of HIV infection by 300 to 500 percent. It is curable, but many are unaware they’ve been infected until permanent damage has been done.

Of course, these are just the biggies. There are plenty of other unpleasant things you can pick up by having unprotected sex.

What it comes down to is this: In view of all the things that can happen as a result of having unprotected sex, taking a few seconds to slip a condom on isn’t so bad.

According to the Human Rights Commission, “In Zambia and Zimbabwe, GLBT individuals are threatened and brutally assaulted for their advocacy of equal rights. In Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania and Iran, GLBT people face possible execution for adult, consensual same-sex relations.”

Compared to that, the “inconvenience” of using a condom is nothing.