I was going to say something about "your tax dollars at work," but there's something even more irritating than the wasting of the truly insignificant (to the feds) sum of $100,000. It's the idea that a government study, if enough earnest researchers just push all the right buttons, can fathom the depths of human relationships and thwart all destructive behavior:
The administration is funding a $100,000 study of pregnant and "at-risk" 14-17-year-old girls on probation in Houston, Texas, to determine ways to help them choose safer lifestyles and avoid pregnancy, including better "condom negotiation" tactics.
[. . .]
According to Danielle Parish, the assistant professor at the school's Graduate College of Social Work who is conducting the NIH-funded effort, one of the big problems young girls need to learn is how to talk their boyfriends into using condoms.
According to the school's release, "Parrish notes one of the big issues for this population of adolescent girls is condom negotiation. They may have a boyfriend who says it isn't 'cool' to use a condom. To prepare the girls for these types of situations, the counselors and pediatricians will teach them how to negotiate condom use with their partner.
I'd love to read the government-approved script the girl reads from during this "condom negotiation" to convince the boy that using a condom really is cool. I'm sure their hormones will cool down while the debate proceeds.
I think something about old dogs and new tricks might apply here.
