As if HIV, Herpes and anything else you might contract from random sex wasn’t enough, the Center for Disease Control announced efforts to help prevent the spread of a new “superbug” version of gonnorrhea, also affectionately known as the “Clap,” that is resistant to standard antibiotic treatments.

With all the antibiotics out there folks use to kill off illness and infection, it is natural that those nasty bacteria and whatnot that wander into people’s systems eventually evolve to stave off whatever it is scientists have found to try and erradicate it. Darwinism at work, baby.

The kicker to this one though, is the new super Clap has another brand of nemesis besides building a betterer, fasterer, strongerer $6 Million Antibiotic in order to keep the Clap from mutating and infecting others. That nemesis is called “condoms.”

Just imagine a voice booming out across the horizen in a deep baritone — like the guy that does voice-overs for epic movie previews — heralding the entrance of “Captain Condom,” while a burley condom lands atop a budding building, cape fluttering in the wind and then deftly crossing its arms over its chest; well, imagine the arms and “chest” area as well.

What, you say? Condoms aren’t just for preventing pregnancy?

Correctamundo.

Condoms can also help prevent sexually transmitted infections. It isn’t 100 percent effective, but then the only real 100 percent effective way to avoid STIs during penetrative sexual activities is not to participate in penetrative sexual activities. And for anyone out there who has participated in penetrative sexual activities, there is no way we are quitting that pleasurable experience voluntarily.

But hey, everyone who was young through the 1980s on up to current has had it beaten into their heads about how important it is to practice safe sex. Some schools even go so far as to demonstrate how to put a condom onto a penis — OK fine, a banana, but whatever, it is still sorta accurate — and have students participate in other activities to teach them how frivilous sex with many casual partners can result in oodles of bad things. So why keep bringing it up?

Well, I bring it up here because the message isn’t sticking. If gonorrhea and other STIs are evolving, it means more and more opportunities for it to spread are occurring because folks aren’t bothing to use condoms and the like.

I would venture the guess that nary a person ever desires to have an STI. So, comically enough, teen pregnancy also being addressed during a lot of the health classes older students have to go through makes me wonder if part of the message is to inform people pregnancies are very similar to STIs. This connection existing because pregnancies are basically parasites, and there are some parasites involved in certain STIs. So unwanted pregnancy could be added to the list of “treatable” or “highly preventable” STIs.

OK, loose connections for the purpose of making a joke aside, using condoms is hardly a laughing matter.

No matter how much a condom disrupts the “feeling” of whatever pleasure-packed activity folks might participate in, it is necessary. Even in a committed relationship, we should still be using them. Hell, the gal should probably be on birth control in addition to the guy wearing a Jimmy hat.

If sex isn’t your bag or you are waiting for marriage for that whole blood on the sheets and the purpose of sex is to produce offspring, then ignore all this.

But if you do participate in activities of a sexual nature with the pure intent of pleasuring yourself, hopefully you and your partner(s) then understand that STIs are evolving.

We the more recent generations, and those coming that will further confound us, “mature” at a rate faster and faster than generations before. Whether we were prepared for stepping into adult roles is another question entirely, but we are deciding to forgo many childish things in place of what was considered only “adult.”

With that reality comes sex. I don’t think teenagers should be having sex, but that won’t stop them. And I, and many other older siblings, don’t set a very good example because we tend to be hypocrites with our advice. Some of us were gung-ho and in the sack before we had a drivers permit, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want others we care about to play it safer.

But this advice to use condoms isn’t just for those struggling through puberty: It applies to all ages. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t used a condom every time I’m with a new girl, but I should have; and the various women should have spoken up as well. Using condoms isn’t just a guy thing; gals need to speak up as well, as it takes two to tango; and when you’re really lucky that tango becomes a conga line. *Wink* I really cannot help the jokes sometimes.

So with the understanding that something so simply treatable as the Clap has evolved into “the Smack” — trademark pending — we the sexual people of the world need to evolve to understand it isn’t Woodstock, and “free love” requires condoms and involves risks.

Seriously folks, colleges hand out free condoms almost every week; along with many health care locations. Be you male or female, get over yourself and stick a few condoms in your purse or pocket whenever you leave the house. You never know when you might find yourself head-over-heels, in love or just physically.