Remember those old commercials for Trident sugarless gum, where they said "4 out of 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum"? Many a person has honestly wondered what the fifth dentist recommends. Many a comedian has humorously speculated on it. I believe I have the answer.
I realized what the 5th dentist recommends while I was considering the debate over whether or not to give birth control and information about how to use it to teenagers. Many people who are against making the products and knowledge available to teens take the position that doing so is like approving of teen sex. Their position is essentially "if we give them condoms, they'll use them."
And it hit me what the 5th dentist recommended... don't chew gum. He'd be of the opinion that saying "if you must chew gum, then chew sugarless gum" was like giving his patients permission to chew gum, so he'd just say "don't chew gum!" The patients who disobeyed his dictate would potentially be in greater jeopardy because he refused them the knowledge of the safest gum to chew, but he'd be secure in the knowledge that he stuck to his principles.
Then I looked it up. The survey in which the 4 out of 5 dentists recommended sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum had three options for the dentists to choose from: sugarless gum, sugared gum, and no gum.
The breakdown between sugared and none has been lost to history, but if we are keen observers of sociological phenomena, it's pretty obvious how the average 5th dentist voted. He wasn't going to tell you the safest way to chew gum, because if he didn't hold the line against gum chewing, the result would be dental anarchy.
So, 4 out of 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum. The 5th has an overinflated sense of his importance.
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wow. That is deep. True. I will have use this one. Thank you. That drove me nuts for a while. So your saying teenagers shouldn't chew gum while having sex. And if they do, its gotta be sugarless or none at all.