STD Awareness Month is drawing to a close, but there’s still time to get aware, get safer, and get your test if you haven’t already!
There’s also time to read the awesome comprehensive safer sex series The STD Project wrote for our tumblr, watch Veralyn Williams’ video on 5 Facts About STDs That You Should Know (and Probably Don’t), and learn more about birth control methods that prevent STIs over on Bedsider.org.
Comprehensive Safer Sex 3: Take it to the next level
As part of STD Awareness Month, Jenelle Marie of The STD Project is contributing a three-part series to our tumblr (along with an article for Bedsider.org) sharing her experiences with STIs and her suggestions for how to have the safest sex possible. This is the final post of the series.
Always bring a raincoat even if you’re not expecting rain. Image source: George Eastman House
When thinking about a comprehensive safer-sex regimen, it helps to keep in mind things that are not considered part of safer-sex too, because it’s really easy to get overwhelmed or a bit confused when you’re trying to be as responsible with your sexual health as possible.
Although sex comes with some hefty implications for your health and emotional well-being, it doesn’t have to be all business and no play. In fact, adding humor to your safer-sex plan can make those steps seem less cumbersome. When you can laugh about the things that seem a bit awkward, you lighten the mood and open the opportunity to explore and learn together.
This shouldn’t be a deal breaker for a partner. In fact, it should be very sexy to them that you’re conscientious and careful. If it’s not, you should ask yourself if this is the right person for you. Someone who cares about their body and their health is also more apt to care about you, your body, and your health. Do you really want to get intimate with someone who doesn’t place safer sex on their list of priorities?
At the end of the day, you and your partner have to decide which risks you’re willing to accept, and how you’re most comfortable negotiating them together. Whether it’s for a long-term relationship or just for a night, it should be the responsibility of both partners to talk about safer sex and prepare to be sexually healthy in the bedroom.
If you’re already living with an STI…
We talk about STIs in depth on The STD Project and provide a lot of the basic information you can find on sexual health websites alongside the grey areas most people are afraid to talk about—how to live with and have healthy relationships with an STI, when to tell someone you have an STI, how to tell someone you have an STI, and more.
Whether you’re living with an STI or doing your best to educate yourself about how to avoid them, a comprehensive safer-sex approach is the sexiest and safest way to be sexually healthy.
Comprehensive Safer Sex 2: Reduce your risk!
As part of STD Awareness Month, Jenelle Marie of The STD Project is contributing a three-part series to our tumblr (along with an article for Bedsider.org) sharing her experiences with STIs and her suggestions for how to have the safest sex possible. This is the second post of the series.
Talk to your partner before getting down to your skivvies. Photo by The US National Archives.
While you can’t eliminate all risk when getting intimate with a partner, a comprehensive approach that includes prevention and communication can greatly reduce your likelihood of contracting an infection as I have. Taking these 4 comprehensive safer-sex steps not only reduces your risk but exudes responsibility, ownership, and empowerment.
1. Talk to your partner about safer sex before anything happens.These conversations should include questions like:
- Have either of us—or any of our partners—ever had an STI? When? Did we get treated? Did it come back and/or were we re-tested after treatment?
- Have we been tested—if so, when, for which STIs, and have we had partners since?
- How many sexual partners have we had in the last six months—what did we do to make sex safer? Have we been tested since?
- What do we usually do to make sex safer and what do we plan to do when we engage in sexual activities with one another?
2. Have full STI screenings and sexual health exams at least once a year and more often if you have new or multiple partners.
- Before engaging in sexual activities with someone new, get tested together. If either of you had other partners recently, get tested again in 3 months to eliminate false negatives and use barriers until testing is complete.
- Get tested before and after each new partner.
3. Use barriers consistently and correctly.
- When using a condom, place a drop or two of lube on the inside, and lots on the outside. LUBE is EVERYONE’s friend.
- Never use more than one condom at a time.
- When using a dam, place a drop or two of lube on the side facing the genitals.
- When switching entry points (anal to vaginal, vice-a-versa, etc.) use a new condom.
- Use condoms or barriers for oral sex as well as penetrative sex.
- Do not use flavored condoms for anal or vaginal sex.
- Only use water-based or silicon-based, sugar-free lube with condoms—no lotions, vaseline, oils, etc.
4. Consider making safer lifestyle choices to reduce risk.
- Reduce the number of multiple partners (one after another or more than one at a time).
- Limit/eliminate drugs and alcohol when engaging in sexual activities.
- Be mutually exclusive with your partner.
Check in on April 18th for the final post of this series, “Comprehensive Safer Sex 3: Take it to the next level.”
Jenelle Marie is the Founder & Executive Director of The STD Project—an award-winning independent website and progressive movement aimed at eradicating STD stigma by facilitating and encouraging awareness, education, and acceptance through story-telling and resource recommendations. You can also find The STD Project on Facebook and Twitter. Look for her E-Book, ‘The Relationship Survival Guide to Living with an STD’ available in 2013.
Do you know everything you need to know about STDs? …Are you sure?
The Fine Art of Condom Negotiation
Why the need for STD Awareness Month? Well, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 20 million new sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) occur in the United States each year, and half of them happen among young people ages 15–24. It’s scary to think so many young people have not gotten the memo that safer sex is a must.
It should go without saying that a big part of practicing safer sex is using a condom—every time. And yes—in “the heat of the moment” negotiating condom use can be difficult. That’s why in a perfect world that conversation would always happen long before the foreplay starts. But of course we live in the REAL world, where things tend to move quickly. So how can we get our partner on board for using protection? I talked to 3 sexual health educators who offered the following pointers:
#1 take-away here: Make using a condom fun! And as I recently learned during a Harlem United Tea Party (the name of their safe sex presentations), one way to do that is by putting on the condom with your mouth. (If you’ve never seen it done, check out Putting on a condom w/ NO HANDS, starting at 6:21). During our interview, sex educator Tasha Douge explains why this method can be highly effective:
What are your secrets to negotiating condom use? Share them in the comments below!
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Veralyn Williams is a Multimedia Freelance Journalist currently working in New York City. She has spent 4 years at WNYC Radio working with various departments including: Radio Rookies, Culture, News, and Freakonomics. She also freelances for Black Enterprise, BronxNet Television, Bedsider, and The Museum for African Art. Her independent work is featured on her website VeralynMedia.com. Through all of her endeavors she aims to give a voice to perspectives that are often forgotten in the media.
Comprehensive Safer Sex 1: It’s Personal
As part of STD Awareness Month, Jenelle Marie of The STD Project is contributing a three-part series to our tumblr (along with an article for Bedsider.org) sharing her experiences with STIs and her suggestions for how to have the safest sex possible.
Jenelle Marie, Founder & Executive Director of The STD Project
At 30 years old and after 14 years of living with an STI—genital herpes—I’ve had my fair share of experiences with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). At 16, when I contracted herpes, I had been armed with the ever-familiar fear-based sex ed, in which graphic displays of worst-case scenarios were featured on a projector screen and little else was taught about STIs. Understandably, I thought STIs wouldn’t happen to me—they only happened to certain types of people—and when I became sexually active, I figured I was being responsible by only engaging in oral sex, sleeping with virgins, and getting annual pap smears.
In a similar fashion, when I had a bout of abnormal pap smears in my late teens and early 20s, I wasn’t told I had HPV. Abnormal pap smears are caused by the HPV virus, but very rarely result in cancer and usually clear on their own over time as mine did. A lot of doctors withhold that information in an attempt to spare their patients the fear and turmoil which often results from telling someone they’ve contracted an STI.
During those years, I also experienced recurrent yeast and bacterial vaginosis (BV) infections—which fit under the umbrella term vulvovaginitis, or vaginitis for short. Both infections are caused by normal bacteria naturally residing in the vagina, and while BV can be exacerbated by sexual activities, yeast infections can also be passed to partners.
In my mid-20s I met my ex-husband, and although we had a talk about being mutually exclusive, I didn’t go farther and ask about testing or insist we be tested together. He didn’t take our conversation in earnest and continued engaging in activities outside of our relationship, which I eventually learned the hard way in my final experience with an STI: scabies.
As a result of all of those experiences, I launched TheSTDProject.com in April of 2012 alongside STD Awareness Month in hopes of promoting awareness, education, and acceptance for those living with an STI. The intent is to help others learn vicariously through my mistakes. Story-telling is one of our most powerful tools as individuals, and as such, I share openly so others don’t have to endure some of the shame, embarrassment, and fear inherent in STI diagnosis alone…
Check in on April 11th for the second post of this series, “Comprehensive Safer Sex 2: Reduce your risk!”
Jenelle Marie is the Founder & Executive Director of The STD Project—an award-winning independent website and progressive movement aimed at eradicating STD stigma by facilitating and encouraging awareness, education, and acceptance through story-telling and resource recommendations. You can also find The STD Project on Facebook and Twitter. Look for her E-Book, ‘The Relationship Survival Guide to Living with an STD’ available in 2013.
5 Handy Facts for STD Awareness Month
When we think of April, two things come to mind—rain and STD Awareness Month (not necessarily in that order). We recommend an umbrella (or a romantic spirit) for the first and our friends over at GYT for the latter. You’ve probably heard the stat—one in two people will get a sexually transmitted disease (STD) by age 25, and most of them won’t know it. The GYT campaign aims to reduce the spread of STDs (which, BTW, we at Bedsider refer to as STIs for sexually transmitted infections) among young people first through information (and prevention), then through testing and treatment as needed. On their site you can find a testing center, get tips on talking to your partner and your provider, and read about STI prevention, a.k.a. condoms. You should head on over there right after you check out these 5 handy facts we put together for your STI-awareness-raising arsenal.
1) Going for your routine pap smear/check up is really important, but don’t assume because everything is normal with your pap that you’re in the clear for STIs. Generally you have to ask to be screened for any STI you’re concerned about. (And if you’re nervous about bringing up sex with your doctor, we’ve got tips for making that less awkward, too.)
2) HPV is really, really common. Still, there are things you can do to reduce your odds of getting it like getting vaccinated, being selective in terms of partners, and using condoms. Screening to make sure you don’t have it, or to keep an eye on it if you do, is also super important.
3) We hear nasty rumors sometimes about the pill causing infertility, but science has shown that to be the stuff of myth. Actually, if you’re worried about your fertility—current or future—the best thing you can do is get screened for STIs. Take Chlamydia, for example—somewhere in the neighborhood of three million Americans are infected with it each year. STIs like Chlamydia or Gonorrhea, if left undiagnosed and untreated, can cause scarring in the tubes connecting your ovaries and uterus and make it hard to get pregnant later.
4) Some STIs don’t have any symptoms, so you can’t always tell if you (or someone you want to sleep with) have one. Do you see where we’re going with this?
5) Oral sex is not a free pass. Or rather—oh, puns!—it can be a free pass to STI transmission. So always use a condom or a dental dam for oral sex if you don’t know your partner’s status.
Speaking of knowing your partner’s status, there is actually (would we joke about this?) an app for that. In fact, we know of at least two—Qpid.me and ChecMate—that help make sharing your status easier.
If this is all old news for you, pass it on to a friend. Don’t feel like scrolling up? Here’s that GYT link again. And check back here for our next Method Monday—we’ll be posting about that magic method that protects against both pregnancy and STIs…condoms.
