Do you know everything you need to know about STDs? …Are you sure?
The news out of Mississippi that a baby who was born with HIV appears to have been cured of the virus is incredibly exciting and absolutely cause for celebration. That said, we’re with someecards in hoping that no one hearing this news takes it to mean they can slack when it comes to using condoms (every single time) and getting tested regularly for HIV and other STIs.
And a bonus reminder: Condoms can also help you avoid bringing home another kind of unwanted souvenir from Spring Break. That’s a two-for-one special we can definitely get worked up about.
Awesome female condom infographic by CHANGE
It’s… Super Female-condom Lady! (Kinda makes you want to learn more about the female condom, huh?)
(via omgpp)
Why HIV Stigma Has to End, ASAP
For World Aids Day this past Saturday, I decided to find out if college students today are worried about HIV. After getting mixed responses to that question from the 25 students I spoke to, I followed up by asking them if a partner (or potential partner) had ever disclosed a positive HIV status. Here’s what I heard:
Not one of those 25 students said “yes” when it came to a romantic partner. But considering that approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV and 1 in 5 of them don’t know their status, it’s possible that some of those partners didn’t actually know for sure. As Michael J. Kaplan of AIDS United puts it in a Huffington Post piece for World AIDS Day, “…until we tackle the pervasive problem of HIV stigma, a problem that prevents many people from getting tested for the virus and many living with HIV from getting into life-saving care, our dream of an AIDS-free generation will remain only that.” As a person who’s grown up hearing about HIV all my life, anecdotally, I believe major part of the problem is that too many people don’t see the face of HIV when they look in the mirror.
It didn’t really hit me until I read The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive by Marvelyn Brown, a true story about how a straight black girl from Nashville, Tennessee, contracted HIV at 19 years old. It was crazy to me just how many similarities Marvelyn and I had: she had an older boyfriend she loved, with whom she had unprotected sex… The only difference? Her boyfriend had HIV.
I firmly believe that the key to getting more people to find out their status and disclose it to their partners is to let go of the stereotypes of what someone with HIV should look like. Marvelyn is a beautiful, curvy woman who’s enjoying life and doing important work around HIV/AIDS awareness (Check out the photos on her website and see for yourself). If she wasn’t an activist, would you assume she had HIV if you saw her in the street? Probably not.
We all need to face the reality of HIV/AIDS. One way to do that is through Facing AIDS, a national campaign that lets you take action by writing how YOU are facing AIDS today and uploading a picture of yourself with your words to the Facing AIDS website. My personal favorite:
By showing the many faces affected—directly or not—by HIV/AIDS, the campaign aims to reduce stigma and promote HIV testing for World AIDS Day and beyond.
What does facing AIDS look like to you?
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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 Freakonomincs. Also freelancing 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.
World AIDS Day, 2012
We’ve come a long way in the battle against HIV/AIDS—there have been advances in prevention, testing, and treatment. But are we out of the woods? Hardly. Over a million people in the U.S. are living with HIV and 50,000 people become infected every year. Scariest of all? 1 in every 5 people living with HIV doesn’t realize it.
For World AIDS Day 2012, Veralyn looks at what’s changed—and what hasn’t—since the first World AIDS Day took place in 1988.
Dispatches from a College Sexpert: Smart, Sexy, & STI-free?
College students carry a lot of things: books, laptops, wallets, keys, backpacks…STIs (sexually transmitted infections). There are so many STIs that they, like your keys, can be hard to keep track of—even harder since many students don’t realize they have or are at risk for one. So, since we’re less invincible than we think, I’ve written up 8 things college students should know (and probably don’t) about STIs.
1) In the U.S., one in two people has or has had an STI by age 25—and young people make up nearly half of the 19 million new cases of STIs each year.
2) Testing is easy and cheaper for students, so strike while the iron’s hot and get in the habit of getting tested every 6 months. If you’re in a long-term monogamous relationship and you’ve BOTH been tested (and treated if you tested positive), you can bump it up to every year. Note that a Pap smear doesn’t test for STIs, so you should ask your doctor or local clinic directly about getting tested. You can also test for some STIs in your own apartment or dorm room with take-home kits.
3) It’s not just the people with tons of partners who get STIs—they’re easy to catch, there are a lot of them, and there are a lot of places you can get them, including from oral sex. STIs don’t just get in through the mouth and affect you down there; gonorrhea can grow in your throat and make it sore. (Maybe it’s not strep after all.)
4) The vaccine for HPV, which is already showing signs of having an effect on HPV rates, is now recommended for guys as well as girls.
5) Chlamydia and gonorrhea, even if they show no external symptoms, can turn into Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), which can cause infertility. For the record, this doesn’t mean if you’ve had chlamydia or gonorrhea you don’t need to use birth control—most cases are easily treated and don’t turn into PID.
6) Using spermicide (without a condom) or having an untreated STI can irritate the lining of the vagina and other sensitive skin, making it easier to contract (other) STIs.
7) Most folks born in the U.S. were vaccinated for HBV (Hepatitis B) as babies, but HBV disproportionately affects people from Asian or Pacific Island countries, where vaccination policies may be different and rates of HBV may be high. If you or your parents were born in a country where HBV is common, you may want to get tested for it. HBV is an STI but can also be transmitted through birth and often causes liver cancer later in life.
8) There are some surprisingly common STIs that few people have even heard about, like mycoplasma genitalium or trichomoniasis. Both mycoplasma genitalium and trichomoniasis are curable but tricky to diagnose.
Tons of college student have or have had an STI and the best thing is to be proactive by getting tested every 6 months and using a condom with any type of sex. If you want even more information, check out our 5 Handy Facts for STD Awareness Month and 5 Facts for HIV Awareness Month posts. Good luck staying safe and don’t forget to get your birth control covered too!
“Banging a Pot to Keep in Step” image from Quinn Dombrowski.
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Catherine Rivera is an intern for Bedsider. When she’s not counseling, teaching, researching or writing about sex and relationships, this Stanford University student can be found passing out condoms to her fellow students, mentoring middle school girls, indulging her sweet tooth , reading the news, or attempting to get inside the heads of her four younger brothers. Catherine doesn’t have a personal tumblr (yet), but you can follow her on twitter @cmrivera2013.
Advances in HIV prevention and testing? Happy July to us all.
From our latest “Get on Top”:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is definitely doing its part to make this July, which just happens to be National HIV Awareness Month, a special one. It kicked off the month by approving OraQuick, the first DIY over-the-counter HIV test to be made available on the U.S. market. Now, mid-month, the FDA has approved a once-a-day pill that can seriously reduce the risk of contracting HIV.
5 Facts for HIV Awareness Month
If you were lucky enough to have sex ed in high school, your teacher probably told you that HIV/AIDS is the scariest, deadliest, and craziest sexually transmitted infection (STI) there is—in my health class they pretty much left it at that. Clearly, there’s more to know about HIV than that scare tactic, but since a lot has changed in the last few decades, I’ll give those sex ed teachers the benefit of the doubt.
Today more young people are using condoms and HIV can be treated (though not cured) with powerful drugs—especially if it’s caught early. Yet while HIV may no longer be seen as a death sentence, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. So, since knowledge is power and July is National HIV Awareness Month, here are 5 things you should know about HIV.
1) It’s not just ‘them’ who are at risk (it’s ‘us’). More young people are at risk for getting HIV than you might think—including young women. In fact, we make up 25% of new cases and we contract it at higher rates than our male partners/friends/lovers when having sexual intercourse (more surface area = more risk). I’m not trying to induce panic, but it’s worth noting that anyone can have or get HIV regardless of what they look like or what demographic they belong to. In other words, protecting yourself is important even if you’re not in the “risk groups” your gym teacher told you about.
2) It’s always worth using condoms. If he’s barebacking (as in not using a condom) with you during a hookup, he’s probably done it with someone else, who’s done it with another person (you see where I’m going with this…). Birth control is the only way to prevent pregnancy (besides not having sex, of course) and condoms prevent both pregnancy and HIV transmission (Condom <3). Here are some tips on talking about condoms if you’re single or in a long-term relationship (I recommend reading both). If you want to practice using a condom, follow these instructions or download CondomPro.
3) Getting tested is easy, often free, and very important for you and your partner. Your local clinic (or student clinic) can test for HIV with an oral swab or a blood test—just make sure to call ahead to see which kind of test they do if you don’t like needles (or like needles and don’t like cotton swabs). There are tons of clinics that will perform free or reduced-cost HIV tests—check out the CDC’s HIV website to find one near you. If you do test positive, there are tons of resources and reliable drugs that help control the illness.
4) Spermicide is good at killing sperm—not HIV. Spermicide (when used without a condom) does not prevent against HIV and may even increase your risk of getting HIV or other STIs since it can irritate the inside of the vagina. If you’re using spermicide without a condom, get yourself and your partner tested to make sure you’re being safe.
5) Other STIs, like herpes or gonorrhea, make it easier to get HIV. Apparently, these STIs make exposed surfaces more prone to infection, including HIV. Oh, and having HIV also makes it easier to get herpes—talk about a dangerous symbiotic relationship. One more reason to get tested—and treated, if necessary—for all STIs, not just HIV.
Bedsider thinks that babies are great when you’re ready. HIV, on the other hand, is never great and the best thing you can do (for yourself and your partners) is to avoid getting it in the first place. That said, ignorance is not bliss when it comes to any STIs—getting tested and knowing your status is the best way to stay healthy, regardless of what the test says.
“1 in 5” infographic from Aids.gov.
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Catherine Rivera is an intern for Bedsider. When she’s not counseling, teaching, researching or writing about sex and relationships, this Stanford University student can be found passing out condoms to her fellow students, mentoring middle school girls, indulging her sweet tooth , reading the news, or attempting to get inside the heads of her four younger brothers. Catherine doesn’t have a personal tumblr (yet), but you can follow her on twitter @cmrivera2013.
Method Monday: Male Birth Control
We know we’re not the only ones who’ve ever lamented the lack of birth control options for guys. We also know there are already some good ways for guys to play a role in preventing pregnancy—and we make it a habit to cross our fingers for the promising prospects on the horizon. Like what, specifically? So glad you asked.
First, the old (and available):
- Condoms. We love them so much that we already posted a Method Monday about them. Why not read it (again?) in honor of HIV Awareness Month while reflecting on the silver lining of birth control for dudes—namely, that one of the few methods available to them also helps protect against STIs?
- Withdrawal (a.k.a. “pulling out”). It’s (at least) as old as the Torah and it’s only as effective as the guy who’s practicing it. That said, withdrawal can be useful when no other method of birth control is available and a 2009 review by the Guttmacher Institute suggests that the oldest method in the book deserves more contraceptive cred than it usually gets. We think of withdrawal as the kung fu of contraception—if you’re going to rely on it, make sure you’re a black belt.
- Sterilization (a.k.a. vasectomy). It’s not considered reversible (though it can be sometimes), but for dudes who are done having kids or who never ever (ever) want them, this is a super-effective option. When it come to sterilization, the male procedure is usually cheaper and simpler than the female version.
And now, the new (and unavailable), by geography:
- Hormones from the West Coast. The newest method to make headlines is a hormonal gel being tested in the U.S. It’s definitely a long way from market-ready, but we wrote last week about a few excellent reasons to be optimistic.
- Vasalgel from India, hormones from China. About a year ago Dr. Grace Shih wrote an article for Bedsider called “Where in the world is birth control for men?” that discussed the two male methods most likely to be available first in the U.S. One’s a hormonal injection being tested in China and the other is Vasalgel (a.k.a. RISUG), an injection that temporarily blocks the tube that carries sperm from the testes to the penis. We can report—not without a hint of regret, since we’d love to be surprised by a breakthrough in the birth-control-for-dudes department—that the article is still relevant.
- The gandarusa pill from Indonesia. A chemical found in a leafy plant in the jungles of Indonesia could work as an effective contraceptive for men—but we’re pretty sure it’ll take its sweet time making it to the U.S. market.
- Ultrasound from the University of North Carolina. We haven’t heard much about it lately, but way back in 2010 University of North Carolina experts said they believed a blast of ultrasound to the testes would be able to safely stop sperm production for six months. Two years later, still staying tuned…
Back when everyone was talking about Vasalgel, Bedsider contributor Veralyn did a vlog asking men—and women—what they thought about men’s role in preventing unwanted pregnancy.
Most of the guys Veralyn talked to said they wouldn’t be up for using birth control even if it were available. Not ones to let anecdotal evidence get us down, we remain hopeful that if the FDA approves it, they will come (oh, unintended pun). In the meantime, guys can play a part in preventing unplanned pregnancy by using the methods that are available now and by providing moral—and possibly economic—support to their partners.
As they say, it takes two.
The STI testing question of the hour: Where?
“Ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections (STIs). Early diagnosis and treatment means better long-term health and less likelihood of passing the infection on to future sexual partners. So why don’t more people in the U.S. get tested? Two new studies suggest that where the testing is happening may be part of the answer…
