So stop making fun of it cause chances are you or someone you know and care for will get it or already has it.
even if it wasn’t so common (even if it’s not herpes) don’t make fun of illnesses. It’s just mean.
April is STD/STI awareness month and I have a plan to celebrate it. Sometime next week I’m going to call my local Planned Parenthood and get all of their information on testing and schedual to get tested hopefully on the first of April. I’ll tell you how it goes and I’ll take a picture of the GYT sticker I’m going to get. I’ll get together all the information I can to make sure all of you can get tested as cheaply as possible, and give you that information. Then I want all of you to go out, get tested, take a picture of you with a GYT sticker or some other thing that proves you got tested then either post it on your blog and link me or submit it here. Encourage everyone you can to get tested. You can visit the GYT website and get a kit to help you advertise and put together an event to get as many people in your area to get tested.
STD/STI testing is very important. Not all diseases will show symptoms. You or your partner could be having risky sex, passing something on, and not even know it. It’s important to get tested in between every new partner, and just every now and then. I’m choosing April as the time to get tested.
It’s kind of funny that April is STD/STI awareness month, because that’s the month last year I was diagnosed with herpes. I’m going to make it an annual thing to get tested on this month because it’s not only incredibly important to get tested, it’s important to have safe sex.
Join with me to promote safe sex and STD/STI testing!
There is nothing wrong with sleeping with multiple people, whether over a long period of time or not. There is nothing wrong with only sleeping with one person, saving yourself for marriage or not. There is nothing wrong with sleeping with absolutely nobody at all.
And getting an STD from any of these situations does not change that. Getting an STD does not change who you are, how much respect you deserve, or anything else. The most it should change is how careful you are and how much medicine you put into your body. That is it.
Calling each other sluts because some people got their STDs from some random person that they barely knew does not make you a better person for getting yours from your long-term partner. All this truly does is give more power to the negative influence of STDs and to the controlling nature of our society over women and their bodies.
This type of talk damages us in so many ways. It makes people afraid to act on their urges. And it makes it so that many people do not think that they need to protect themselves when they just have a single partner. It leads to a complete shut down of speech about STDs and what they really mean for each person in today’s society. It makes it so that people are afraid to ask questions, afraid to get tested, afraid to protect themselves when they believe that they should be. And this is unacceptable.
You have an STD? Let your partner(s) know and take care of yourself. But, please, don’t let other people tell you that you deserve to be treated any different. You are not a “slut.” Having sexual desires does NOT make you a slut. Acting on your sexual desires STILL doesn’t make you a slut. It simply makes you a person with a sex drive.
Think before you speak. Stop calling each other sluts. Stop dehumanizing each other. Stop making it seem like you are better because you did not have to sleep around to get the same STD that someone else has. If you do not want people to look down on you for your STD, then you need to fight for that right for everyone.
This site breaks it down and explains the types of HPV pretty well. I found it very useful.
- There are no reliable tests for Herpes. So whenever you go in to get a screening, know that unless you are actively having an outbreak there isn’t anything to test
- No HPV screening exists for men. Unless there is a visual inspection or a biopsy of the wart.
- Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Herpes can have no symptoms. That’s why screening is incredibly important.
- Gonorrhea, Herpes, HPV and Chlamydia can all be transmitted orally. Oral sex is still sex and Safe Sex rules apply (Condoms and Dental dams)
- The best contraception money can buy is open sexual dialogue. Open honest conversation with your partners is invaluable. It’s your biggest weapon when it comes to safe sex.
- Glyde Dams are kind of awesome. Glyde Dams are safe barriers intended for sexual use, unlike dental dams. They’re weird when you first look at them and seem so unnatural, but the best motto is ‘Better Safe than Sorry!’
- Wearing gloves when fingering someone is totally okay. Speaking from experience, sometimes nails have a mind of their own and can cause discomfort. Additionally, though most people shower before they have sex at some point, we don’t usually wash our hands right before foreplay. This opens us up to a host of bacteria that gets introduced directly into a mucus membrane. So if you want to glove up, please don’t be ashamed to do so.
When you go to the doctor, not everyone screens you for STD’s, even if you’re sexually active- So make sure ask. You should always ask what screening tests your doctor has performed, and don’t hesitate to ask for additional tests if you think they are appropriate. Never hesitate to be your own advocate.
By Jillian Lalonde
Art has been used in HIV/AIDS education since the beginning of the epidemic that began in the early 1980s. Art has a way of subtly teaching people, allowing for learning and taking in information without directly acknowledging it. Art can be understood and interpreted by everyone, and therefore a simple way of communicating message with large groups of people.
A study was done in the Choma district of Zambia, lead by Henrik Trykker, where they split the district into three zones. One zone had a drama group along with community health workers to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention. The drama group put on two plays and after each play had a discussion about the content of the play and strategies to protect yourself from getting HIV. They also handed out condoms to those willing to take them at the end of the discussion. The study showed that both men and women in the zone visited by the drama group had a better understanding of the risks of transmission and higher willingness to change their behaviour. Bringing the community together as a whole and having an interactive learning experience through art in the form of drama helped to break taboos and create a better understanding amongst the participants about how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.
In the eighties and nineties in North America, art was used as a way to make the general public aware of HIV/AIDS, primarily by activists. ‘Gran Fury’ was a group that branched off of ACTUP New York that used art activism to create awareness with pieces like Silence=Death, a lasting symbol of AIDS activism, represented by an inverted pink triangle, and the “Pope Piece,” which denounced the Catholic Church’s moral objections to condom use and other HIV prevention methods. A Canadian art collective called ‘General Idea’ created an installation piece called One Year of AZT/One Day of AZT that involved five enormous sculptures of AZT pills to represent one day’s treatment on AZT, the first approved antiretroviral drug to treat HIV. The walls of the room in which it was being shown were covered with 1,825 smaller versions of the AZT pills, to represent a year’s worth of AZT. The effect was to show how people taking antiretroviral medication are taken over by medication. This piece gave the people who went to see it an immersive experience, that was more evocative than simply reading or hearing about HIV/AIDS in the media.
Whether it is through a drama group coming into a town, a poster, a slogan, a photograph or a sculpture, the use of art in education helps breakdown barriers people put up when it comes to talking about sensitive or difficult subjects like HIV. You can learn a lot from art, even without being conscious of it. In this way, art activism was, and remains, very effective in educating the general population about HIV.
Come check out some art with the Shag Shop, Wednesday, March 21st at Arts for Awareness. https://www.facebook.com/events/304577262941607 - Hosted by YAHAnet
via Positively Aware
Less than one week away from the close of the Kickstarter campaign for the independent film, Absolutely Positive! We need your help more than ever. With less than seven days left to raise a little over $15,000, it is now crunch tim, and if we don’t raise our total goal of $16,000, we won’t see a dime of any funds whatsoever.
Please give this film about HIV, AIDS, and health awareness the financial support it needs!
In other news, Absolutely Positive will be having a screening this upcoming weekend at the GayCharlotte Film Festival!
Cytomegalovirus and Molluscum Contagiosum
Many well-known STIs, such as herpes and HIV/AIDS, are caused by viruses, but this article focuses on two lesser-known viral STIs, cytomegalovirus and molluscum contagiosum.
READ MORE:
http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2011/11/08/sti-awareness-cytomegalovirus-and-molluscum-contagiosum/
A Celebration of Life: Arizonans Observe National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
Tuesday, March 20, 2012, is National Native American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NNHAAD). Started in 2007, NNHAAD is focused on promoting HIV education, prevention, and testing among Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, a former professor at the University of Arizona who is now director of Indian Health Service, has called NNHAAD a day to “celebrate our successes and plan how to best continue working in partnership to address HIV and AIDS among Native people.”
The incidence of hepatitis C infection is increasing among adolescents and young adults in Pennsylvania, just as it has in other areas in the United States, according to surveillance data for 2003 through 2010.
During that 7-year period, the number of reports of newly recognized confirmed or probable cases of hepatitis C past or present infection among those aged 15-34 years increased from 1,384 to 2,393, representing a near doubling of the rate of cases (from 43 to 72) per 100,000 population, Dr. Sameh W. Boktor reported in a poster at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The rates in other age groups, however, declined during this time period.
For example, the overall rate of newly reported cases for all age groups combined declined from 85 to 72 per 100,000 population, and the rate of cases among those aged 45-64 years declined from 185 to 142 per 100,000 population, said Dr. Boktor of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Harrisburg.
The increases in the adolescent and young adult age groups are likely caused by high-risk behaviors, such as intravenous drug use and unprotected sex between men – and, to a lesser degree – unprotected heterosexual sex.
Read the rest at Family Practice News here.
“I get really upset about the ways that HIV/AIDS transmission is discussed in terms of sex between women (namely that we are less likely to contract HIV/AIDS.) To me it shows cissexist assumptions about queer women’s anatomies and the sexual acts that are performed. Could you speak to some tips about safer sex methods, and queer (cis and/or trans*) women organizing around HIV/AIDS.” — withrevolutionarycries
I agree, most of the available information on HIV/AIDS is geared toward gay cismen and heterosexual cispeople. Sexually active people of all genders and sexual orientations can contract HIV just as easily, and do.
HIV/AIDS summary: HIV can be contracted from someone who is HIV+ through an exchange of bodily fluids, most commonly by blood, semen, or vaginal secretions. The virus enters the bloodstream and begins attacking T-cells, which are major components of our immune system. HIV destroys the T-cells and replicates. Lower T-cell counts lead to a suppressed immune system, which inhibits the body’s ability to fight off infection. You’ll notice no one ever dies from HIV/AIDS; people die from complications. Complications include anything from cancer, to pneumonia, to influenza. Even something as simple as the common cold can cause serious problems for someone with HIV/AIDS.
Myth #1: Oral/manual sex will keep me from contracting the virus.
—NOT TRUE. Tiny cuts or lesions on your hands or in your mouth that come into contact with fluids (i.e. semen, vaginal secretions, blood) are gateways for the virus to enter your body. The key factor is exposure to the bloodstream.Myth #2: If they pull out, I can’t contract the virus.
—NOT TRUE. PIV*, PIA*, and manual sex can cause tearing in the walls of the vagina and rectum. These tears are also viral gateways to your bloodstream. HIV concentrations in pre-cum are lower, but the risk is still there.Myth #3: I can’t get HIV from breast milk.
—NOT TRUE. Breast milk has been shown to have similar viral counts to semen and vaginal secretions. If it comes into contact with any lesions, you are risking infection.How to prevent transmission: Latex barriers (or comparable non-latex barriers) are excellent ways to reduce virus transmission. Barriers include gloves, condoms (“male”/”female”), and dental dams. All protect the user from contact with genital secretions, which contain the highest virus concentration.
Fact #1: Diaphragms DO NOT protect against HIV, as they are only intended to protect the uterus from sperm entering through the cervix.
Fact #2: Spermicide (nonoxynol-9) DOES NOT kill HIV, it only kills sperm cells. Excessive use can actually increase the risk of infection, as nonoxynol-9 irritates mucus membranes (do not get it in you’re eye, you will be soooooo sorry.)
When it comes to organizations or groups organizing around HIV/AIDS, I am still rather in the dark. I know that March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and that LGBT organizations in various cities have HIV/AIDS prevention programming. The extent to which they include queer (trans*)women, however, varies from program to program. If I find anything in my searches, I will certainly post it.
For more information on HIV/AIDS, you may want to check out fight-hiv-aids right here on Tumblr.
Because I’ve been so busy with this blog, I’ve really neglected my Sexually Transmitted Disease Tumblr which I feel really bad about because I think it’s such an important blog. The aim is to offer a supportive and non biased education on STDs/STIs. As someone who has genital herpes and who sees herpes jokes all the time I can tell you that it is so hurtful whenever someone uses a disease that you have to deal with as a punchline. There’s so much misinformation, even in sex education. They use scare tactics and make STDs and STIs sound so scary. They show pictures that are of people who’ve never gotten treatment or who have the worst case possible as apposed to the most typical type of breakout. I really want to show people that having an STD/STI won’t ruin your life and show that people who have STDs and STIs shouldn’t be treated like second class citizens while also offering correct education about it. I really want people to submit photos of their breakouts to show what a typical one looks like. I want people to submit stories and personal experiences. I think this is so important but I just can’t give it the attention it deserves. Could someone (preferable someone who either has an STD/STI or is involved in the medical community who understands the importance of supporting and defending people with STDs and STIs and providing correct information) adopt this blog from me and give it the attention it deserves?
reblogging this again in case someone sees it and wants to adopt this blog.
NEW: STI Awareness: Antibiotic-Resistant Gonorrhea
You’ve probably heard of MRSA, which is pronounced “mersa” and stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — a strain of bacteria that has acquired resistance to methicillin, as well as pretty much every other antibiotic to boot. MRSA is an example of evolution by natural selection — what didn’t kill its ancestors made them stronger, spawning a drug-resistant strain.
Why are we talking about MRSA in a post about STIs? It’s not just because MRSA has apparently found a way to be transmitted sexually, but also because it helps make the concept of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea more accessible. It wasn’t until less than a century ago that we finally developed a magic-bullet treatment for gonorrhea, and for a handful of decades it was quickly and easily treated with a dose of penicillin. Enter evolution by natural selection.
READ MORE HERE: http://blog.advocatesaz.org/2012/03/06/sti-awareness-antibiotic-resistant-gonorrhea/
