Hello fellow users, my name is Mike and this is my story, following a recent trip to meet with someone, which I've combined with current, credited, research.
I'd really like to hear your comments and/or feedback because, let's face facts, I wouldn't be writing this and you, hopefully, wouldn't reading this if we weren't a little "alternative" in our sexual thinking and practices. Some might say carefree and hedonistic, the uneducated others reckless, thrill seekers and promoting taboo practices. Because, regardless of whether the profile of a perspective playmate declares boldly that they only ever practice safe sex, we've all been caught up in that "heat of the moment" moment! But this does, of course, bring into prospective the heightened risks with any unprotected multi-partner or poly-partner relationship.
And this leads me to the main content of my blog... Sexually Transmitted Infections!
Most STI's are said to be socially stigmatized. In other words, people are judged or condemned for being infected with STI's. Other types of disease may also carry some level of social stigma. However, the STI stigma is often particularly strong.Why is STI infection associated with such strongly negative responses? In part, it is because people are often so incredibly judgmental about sex. When someone is diagnosed with an STI and lets people know about it, there is often a very negative reaction. They may find that people think of them as dirty or slutty, which is ironic given where you're reading this blog....STI stigma can be direct or indirect but even indirect stigma can be very painful and have a negative side effect. Stigma is a problem no matter how it's enacted.
The truth is, there's no logical reason to stigmatize STI's. This type of judgment is not only irrational. It's actually extremely counterproductive. But why? STI's are just infections. They have no inherent moral or immoral component. They infect people regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation.
Most STI's are asymptomatic, i.e. the only way to know if you have one is to be tested regularly. The profound degree of social stigma associated with a positive diagnosis is a huge problem. It makes many people decide they'd rather not know their status. Therefore people often spend years spreading diseases before they experience any serious personal consequences. They think that if they don't know, then they don't have to lie about it or risk rejection, either in their private lives or the swinger community!!It only takes one sexual partner to end up with an STI. Sometimes, it doesn't take any. Having an STI says nothing about your sexual history except that you, probably, didn't reliably practice safer sex.STI's are incredibly common. Some, like HPV, infect more than half the sexually active population. Many of the people shaming people with STI stigma probably have an STI themselves FFS, regardless of their marriage status or religion.In my opinion, there are only two real cures for STI stigma. One of which is counter productive, again given where you're reading this blog, but to reduce the number, not necessarily of sexual partners you have but how many partners you practice unprotected sex with. The other is better sex education. People need to learn how common these diseases are. They need to learn how easily they're treated. Then, maybe, we can start working on making screening more common. After all, one of the worst parts of STI stigma is that doctors can suffer from it too. Sometimes that makes it hard to get tested, especially of there are potentially husbands, wives, family or community involved, even if you don't suffer from STI stigma yourself...So there we are, I've put it out there but I write this because, on a post meet hunch, I got checked and I'm now recovering from the contracted condition with medication.It's not my place to tell anyone what to do but just bear in mind that the latest European data illustrates that the two STI's that are associated with particularly high levels of social stigma are HIV and herpes and the fastest growing group for contracting STI's (herpes especially) is 35-45, heterosexual M/F. Let's have fun but be careful out there ok people. 😇😈
