The Guide to Getting It On (109 page)

When to Bag It?
Put a condom on a penis as soon as a guy gets wood. A hard penis starts dripping long before it gets to where it’s going.

Intercourse (Anal):
The only time you should consider having anal sex without a condom is if you are in a long-term, true-blue relationship and you have no concerns about sexually transmitted infections. In that case, one of the main concerns about barebacking (anal sex without a condom) is even if you wash the penis, tiny bits of fecal matter might still have lodged in the peehole and can end up shooting into the vagina. Barebacking can also be a risk factor for bacterial vaginosis. It is possibly a risk for a male to get a prostate infection, but it’s not very likely.

Adding Trust to the Thrust in Anal Sex:
Sex educators are now adding the word “trust” to discussions about anal sex. That’s because people tend to relax their rear ends when they are with a partner they trust. (Can you imagine writing a grant application for a study about that?) If you are on the receiving end of anal sex and you are not relaxed enough, your anal sphincters can clamp a penis so tightly as to rip the condom. That’s why they say trust is important. (Why you would let someone you don’t trust stick their penis up your rear end is a another story for another time.)

Urine Play:
If you are not in a monogamous relationship, don’t shoot urine into people’s body cavities. Using a partner as a urinal is something that should wait for marriage or a long-term relationship.

You Can’t Scrub Them Away:
Washing your crotch or douching will not keep you from getting STIs, although you’ll sparkle all the way to the VD clinic. Douching can also lead to bacterial vaginosis and candida.

Increase Your Chances of Getting HIV:
Being infected with other venereal diseases will greatly increase your chances of getting HIV if you are with a partner who has HIV.

Non-Essential Drugs:
A healthy immune system can fight certain STIs and keep them from being persistent. But non-essential drugs can tax an immune system. So try to eliminate all non-essential drugs from your body, whether prescribed or recreational. This includes recreational drugs such as meth and cocaine to prescription drugs such as antibiotics and antifungals. If you don’t need them, don’t take them.

— Sexually Transmitted Infections —

Those That Condoms Help Prevent

Please visit the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or your local healthcare provider for the most recent information about sexually transmitted infections.

Chlamydia

Chlamydia is caused by a bacteria. You can get chlamydia in your vagina, penis, anus or mouth. It is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, with almost 3 million new cases in the United States each year.

Chlamydia is called a silent STD because most people who have it don’t have any symptoms. If you suddenly start having symptoms, you’ll probably assume you just got chlamydia. But you may have had it for some time and your current partner is not necessarily the one who gave it to you.

If most people don’t have symptoms, why get treated? Because chlamydia that’s left untreated can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic pelvic pain, permanent damage to the uterus and fallopian tubes, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. It can also cause pain during intercourse which can become difficult to resolve. What’s startling is how chlamydia can do so much harm without causing the kind of symptoms that would normally send someone to the doctor. This is why if you are sexually active, you should be tested for chlamydia at least once a year.

Chlamydia can be easily diagnosed and treated as long as you and your partner both get treatment. Otherwise, you risk reinfecting each other.

Men who are sexually active need to get tested for chlamydia,
even if they have no symptoms. This is especially true if their partner has chlamydia. Otherwise, they’ll keep giving it back to each other. The good news is, the test for chlamydia is a simple urine test!

What are the symptoms? If you have symptoms, the most common ones are an unusual discharge, burning and itching. Four out of five women who have chlamydia don’t know they have it until they get serious complications such as Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. In more advanced cases, symptoms can include pain in the lower abdomen, nausea, fever and bleeding between periods. For men who do have symptoms, there can be a liquid discharge, painful peeing, or nongonococcal urethritis or NGU. (NGU is an infection or inflammation of the urethra that is caused by something other than gonorrhea, such as chlamydia.)

As long as you are sexually active, you should talk to your healthcare provider or gynecologist about having a yearly urine test for chlamydia.

Using condoms can help decrease your chances or getting and transmitting chlamydia.

Gonorrhea

Gonorrhea is a common STI. It used to be called “the clap.” It is caused by a bacteria and grows easily in the warm moist parts of the reproductive tract. In men, that would be the urethra (peehole). In women, gonorrhea can grow in the urethra, cervix, uterus, and fallopian tubes. It can also grow in the mouth, throat, eyes, and anus of either sex. If not treated, gonorrhea can spread into the blood and joints.

Gonorrhea can cause pelvic inflammatory disease in women. This can lead to chronic pain, pus-filled abscesses in the pelvis and sterility. Gonorrhea can increase the risk of having an ectopic pregnancy, and it can increase your chances of getting HIV. Gonorrhea can cause sterility in men.

Men are more likely to have symptoms of gonorrhea than women. These include a burning sensation when they pee, or a white, yellow, or green discharge from the penis. Some men with gonorrhea will find that their testicles become painful or swollen. This is most likely due to epididymitis which is a painful swelling in the tubes leading from the testicles. If you get symptoms from gonorrhea, they will usually show up within one day to two weeks after being infected.

Women usually don’t get symptoms from gonorrhea. If they do, they are generally mild and are sometimes mistaken for an infection of the vagina or bladder. Symptoms can include burning or pain when peeing, extra vaginal discharge, and bleeding between periods. Whether a woman has symptoms or not, gonorrhea that is not treated can lead to serious complications including pelvic inflammatory disease, tubal pregnancy and sterility.

Symptoms of rectal gonorrhea can range from no symptoms at all to a sore or itchy butt, discharge, bleeding, or pain when pooping. Infections in the throat usually don’t cause symptoms, other than a possible sore throat.

Gonorrhea is becoming drug resistant. There is now only one class of antibiotics that can treat it. It is called Cephalosporin. However, Cephalosporin does not work against the new strain of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. This may herald an unfortunate return to the days of old when gonorrhea could land a person in the hospital. The prospects for a good outcome are by no means guaranteed. Fortunately, gonorrhea is one of the STIs that condoms can help prevent, so please use them.

Trichomoniasis: A Vaginal Infection

Trichomoniasis is caused by a parasite. It is the most common curable sexually transmitted infection. There are almost 4 million new cases each year in the United States. More women get trichomoniasis than men. Only 50% of women and 10% of men with trichomoniasis have symptoms. However, people who don’t have symptoms can still give trichomoniasis to others.

Trichomoniasis moves from genitals to genitals during sexual activity. It can also be a sneaky opportunist, using an infected person’s towel or bathing suit as a medium for entering a new person’s crotch. So be careful what you borrow.

Women will tend to get trichomoniasis in their vulva, vagina or urethra. Men will most likely get it in the penis (urethra). When men get symptoms, they might include itching, penile discomfort, burning after urination or ejaculation, and occasional discharge from the penis. When women have symptoms, they often include irritation of the vulva and a discharge that is yellow-green and can have a strange smell. Trichomoniasis can also make sex feel unpleasant.

No one knows why some people have symptoms and others don’t. Trichomoniasis can also impact the hands, mouth and anus, but not nearly as often as the genitals.

Trichomoniasis can increase your chances of getting HIV. It can also increases a woman’s chances of having a low-birth weight or pre-term birth by approximately 60%.

There’s no one sure test for trichomoniasis. Visual inspection is important. Then, if necessary, swabs can be taken, cultures grown, microscopic investigations done, as well as other tests depending on the symptoms.

Trichomoniasis can be eliminated by taking a single dose of metronidazole or tinidazole. As is the case with most STIs, it is easy to get reinfected if your partner isn’t treated at the same time. Avoid having sex during treatment, and keep in mind that the reinfection rate is 17% in only three months. Without treatment, the infection can last for months or even years.

Using condoms can help prevent, but not eliminate, the spread of trich.

HIV/AIDS

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) attacks the body’s T-helper that allow you to fend off infections. AIDs is one of the diseases that you get after HIV shuts down your immune system.

If you get either HIV or AIDS, you will need to take HIV/AIDS drugs for the rest of your life. These drugs are so expensive that a month before presstime, the director of the American Public Health Association informed a senate subcommittee that we may at some point need to ration the drugs for HIV/AIDS because the government cannot afford to pay for them. It is not unusual for someone with HIV or AIDS without insurance coverage to pay more than $25,000 a year for HIV/AIDS drugs in North America.

Equally disconcerting are recent reports in the medical journal Lancet that drug-resistant cases of HIV/AIDS are starting to show up. This is not unexpected when more than 8 million people are taking HIV/AIDS drugs.

Is there a single partner on the planet who is sexually hot enough to risk getting such a terrible disease? What remains so mind-blowing is that HIV is usually preventable by using condoms.

HIV is spread through the exchange of body fluids, including blood, semen, pre-cum, vaginal fluids, breast milk and anal mucus. A common way to get HIV is by having vaginal or anal sex with someone who is infected. Infected fluids can get into your bloodstream through microscopic rips or tears in the moist mucous membranes that line the vagina, vulva, penis and rectum. Almost everyone has tiny tears in their moist mucous membranes.

Another common way of getting HIV is through intravenous drug use. Babies can get HIV from their mothers, healthcare workers can get it through accidental needle sticks and cuts. Before better screening tests were available, people could get it by receiving a blood transfusion.

You cannot get HIV from hugging someone who is infected or by shaking an infected person’s hand. You can’t get it by using the same toilet seat, towel or by sharing the same cups and eating utensils. That’s because HIV doesn’t survive well when outside of the body.

It is possible but unlikely to get HIV through having oral sex or kissing. It is next to impossible to get HIV through giving a hand job unless you’ve got a cut on your hand. You can’t get HIV from an infected person’s saliva. However, if you are kissing them and they have a sore in their mouth that is shedding infected blood-related products and you have a sore that their saliva makes contact with, there is a slight chance that you can get HIV that way. Likewise, you can’t get HIV from poop, snot, sweat, tears, urine, or vomit unless there’s infected blood in those fluids and it somehow gets into your blood stream.

You can’t get HIV from insect or mosquito bites. When an insect or mosquito bites a person, it doesn’t inject its own blood or the blood of someone else it has bitten. Instead, it injects its saliva, which does not carry HIV. (No such luck with malaria and yellow fever.)

There are no known cases of getting HIV while playing sports. However, playing around after playing sports is a different story.

Having a sexually transmitted infection such as syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia or herpes can greatly increase your chances of getting HIV because they can cause irritation of the mucous membrane. They can also cause sores that HIV can use to get into your blood stream.

As for AIDS, there is still much that we do not know about it. AIDS is one of the most complex and deadly diseases of our time. You are STRONGLY encouraged to do all you can to avoid getting HIV, which is an effective gateway to getting AIDS. The best way to avoid getting HIV is by using condoms unless you are in a relationship with a partner who is not infected and not at risk for becoming infected.

The FDA recently approved a drug called Truvada for the prevention of HIV in people who are at high risk. This would include those whose partners have HIV, those who don’t trust the judgment of a partner, and those who don’t trust their own judgment. Unfortunately, the protection that Truvada offers is much lower than 100% and you still need to use condoms. Truvada currently costs $1,200 a month, and the side effects can be considerable. So there is the good with the bad. If you feel this drug might be helpful for you or a partner, please speak to a healthcare provider about it.