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Destigmatizing STIs
102 Plays23 days ago
STIs are common, but the shame surrounding them shouldn’t be. In this episode of Fun with Sex, we break down the myths, tackle the stigma, and talk about how to approach conversations about sexual health with confidence and care. From the realities of transmission to the differences in ENM and monogamous communities, we’re here to make the topic less scary and more empowering. Because being informed is sexy!
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Transcript
Introduction to Fun No Sex Podcast
00:00:01
Jon McCray Jones
Hi, this is the Fun No Sex podcast. I'm Natalie. And I'm John.
STI Statistics and Misconceptions
00:00:06
Jon McCray Jones
So today we're going to start off our episode with an interesting fact. Did you know that one in two sexually active people will contract an STI by the age of 25, according to the CDC? Yeah, I think this is a really important reminder for people because I feel like when you have conversations with most people about STIs, there's kind of this idea that those who get STIs are people who are super hypersexual and it's not your common everyday person. but
00:00:41
Jon McCray Jones
It's it's pretty fucking common. Yeah. And it's so crazy that something that happens to 50 percent of us by the age of 25. So the majority of us by the time that we die is something that's so stigmatized and shame to talk about. And I think that is less to do with the actual STI, the actual infection itself and our purity culture and our moralization of sex and sexuality.
00:01:08
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say as well. um Like me being a sex positive friend, I've had so many friends of my life come to me and be like, I tested positive. And you know it's the same thing as like, you got a UTI, you just take a pill, the infection is gone, and you move on with your life.
Importance of Testing and Communication
00:01:27
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, and that's the thing that like I wanna start off by like demystifying most STIs is that if tested and handled quickly,
00:01:36
Jon McCray Jones
Most STIs don't have severe long-term consequences. Like it's probably long-term consequences. you'll rather catch an STI than COVID if handled quickly. And how you handle it quickly is that you get tested regularly and you have conversations with your partner about like, Hey, I'm experiencing symptoms. Hey, I think that like I have an STI or Hey, I tested positive. You remove the shame where people immediately go and talk to their partners. You get shamed for not talking to your partner.
00:02:09
Jon McCray Jones
And then that's how you better combat STI. Also, if people care about preventing STIs, they would care about sex ed. And also just getting tested regularly in the same way that if you have a uterus, you go to your gyno appointment, um obviously get tested more than once a year. But A lot of people don't realize most cases are asymptomatic. So if you're kind of in this mindset of like, Oh, I don't need to get tested. I, I'm this person where like, I would never get an STI. Like you could have one. Anyone could have one really. And that's what I think that like people don't understand. Like we're going to get into this conversation later.
00:02:49
Jon McCray Jones
But there's this idea that only, quote unquote, sexual deviance get STI.
Moralization and Stigma of STIs
00:02:56
Jon McCray Jones
And a lot of times that's pushed on people in non-monogamous communities, ah people who are bisexual or gay men or like queer in general. When in reality the biggest transmitter of STIs are straight people who are in monogamous culture, whether that's a monogamous relationship or they're single with the goal of finding a monogamous partner. hu And I think that like that goes back to the moralizing of STIs. I don't know how familiar you are with the AIDS crisis, but there was like a lot of like Christians celebrating Jerry Farwell in particular, he gave a sermon.
00:03:38
Jon McCray Jones
celebrating the AIDS deaths and the AIDS disease is kind of like a deterrent and punishment to queer sex. And I think that like a lot of purity culture and more the moralization of sexuality views STIs as like a deterrent slash punishment for premarital sex outside of monochamous culture. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's such a big thing these people in religious households say to their daughters is you know You have sex, you'll get an STD. And same thing in really toxic sex ed classes. They use it as a scare
Medical Advances and Education
00:04:15
Jon McCray Jones
tactic. But once you grow up and you become an adult and you actually get an STI, it's like, oh, you know the symptoms are pretty mild, goes away after I take some medication. um It's not this like horrible thing.
00:04:30
Jon McCray Jones
I mean, especially with like modern medicines like PrEP, which ironically the Trump administration Republicans are trying to get rid of, life-saving medication that makes people immune to HIV and AIDS. And um um I believe that if you do have it, there's certain medications that can make you like undetectable where you can't transfer. yeah religious zealots in our country are trying to get rid of because they don't actually care about health. They care about policing and sexuality. And we can do an entire podcast episode about that and abortion rights. But yeah, I'm trying not to get off on a tangent. I mean, yeah, in particular, AIDS and HIV is an STI that needs the most statementig stigmatization because of
00:05:14
Jon McCray Jones
how it was demonized so much um back during the epidemic. um But yeah, like you said with modern medicine, and if you got diagnosed with HIV, there are options for you. You can become undetectable and you can live a pretty normal life. I think like the most important thing to remember is that like If you want to prevent STI, it comes ah STI spreading, it comes from destigmatizing and communicating about STIs. It comes from teaching people sex ed and having access to free condoms and access to free STI testing. Like if you actually cared about preventing the spread of these infections, then you'll give people the resources to test for free, to not have unprotected sex,
00:06:03
Jon McCray Jones
you give them the resources that you have protection for free, and then you de-stigmatize the conversation by allowing people to talk about it, which again, we'll get into in a second, but that's why non-monogamous communities and porn communities as case studies have surprisingly low rates of STI transmission because people are having open conversations conversations about having protected sex and getting tested.
Monogamy, Cheating, and STI Spread
00:06:29
Jon McCray Jones
And I think the thing with those communities is it's not stigmatized to have those conversations. Cause a lot of people in monogamous and not sex positive communities, when you say, Hey, by the way, when was the last time you got tested? I got tested, you know, a few weeks ago, they're like, why what, what are you, what are you saying? Do you think I'm dirty? Do you think I'm sleeping around? Like, why are you asking me this? Why did you get tested? Do you have an STI? And it's like,
00:06:59
Jon McCray Jones
No. So I'm going to read off three facts. One, just backing up what you said, there's a university of Michigan study that found that none of monogamous relationships are more likely to use protection and get tested than other groups. So that's one. Two, 30% of all monogamous relationships will have experienced cheating, according to the Journal of Sexual Medicine. I've heard numbers as high as 50 to 60%, but I'm going to go with 30 for this study. And the last one is the CDC shows that young people between the ages of 15 to 24 are half of all new STI cases in the United States, even though they only represent 25% of the population. Yeah. I want to take that marriage statistic first, because I think that's really important. The idea that, like you said, a lot of people in monogamous marriages
00:07:57
Jon McCray Jones
feel that they don't need to get tested at all. Because there's this idea that me and my partner are committed to each other. And I think that 30% number is low. Our monogamous relationships, not just marriages. Yeah, I think that 30% number is low. I've heard as high as 50. But even if you say 30,
00:08:17
Jon McCray Jones
three out of every 10 people, their partners cheating on them. And the reason why these communities have exceptionally high rates of STI, people who have a partner who cheats is because the person is doing it in secrecy. They're not getting tested. They don't want any record that shows that they're having sex outside of their marriage. They're probably not buying condoms or they're buying condoms more lack lustery, there's lack of a communication between all parties involved about the sex that's being had within these people because there's so much shame and secrecy around sex. Yeah, and that's such a thing that you know gynecologists will talk about or if you go to play in parenthood, they even recommend married women still get testing when they go in and
00:09:05
Jon McCray Jones
You know, people are so baffled by that, like, what, what? I'm only sleeping with one person. But when you think about how common cheating is, do you really know that? And the fun thing, it not fun, but interesting is is that cheating rates are actually rising in the United States.
00:09:21
Jon McCray Jones
as women gain more economic and social power they're starting to cheat at a rate closer to man do oh yeah so now that means that like more cheating is happening and more or at least more people are admitting to cheating which means that more people are having sex behind each other's back which means the chances of sci spreading are higher because these are the communities that don't talk to people or don't talk to their partners when they're having sex and they don't want a record that they're having sex. So they only, yeah so they don't get tested. So if you say that like, Hey, this person is cheating with this person and that person is cheating with these two people, that person is cheating with that person.
00:10:03
Jon McCray Jones
you have an STI. I'm not going to say outbreak, but you've infected five, six people just because through the cycle of cheating and all you need is like one or two partners who are stepping out the relationship or you're cheating with this one person who's single and they're having unprotected sex with multiple partners who are also say a couple of them are single and they're having unprotected sex with multiple partners and you can see how this spreads.
00:10:27
Jon McCray Jones
And the biggest thing is none of them are openly communicating versus you go to a sex party with a bunch of E and&M people. It's like, oh yeah, we all probably got tested within like a month of this. We're all using condoms and protection. Yeah, like a lot of ah events in groups make it mandatory that you test to like come in. Yeah. And even the ones that don't make it mandatory, the culture is so sex Positive that people are often getting tested and people like the study he said are more likely to use protection when they are having sex outside of the relationship
00:11:02
Jon McCray Jones
And the fact that it doesn't have to be done in secret means that like, you can communicate with your partner like, Hey, I bought a pack of condoms because I plan on having sex with this other person. And you're not scared to have condoms laying around the house or you're not scared to be like, Hey, I need to go get tested because this person who I played with or had sex with is experiencing symptoms versus when you're cheating. There's that actual layer of secrecy where people will just say like, well, I'm going to wait until I have symptoms to go get tested.
00:11:30
Jon McCray Jones
because I don't want to like have that paper trail that shows that like I'm cheating on my partner. The other statistic I want to talk about was the 50% of all new cases happens between 15 and 24 year olds. Even though they only make up 30% of the population, I think the study says 25% of the sexually at the population. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense when you consider how bad sex ed is and the fact that So many
Cultural Myths and Secrecy
00:11:58
Jon McCray Jones
people have to go through a lot of work and a lot of years to unpack their sexual shame before they can like openly have conversations with other people about this kind of stuff. Yeah. And like I don't have any any empirical data. This is just from my anecdotal experiences. But normally when I hear about like gonorrhea and chlamydia outbreaks, it happens at high schools and colleges.
00:12:24
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, because you have young people who, like you said, have been shamed about sex, who probably associate having an STI with being dirty. They don't want to talk to their parents about getting tested. There's still probably other parents health ins insurance, and so if they're on health insurance at all.
00:12:42
Jon McCray Jones
they probably don't have the disposable income to buy condoms or the preform pre for tax prefrontal cortex ability to be like, hey, I should probably have protected sex because in the long run, I don't want to have an STI. And not to mention stigmatizing if you're in high school or college and people find out that you tested positive for an STI and the name calling. So the idea is that you don't want to get tested because you're getting bullied.
00:13:08
Jon McCray Jones
Well, that was such a thing at my college. I went to a Jesuit college and they, you know, because it's being funded by Christians, they weren't allowed to hand out free condoms. But then if you go to the clinic, you would be super stigmatized if you asked for birth control as well. So for a lot of people, it was just like there weren't any options to have safe sex and avoid pregnancy. You couldn't even get condoms from the clinic or anything like that.
00:13:38
Jon McCray Jones
We had some like, you know, feminist orgs and stuff that would hand stuff out, but they were always being fought tooth and nail by these Christian organizations. So, you know, there was like a whole like joke in the Milwaukee community that everyone at Marquette just had STDs because we had no access to condoms. Also, it was just for clarification, STDs and STIs are kind of interchangeable.
00:14:07
Jon McCray Jones
ah The medical community has started using STI more because it is less stigmatizing But that's what I've read is the main reason why they switch from STD to STI but like double Doubling down on your point. I think that's also why we see that southern states who are probably more not probably are more stigmatizing about pre-mirital sex and are more religiously influenced in their politics also have some of the highest rates for abortions for Daltrey for STI infections and for teen pregnancies Because humans have sexual desires. It's just how repressed and how comfortable are you about communicating with it? So you have millions of people in the Bible Belt who are horny who?
00:15:01
Jon McCray Jones
Ironically if you Google where most swinger clubs are they're in the Bible Belt But instead of having the conversations that you have in like more liberal areas you have these people who are just having sex and secrecy and behind their partners backs or not knowing what they what they're getting themselves into and the risks of sex because the reality is that like with proper education sex can be a low risk activity but with all proper education and in an environment where people aren't informed about sex there is a lot of risk that can come out of it which is pregnancy long-term health consequences for if you let STIs go unchecked
00:15:42
Jon McCray Jones
um Sexual assault and harassment because there's not a culture of talking about consent So this is what we need to talk about the risks of sex because then it makes it a low risk activity Yeah, and in those communities the sex education is so bad There's you know, none of it in schools it's more like chastity talks and then their parents don't talk to the kids and So a lot of these kids are engaging in behavior and they're believing in some like rumor or myth that they can't get pregnant or can't get an STD because they're doing it this way. Or you have like the Mormons doing the whole. What's it called? Is that a thing where they like ah they like.
00:16:28
Jon McCray Jones
put it, they put the penis in the vagina, but then it's stoking. And then let it sit in there. But someone like your friend shakes the bat. So it's like not technically sex. So that's the next level. So the first level is you just put your penis in the vagina and you just let it sit there. And since you're not humping, it doesn't count as sex. But then if you really want to get creative, if you have your friend jumping on the bed and then since you're not actively humping, it doesn't count as sex.
Risks of Serial Monogamy
00:16:55
Jon McCray Jones
and like not to get too far on a tangent going back to like young people and the big reason why young people are also big transfers of STIs because one, a Planned Parenthood study found that two thirds or almost two thirds of young people are uncomfortable with talking about STIs and STI risk due to stigmatization. And the other thing is these are people who are
00:17:23
Jon McCray Jones
serially having hookups inside of monogamous culture, if that makes sense. yeah There are people who say like once a month, twice a month, may take somebody home from a bar and have sex with them. And normally when they're single, they're not using protection or they hook up with somebody at a house party. And these are groups that are most likely to not use protection, not talk about sex.
00:17:49
Jon McCray Jones
So they have sex with this one person, and then they have sex with another person two weeks later, the sex of another person one month later, and all these people that are having sex is also having sex with other people. And because all these people in straight monogamous culture are too scared to talk about sex and sexuality,
00:18:09
Jon McCray Jones
no one is admitting that they're having STI symptoms. Even though the number one STI symptom is no symptom at all, no one is talking about like, Hey, when was the last thing you got tested or Hey, when are you using your protection? And since these, the 15 through 24 age range are before people get into long-term committed monogamous relationships, a lot of these people are having a lot of sex and they're spreading STIs because they're not talking about the types of sex they're having in the safe sex practices. Yeah and I think there's even this culture in monogamous hookup culture where you know when it comes to non-monogamy like we're super open like oh yeah I'm seeing like three different people right now we play protected versus even in hookup culture even when you're not like in a relationship and officially dating there's kind of this weird unspoken thing where you're not supposed to be like
00:19:02
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, I'm sleeping with five people right now.
Lessons from the Porn Industry
00:19:04
Jon McCray Jones
Like that's like a weird thing to say for some reason. And if you want a really interesting case study on why sexually active does not always equate to, or sexual partners does not always equate to STI transmission, the free speech coalition reported that the porn industry transmission rate of STI is less than 1%.
00:19:28
Jon McCray Jones
So people whose job is to have sex and have a lot of sex and oftentimes group sex or queer sex, their STI transmission rate is less than 1% and you ask,
00:19:40
Jon McCray Jones
Why? It's because they're required to get tested every two to four weeks. Once a month they're getting tested or twice a month they're getting tested. They're having conversations with partners about getting tested. We have a friend I'll refer it to her by the name of S and if you want to have sex with S you have to provide her with the last time you've been tested. And if it was within or if it was like without, if it was within the last two weeks and if she's interested in you, she'll have sex with you. But if you haven't been tested in that time range, then she just won't have sex with you. And that's why the STI rates in porn industry and porn workers are so low compared to the general population. Even though these people are having much more
00:20:29
Jon McCray Jones
mis much many more sexual partners than your average American just walking around. Yeah. And I couldn't even speak for the sex work industry in regards to sugar babying too. Even in that industry, in my experience, it's very normalized to always play protected and talk about testing and stuff like that as well. So I guess for the last couple of minutes of the episode,
00:20:53
Jon McCray Jones
Do you want to run through like one of the most important, just like a concluding, one of the most important steps proven in STI? I would say get tested every three months if you're having symptoms or if you played unprotected with someone where you didn't know when they got tested, having a partners, that sort of thing.
00:21:14
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, I would say like every three to four months is a good metric if you're having sex outside of a monogamous relation, a monogamous relationship. What I will say is that even if you're a monogamous relationship, getting tested once a year wouldn't hurt because one, you never know if your partner is cheating on you. And two, you never know if you had an STI before entering this monogamous relationship.
00:21:40
Jon McCray Jones
I would also like recommend getting tested at this both of you and your partner getting tested at the start of your monogamous relationship just so you're both on the same page of like going into this where you can say that like hey I Tested positive for chlamydia. I guess it happened before we were dating We both take the pill for a week then going further in our relationship We both know that we aren't positive for chlamydia.
Concluding Thoughts on Prevention
00:22:02
Jon McCray Jones
So then something pops back up that someone has some explaining to do or I still recommend testing uh once a year if you're in a monogamous relationship three to four times a year if you're not in a monogamous relationship or if you're still single and having very casual sex and if you do want to play unprotected with someone have a detailed conversation about
00:22:29
Jon McCray Jones
you You know how many people are you playing with about protection? How often do you get tested? That sort of thing. That's what I was going to say is that like condoms are a great way of preventing most STI diseases, especially ones that are exchanged through body fluid. But there is a desire from a lot of people to play unprotected and that's okay.
00:22:49
Jon McCray Jones
ah Like you said, the conversation should be, Hey, here's all the people who I'm playing with unprotected. The other person says, Hey, here's all the people I'm playing with unprotected. And then you have a conversation about how much risk you want to have. And like the negotiation of like, Hey, I would prefer if like, I'm the only person that you play unprotected with or me and this other person are the only people that you play unprotected with.
00:23:16
Jon McCray Jones
Or if you don't care, you're like, hey, I don't care who you play unprotected with. Just I ask that we both get tested every two to three months if we're going to continue to be or continue to play unprotected. Like I think all of those answers are fair or even idea of like, hey, I want to be the person that you play with right after you get tested. And then after you start playing with other people unprotected, I want to use protection going forward until you get tested again.
00:23:41
Jon McCray Jones
yeah but Yeah. Use condoms. if end When in doubt, use condoms. If you don't want to communicate, use condoms. The other important metric is communicate around sex. Talk about STIs. Talk about how many partners you have. Talk about the last time you can test it. Consider PrEP. If you're at a high risk for HIV in your community or even if you're not and you're in like a non-monogamous community, if you're at ah if you're in a space where People are having a lot of unprotected sex and you are having a lot of unprotected sex. Prep is a probably good option. Yeah, definitely.
00:24:19
Jon McCray Jones
ah
00:24:21
Jon McCray Jones
Yeah, CDC reports that condom usage can reduce gonorrhea and chlamydia by up to 70%. Prep has shown to reduce HIV transmission up to 99% when you use correctly and consistently.
00:24:37
Jon McCray Jones
To wrap up, STIs are incredibly common, but they don't have to be scary. ah The key is communication, education, and regular testing. Let's work together to de-stigmatize STIs. If we can normalize these conversations, we can reduce the spread and ensure that everyone gets the care they need it. Yep. Couldn't have said it better. If you're listening to this and you haven't been tested recently, make an appointment today. It's quick and easy and can help improve someone's life.
00:25:08
Jon McCray Jones
Cool. This has been the Funnel Sex Podcast. See you next week.