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The microbes that cause sexually
transmitted diseases are equal opportunity bugs. They
don't care if you are white or black, rich or poor,
educated or illiterate, happy or sad. If you're a warm
body, you'll do. STD germs settle in an estimated 12
million Americans each year. Worldwide, they find 250
million new hosts a year.
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Here are a few basic facts everyone should know
for his or her own
protection:
-
STDs are easily spread through
any person-to-person transfer of bodily fluids such
as semen, vaginal secretions, or
blood.
-
When someone has a sexually
transmitted disease, anyone who has sex with that
person stands a good chance of becoming infected.
Thus, having sex with multiple partners carries a
greater risk of disease than staying faithful to a
spouse or long-term partner. Even a monogamous
relationship isn't necessarily risk-free, however,
since one partner could be carrying an infection
picked up during a prior sexual
encounter.
-
Many sexually transmitted
diseases are highly contagious. For example, if a
man has gonorrhea, a woman who has sex with him
just once stands an 80 to 90 percent chance of
getting infected. If the man has gonorrhea plus
chlamydia, as frequently happens, the woman could
be infected with both diseases at the same
time.
-
Vaginal intercourse is the
classic route of STD infection. However, other
important routes include anal sex (among men or
man-to-woman), oral sex, sexual abuse of children,
and mother-to-baby infection during
childbirth.
-
Sexually transmitted diseases
weaken the immune system, so a person infected with
one STD has a greater risk of acquiring other
infections. Unfortunately, recovering from an STD
does not make a person immune. Anyone who has had a
particular STD is still at risk of getting it
again.
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Men are more likely to show
clear symptoms of STDs. Symptoms in women may not
be as obvious, and the problem could be
misdiagnosed.
-
Many women infected with
certain types of STDs have no early symptoms at all
and may unknowingly infect sexual
partner(s).
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In the past, gay men have
tended to have an above-average rate of infection
with STDs. This is largely attributed to
promiscuity and may have declined in response to
the AIDS epidemic. Additionally, some men are
secretly bisexual. If a man picks up an STD from a
homosexual encounter, he may then pass the
infection on to unsuspecting heterosexual
partners.
-
Lesbians have a
lower-than-average risk for STDs, since most
sexually acquired diseases are not easily spread
from woman to woman.
Next Page
Coming to Terms with a Sexually Transmitted
Disease
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