Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's)

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.
• 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).
• 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.

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