VD is for Everybody! The Best PSA Ever!
If you aren't yet afraid of VD (Venereal Disease -- now called STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease)) this video will surely make you very, very afraid! Or at least very, very confused! And what a jingle!
The Truth about STDs & Reality Show Contestants
A friend of mine is a lawyer in the entertainment industry and has done legal work for quite a few reality shows. The other day he told me that for liability reasons the reality shows require STD tests for all contestants, to ensure that the people they all stick together in a house together won't come back and blame the production company if they hook up with another contestant and catch something.
What was even more interesting was to learn that 50% of the reality show applicants fail the STD test and therefore get no call back! Hardly a surprise really. If you're a fame whore, you're probably just a whore. So in theory if you make it on a reality show you are sexually transmitted disease free, but that's a big fat lie!
Truth is, I'd bet 90% of those that make it on reality shows have STDs. And the reason is simple... STDs are way more common than you think! And these tests they give reality show contestants won't test for two of the most common, herpes or HPV!
So, be safe, and don't sleep with reality show contestants!
^Q
Facts about Gay Bath Houses
About a mile from my house is this very curious nondescript white brick shop with no windows and only an industrial-looking metal door with cameras focused on it. It sits in a row of thoroughly normal shops selling flowers, beauty supplies, used books, and clothes. Only a very simple sign exists giving the name of the place. I've passed by it hundreds of times; it's on a major street. I've always wondered what it was, and finally this week I did a Google search. It's a gay bath house. Which made me curious about what exactly is a gay bath house? I mean, I live in the world, I have heard vague jokes or references to gay bath houses in San Francisco, but does sex occur there? Does it occur there legally or illegally? What is it all about?
Wow. I spent a few hours investigating gay bath houses online today, and boy, there's a lot I didn't know:
- Men go to gay bath houses to have sex
- Sex at gay bath houses is legal (generally the zoning allows it)
- Bath houses provide free lube and condoms (generally)
- You pay an entrance fee to get into the bath house (membership)
- You also pay to rent a small locker and/or a room
- Rooms in gay bath houses are not like hotel rooms, they are just big enough for a mattress
- Men will lie on the bed in the room with the door open as an invitation to men to come in and have sex
- Men have sex in the public areas, like the saunas/tubs/steam rooms/etc. (maybe not at every facility allows this)
- Men often go to the bath houses after striking out at bars/clubs on Friday/Saturday nights
- Different times of day are good to find different types of men. If your thing is "bears" maybe you find out the XYZ bath house has a lot of them on Tuesday evenings. Or if your thing is college-aged guys maybe it's Wednesday afternoons.
- Supposedly a lot of (otherwise) "straight" guys go just to receive oral sex.
- People are apparently respectful of others boundaries and you can just go to do or receive what you want.
It was interesting but more than a little shocking. I have just never thought about sex in these terms. I'm a romantic, monogamous, a germaphobe, and heterosexual, so it wouldn't work at all for me, but it's certainly fascinating to know other people get up to such things and view sex in different terms. "Hmm, well, my friends were busy tonight, I'm not dating anyone, and I'm a little bored. Naked Gun 2 1/2 is on TV in a few minutes, or... I could go down the street, pay $15, relax in a sauna, and then get oral sex as many times as I want."
My mind can't get itself around the disease risk. Condoms may be very good at preventing the spread of HIV, but not much help with things like herpes or HPV. Ick! Maybe if I didn't have any disease fear I'd be open to things like one night stands, but I don't think so. I think it's more an emotional thing for me and less a fear thing. And I'd have to stick with women as partners, I don't seem attracted to men.
Anyway, I found quite a few sites on this topic and was amazed to realize how open this stuff has been, see the Continental Baths in New York City (where Bette Midler and Barry Manilow got their starts performing). Reading quite a lot of people's personal stories about their favorite bath houses and experiences was enlightening. One such site with stories was History of Gay Bath Houses [WARNING: Naked men engaged in gay things shown in the ads on the site!!!]; I came across some better sites, but I'm not sure where they got to.
^Q
STDs: We’re All (In|Aff)ected
I was shocked a year or two to discover how little I really knew about STDs... Sure, my knowledge was right on about HIV, chlamydia, and gonorrhea, but I was woefully under-informed about the human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes 1 & 2. And I get the impression everyone else is pretty under-informed, too.
Most people like to think they've never had an STD, and they're mostly wrong. Most people may never have had symptoms (or at least noticeable ones), but that's not the same as never having had an STD. If you've had more than a couple partners you are statistically guaranteed to have been exposed to HPV and herpes. And the more exposure and greater duration of exposure the more likely you are to have caught it. And you'd probably not know you got it, most people don't show symptoms. And the STD tests you get at your doctor or planned parenthood don't check for HPV or herpes.
Did you know that 50 - 75% of people get HPV at some point in their lives? And that 45% of people aged 20 - 24 have an active HPV infection? And that 28% of 24 - 40 year olds have an active HPV infection. Standard STD tests do NOT detect HPV. HPV is typically detected only after a woman shows an abnormal Pap smear, but a Pap smear does not itself detect HPV it detects the changes certain types of HPV cause, therefore a negative Pap smear doesn't mean you don't have one of the 40+ strains of HPV. Some HPV strains cause genital warts, others cause no symptoms at all. There are no HPV tests for men. Most HSV infections clear on their own without problems, "70% of infections are gone in 1 year and 90% in 2 year", others last quite a bit longer.
Did you know that 75 - 90% of people have Herpes 1 (HSV-1), which typically infects a nerve in the face and can cause cold sores? Did you know 25% of people have Herpes 2 (HSV-2) which prefers to reside in a pelvic nerve, typically causing sores in the genitals. But did you know 90% of those people with genital HSV-2 don't know they have it because they are asymptomatic? Did you know you people are still infectious even when they have no symptoms or blisters, through viral shedding (infected people shed the virus 15-20% of days where no lesions are present)? Did you know that genital herpes can be caused by either HSV-1 or HSV-2? In other words, if your boyfriend is one of the 75 - 90% with HSV-1 in his facial nerve and he performs oral sex on you and you do not have HSV-1 then this can give you genital herpes (type HSV-1) even if he has no memory of ever having a cold sore or outbreak. You can also get HSV-2 orally. The viruses may "prefer" one location or the other, but they'll infect either locations. Because of the preference an HSV-1 infection won't cause as many or as problematic genital outbreaks if it is acquired there, and an HSV-2 oral infection won't cause as many or as troublesome oral infections. HSV-2 is not as infectious as it could be, fortunately. The infection rate for couples where one is known to be have HSV-2 and the other not is 8% per year. Medhelp is a useful place for information. If you have sores you can get the sores tested to find out what type they are, but without sores the only option is a blood test for antibodies, like the HerpeSelect Type Specific IgG. The IgG test will tell you which if any HSV you may have, but won't tell you whether you have either orally or genitally; keep in mind 75-90% of people will get positive HSV-1 results, and most acquired it before they were 2 years old from grandparents or parents kissing them or sharing cups/utensils! (I asked for the test as an adjunct to routine STD testing, and found out I have neither HSV-1 nor HSV-2, which is oddly a bad thing, I'm in the minority, which means I have to worry about catching HSV-1, though there's not much point in worrying about it since it's so common.)
And did you know how ineffective condoms are at protecting you from contracting HPV or HSV? Condoms only reduce the risk of HSV-2 transmission by 30-50% (in actual use, biological effectiveness is limited to only 90%). The protective value of condoms for HPV is unknown, but some studies suggest it is poor.
For cheap-ish online STD tests I did it anonymously at HealthCheckUSA. It's not a bad system, really. You buy online (do a search for coupons, I found one for 15% off), go into a lab nearby where they draw blood/etc., and then in 3-4 days your results are on the website. To do it anonymously use an anonymous debit card (see my post on that topic).
I'm not saying all these things to discourage sex, just to discourage the fallacy that you can have sex without getting something. We need to shift our thinking, accept how common these relatively harmless STDs are, and stop the stigmatization of those who have them, because you've had something too (you just didn't know it).
^Q