“Have you been tested?” It’s a question that can brutally murder the mood, especially when a new partner chooses to ask it, say, right on the verge of sex.
But if you’re genuinely following a safe sex regime, you can answer easily and the evening can continue as planned. But, if you’re like far too many college students these days, upon being asked this question you’ve had to either a) lie or b) tell the truth — a confession that could have very well prompted your partner to jump back into his or her clothes and walk out the door.
Fortunately, taking care of this is just about as simple as getting tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), a service that is offered right here on campus at the Student Health and Counseling center. SHAC offers discounted student rates and accepts some forms of insurance.
Unfortunately for some of us, the act of going and getting tested is much easier said than done. It’s a nerve-wracking experience. People often cite peace of mind as the best reason to go and get tested, which is true, provided you don’t have anything.
But what happens when you receive that fateful phone call and the news from the other end of the line isn’t what you were hoping for. What if (gasp!) you’ve tested positive for an STI?
You begin to panic; you feel dirty, embarrassed, careless, stupid, afraid and perhaps even vengeful (after all, someone infected you with this awful disease, right?)
At least that’s how I felt.
That’s right, last year, after getting screened at the SHAC, the results came back that I tested positive for chlamydia.
I figured there was a chance my — then somewhat new — boyfriend had infected me, but after I told him, he got screened and came back negative. I was now forced to set my brain on rewind to try and pinpoint when I was infected and who infected me. I scrolled through the year’s previous lovers. It seemed like I had always taken the proper precautions — except, wait. It had to have been James, that adorable English soccer coach and fleeting love interest. I met James in August 2008. I found his accent, foreign mannerisms and gorgeous blue eyes irresistible, perhaps to a fault, considering a few days later when I saw he hadn’t put a condom on before we proceeded to have sex, I didn’t bother to say anything.
At my post-positive appointment, my doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics and urged me to call my previous partners and let them know about my infection. It goes without saying that the latter task was the harder one.
When the time came to call James, he confessed that a previous girlfriend of his had come back positive for chlamydia but that he had never bothered to do anything about it. I was so surprised — not.
Here’s the moral of the story: Practice safe sex. Always wrap it up, because there are real consequences associated with being careless. And even if you always use condoms, they aren’t always 100 percent effective. Getting tested is still absolutely necessary.
How often you should get tested really depends on your personal sexual history.
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Certain STIs, like HIV, won’t read accurately on lab tests until up to three months after you were exposed. This means that if you go and get tested right away, but you participated in “high risk” behaviors (i.e. any form of unprotected sex) in the past three months, most labs won’t consider the results accurate. Accurate results will be taken once the proper period of time has passed since you last had unprotected sex.
A lot of STIs are asymptomatic, but can cause serious health problems if left untreated. For example, 75 percent of women, and 50 percent of men with chlamydia show no symptoms, but if left untreated chlamydia may cause pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in women.
Is avoiding a trip to the doctor worth all that?
I didn’t think so.
Doing it in the Duke City is written by a group of Daily Lobo columnists. All names in this column are changed to protect the privacy of anyone mentioned. What would you like to read in the Daily Lobo’s sex column? Got a question? Write in to suggestions@dailylobo.com.
