I might have chlamydia.  It’s a long shot but I take every possibility seriously.  Almost anything is true if you consider every timeline.  More importantly, it’s true for one of my partners and that sucks for him.  Some of his other partners are less than pleased and not shy about voicing disapproval.  I’m a mature, well-informed person with an incredibly dark sense of humor.  My basic response is no big deal, it can happen to any of us.  For me, there are essentially three levels of STDs in America – Curable, Treatable and Oh Fuck. 

I consider anything on the curable spectrum less annoying than a cold and much easier to get rid of.  All that’s left is the stigma of informing your partners that they should get tested. In this case, that includes the “just oral” ones.  A task more daunting for some than others.  Or you can be a complete shitbag, take your antibiotics and never see any of those dirty skanks again.  But if you think about it, that’s exactly what got you into this situation in the first place.  I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to get a confirmation before I send out an uncomfortable mass text.  The timing makes me an unlikely source but I’m not cavalier about these things.

My first real scare was for herpes (the bad one).  That’s in the treatable category but I still lost my mind for a little while.  I wept and I moaned.  Convinced I’d never have satisfying sex again, I spent significant time deciding what theme I want to use for my cats’ names.  I settled on Grecian Literature, in case it ever comes up. Attempting to assuage the fear, I read all the available research about sexually transmitted diseases.  To sum up, STDs are just like regular diseases.  No one wants them but people still get them.  It’s scary to think you have one and, until it’s taken care of, you don’t feel very good about it.

It takes months to get a reliable negative ruling on HSV-2 so I had plenty of time to stew.  I spent that time assuming I have the disease.  I tend to embrace worst case scenarios to keep my expectations calibrated properly.  By the time I got reliable test results I’d made peace with either outcome.  Fortunately, I passed all my tests.  Huzzah!  At that point I started feeling bad for the guy who told me I was his only possible source.  It means he got it from his wife.  I fucked him before he got married, if it matters that much to you.

The specific stigma of sexual diseases is mostly rooted in puritanical fear.  You can get the flu from a handshake but no one shames you about that.  Demonizing the results of poor hygiene is counterproductive and causes undue emotional stress.  We all agree safe sex is important.  It’s not shocking sexual contact can result in a bacterial infection but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying sex.  There’s a spectrum for diseases.  Anything that’s easy to catch is usually easy to cure.  The stuff that can kill you is typically harder to get.  That’s sort of how evolution works.