The central role that our fear of sexually transmitted diseases plays in society’s relationship to sex is self-evident. After all, most of those reading this will have grown up in a period where sexual education revolved almost solely around the expounding the risks of sexually transmitted diseases. Scaremongering around STDs is often used to promote abstinence and monogamy; the ‘biological sexism’ of viruses such as HIV can even promote the idea that female sexuality is something dirty and shameful – so is it time to take the stigma out of STDs? Does the medical risk posed by STDs justify our fear of them? And what does our attitude about STDs tell us about our attitude towards sex in general?
The Serious Problem of STD Stigma
It’s easy to brush off STD stigma as no serious concern. STDs and their carriersare frequently made into a joke in popular culture. But stigma can have a serious impact on the lives of sufferers, and the impacts of a diagnosis can vary from disease to disease. While certain STDs, like chlamydia, are relatively simple to resolve, a diagnosis of a life-long condition like herpes or genital warts can have long-term psychological consequences. This defies the theory that it is the health risk posed by a disease that determines the damage – though herpes is effectively harmless, studies have shown that being diagnosed with HSV (Herpes Simplex Virus) carries the greatest psychological impact of any diagnosis, excluding HIV.
The stigma behind carrying a contagious, if merely inconvenient, disease is so deeply ingrained and isolating that,oftentimes, individuals wouldrather suffer from something harmful but invisible, like gonorrhoea. Yet studies show that around 1 in 6 people have genital herpes, and HPV (the virus which can cause genital warts) is so common that it is believed that all sexually active men and women will catch at least one strain of HPV at some point in their lives. So why the stigma?
The Consequences of STD Stigma
The consequences of STD stigma extend further than their effects on individual sufferers. Various studies have shown that STD stigma actually prevents people from seeking testing and treatment, choosing to stay in the dark rather than having to deal with the consequences of a diagnosis. With fertility, health and even life and death hanging in the balance, we should surely be focusing our efforts on encouraging STD sufferers to come forward for treatment, rather than pushing them underground. Studies have even shown that depression is disproportionately high in STD clinic patients, with 39% of those surveyed suffered from depressive symptoms. And clearly, this fear, anxiety and the ‘rather not know’ attitude it engenders are doing nothing to stop the spread of these diseases. So is it time to reconsider how we, as a society, relate to STDs?
Our attitude to STDs is unlikely to change until our attitude to sex changes, and as we move towards becoming a more sex-positive society, it may be that we need to take a more mature attitude to STDs. It is believed that sex is one of life’s greatest pleasures, and it shouldn’t be clouded by fear – so if you think you might be suffering from a sexually transmitted disease, go and visit Men’s Clinic.