whereshadowsmakeshadows:

Ice T Law & Order voice: sick son of a bitch would get his rocks off by forcing poly aromantics to watch the movie The Notebook

enoughtohold:

allons-y-dang-it:

enoughtohold:

allons-y-dang-it:

enoughtohold:

would you feel like it was the end of the world if you had to take antibiotics for an ear infection?

then why do you feel like it would be the end of the world if you got chlamydia?

getting an infection through sex is no worse than getting an infection of similar severity any other way. it doesn’t say anything bad about you. sex is nothing to be ashamed of, and neither is an STI.

stigma, shame and fear make both prevention and treatment harder. replace them with knowledge, compassion and confidence and make the choices that are right for you.

Getting the infection: not your fault, not good for you to shame yourself.

However.

Intentionally having sex despite being infected: absolutely your fault, you’re wrong for intentionally infecting someone without their knowledge, and quite honestly I have no sympathy for people shaming you unless the other person knows and for some reason has sex anyway.

that’s not how any of this works. virtually no one intentionally exposes others to any infection. most STI transmissions occur when people don’t know their status and can’t disclose.

the way to increase disclosure is to help more people get tested, as well as to create an environment in which disclosure is safe and normalized. it’s also important for people to ask about their partners’ status rather than just assuming, and this also must be safe and normalized.

we can achieve all these things by fighting stigma, shame, and fear. stigma, shame and fear will only make things worse. they are OBSTACLES to prevention, treatment, and open honest communication.

Okay quick research. And let’s just assume that unprotected sex is not already advised against for these very reasons.

If many do not develop symptoms, it’s more than understandable that they would go some time without knowing about their condition if they’re not tested. However if a partner does develop symptoms, from that point forward it should be disclosed every single time before sex. It should not be on the unassuming to ask whether or not they’re about to get screwed in more than one way. Yes testing and safety should be made as normal as possible, and fear around judgment disintegrated, but don’t make normal a disease that can be so easily prevented.

I feel like we’re on the same page on all but one aspect. Blame of infection. Again, if you’re unaware, fine. But if you become aware either by test or by a partner with symptoms, it should be on you to protect any and all future partners.

so many of these symptoms can easily be mistaken for other common ailments that people often don’t go to a doctor for. and it’s incredible to me that you would try to make this point while also defending the practice of assuming your partners are all STI-negative without asking, when the logic that leads people to do that is the same logic that leads people to discount their STI symptoms.

let’s say you’re a person with a vagina. you have PIV sex, without a condom because you’re on birth control. (by the way, condom use doesn’t completely prevent chlamydia transmission.) like most people, you’re in denial about STIs — you don’t think anyone you’d want to sleep with could have one, so you don’t ask your partner’s status, or even whether they know their status (they don’t). later, you have some vaginal pain, but you figure it’s just because you had especially vigorous sex. or you have some pain when you pee, but you figure it’s just a UTI, which you have from time to time, no big deal. or you have some funky discharge, but you figure it’s a yeast infection and will go away on its own. or you have some abdominal pain, but you figure it’s a uterine cramp or some kind of indigestion. your symptoms are mild, and you have blind faith that your partner was negative, so an STI doesn’t cross your mind. you have sex with someone else, who doesn’t ask about your status because of course you couldn’t have an STI, and if you did you would say so! and the cycle continues.

does this make you a monster? of course not. but your irrational beliefs about STIs based on stigma, shame and fear have stopped you from practicing effective prevention and from getting treatment right away.

in any event, i’m not sure why you’re digging in to defend shaming, which is counterproductive to STI prevention (for example). this post didn’t even say anything about the morality of transmission or disclosure, which means you saw a simple post about reducing the stigma of having an STI and immediately tried to find a way that it’s still shameful after all. that’s stigma-based thinking.

i wonder, do you react the same way to people who go to work sick? (and similarly ignore the conditions that lead people to do so?) would you go there on a post saying it’s not shameful to have the flu? or is it just sexually transmitted infections that you feel the need to moralize this way about?