STI awareness can help people lead ‘sexually healthy’ lives

Sex. Does that word make you uncomfortable? Well it shouldn’t. Sexually transmitted infections have been on the rise for years. The Safer STD Testing organization reported that thirty-thousand people in California were diagnosed with anSTI in the past year. USC professor Jeffrey Klausner at the Keck School of Medicine is an expert in sexually transmitted infections.

JEFFREY KLAUSNER: A sexually active young women under 25 every year should have a chlamydia gonorrhea screening. If you if a young male is in a high prevalence setting, which might be a university, they should get screened annually as well. It’s important when people get a checkup that they feel comfortable talking to their provider about their sexual health.

STI’s can also go undetected. This means that a person with an infection may not have symptoms.

JEFFREY KLAUSNER: It’s important to get a screening test because in young women, that asymptomatic infection can lead to chronic infection, pelvic inflammatory disease, perhaps even tubal scoring and uterine tubal infertility.

Klausner says there should not be an embarrassing stigma surrounding sexually transmitted infections.

JEFFREY KLAUSNER: You know, sex is a wonderful thing. It’s healthy, maintains physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Having sex is healthy, and occasionally you may pick up an infection. Ideally, it should not be seen with this kind of negative, moralistic consequences that cause stigma.

And advocacy is an important part of ending this stigma.

JEFFREY KLAUSNER: First comes knowledge and education, but then advocacy and holding campus leaders accountable for assuring an environment where people can be sexually healthy.

Students are also getting in on the conversation. Gabe Romero, a sophomore majoring in mass communication, wrote an article in the Daily Trojan about STI care at USC.

GABE ROMERO: One out of every four college kids will get it. And that’s a pretty high statistic. And the idea that we’re not talking about is kind of weird and disturbing. That’s why we have to be more open about this issue.

Romero says that support groups are essential to ending this taboo subject.

GABE ROMERO: There has to be a support group because that’s going to suck for them, an emotional idea that you’re stuck with this sexual disease is going to be with you. It’s going to affect how you socialize with people, how you’re going to deal with sex with the greater society here in Los Angeles or elsewhere. You need to know how you don’t have to embrace these new things, and only a support group can do that.

He also says that a mobile app called Safely can help with contact tracing STI’s and notify others that may be at risk to exposure.

For Romero and Klausner, STI stigma is outdated and too common. The conversation starts here.