When I was in high school, the idea of being affected by a sexually transmitted disease never crossed my wildly audacious mind. Sure I knew about them, I just didn’t put much stock into what had been so poorly preached, because like most sexually active teenagers, I thought I was invincible.
Sex education was a topic that was buried at the bottom of our health class underneath nutrition and first aid. Our teacher did her half-assed best to make sure we were marginally educated on the dangers of STD’s. She did such a bang-up job teaching us how to prevent unwanted pregnancy that there were fourteen young mother’s-to-be in my ninth grade class alone. When their gestational condition grew too difficult to camouflage, they became the target of gossip mongers and were secretly shipped off to their great Aunt Opeline’s in Missouri for an extended vacation. Either that or they were forced into Alternative School on the other side of town. Their newborns were either placed for adoption, cared for by a grandma barely surviving on welfare and government cheese, or on rare occasions, raised by the very young newlyweds themselves.
We didn’t think there was much to be frightened of, and if one of us became one of the unlucky statistics who contracted a venereal disease, it was easily cured. In our somewhat warped perception of reality, herpes was just unsightly cold sores, crabs were the equivalent of head lice and all it took to eradicate gonorrhea (The Clap) and chlamydia from our still blossoming bodies was a dose of good ol’ penicillin. As far as we were concerned, the most common repercussion from having irresponsible sex was pregnancy, and even that was curable, so to speak. We just didn’t hear about people getting VD. If it did happen, which I’m sure it did, no one talked about it. It was a dirty secret that was swept under the rug along with the rumor about you-know-who’s mom getting so hammered at the neighborhood block party that she fucked such-and-such’s dad behind so-and-so’s garage during the wheelbarrow race.
As I moved into my twenties, the game changed a little as we were faced with a new and deadly crop of STD’s. AIDS reared its ugly head, and while it was mostly prevalent among the homosexual community and drug users who shared dirty needles, the number of heterosexual people who were contracting the deadly disease was on the rise. Hepatitis C also wormed its way into the party mix. Even then I was pretty reckless when it came to protecting myself. It seemed I was bullet proof as I breathed a sigh of relief every year when my test results came back negative across the board.
Then I got married and the days of casual, hot steamy sex became the stuff of my masturbatory fantasies that carried me through the years of missionary style faked orgasms. I never imagined that one day I would once again feel the anxiety of waiting for those same test results. During the breakdown of my marriage, I made new friends. Friends who benefited me greatly, in many ways, multiple times. I was smarter this time, though, and condoms were mandatory for playtime. Pregnancy wasn’t an issue since I’d had my tubes cut, burned and tied when I delivered my second tax deduction, but a clean bill of health was.
As my wedding vows were going down in flames, I began to notice some odd behavior that made me call my estranged husband’s fidelity into question. I didn’t care if he was fucking someone else. Honestly, I hoped he was. I wasn’t particularly worried about anything disease oriented either because I hadn’t fucked him in months and had no intention to ever again. I pondered all of this as I lay in my bed, alone in the guest room one night. As I grew tired, my thoughts drifted to the weekend of no holds barred fucking I’d experienced a few weeks prior when he took the kids on a trip. I couldn’t help but smile as the memories of hot, screaming orgasms flashed before my eyes like an x-rated slide show when reality slammed into me like a freight train. There was so much fucking that night, so many orgasms and even a little booze that it’s no surprise I didn’t immediately notice when my playpartner wasn’t wearing a condom, but at what point did it disappear? I couldn’t remember, and even though I’d made him put a new one on right away, panic set in posthaste.
I wasted no time in scheduling a doctor’s appointment to either ease my mind or blow my world apart. As I laid there in my pink, paper dress, my feet in the stirrups and my vagina on display, I chewed nervously on my nails while I admitted to her that I’d had unprotected sex with someone other than my husband. I expressed my fear and my wish to be tested for everything.
Again, I felt judged.
She took the cultures she needed and handed me a prescription for bloodwork which I had done the next day. The two weeks it took to get the answers I desperately wanted was the longest two weeks of my life. I slept less than usual, barely ate and couldn’t shake the humiliation and anxiety that had settled heavily onto my shoulders. Distraction was futile and worry gnawed at my every thought like a tapeworm in my brain. Being the naturally pessimistic person I am only intensified the torment to epic proportions as I exhausted myself with research on how I would live the rest of my life with HPV, genital warts or even herpes. How one careless move would affect my future relationships, my future sex life.
My doctor called me herself to give me the happy news that every test came back negative. I felt like I was fifteen again. I may have even rolled my eyes a little when she reminded me of the importance of condoms. I could finally stop worrying that I would be labeled a leper and move on with my life disease free.
And I intend to keep it that way.
