7 Dangerous Myths Surrounding Sexually Transmitted Diseases

You learn about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) from a variety of sources; in sex education lessons, by word of mouth and from your friends. However, this wide range of fonts of information can potentially be damaging to your wellbeing; exposing you to a multitude of myths and urban legends surrounding in STDs. If you believe in such legends, you may be putting your sexual wellness at risk! To keep you and your partner safe and healthy in and outside the bedroom, we asked sexual health expert Lizette Borreli to debunk seven commonly-believed STD myths.

 

1. You Can’t Get an STD from Oral Sex: According to Borreli, ‘This myth is uttered by many teens, but it is 100% untrue. Unprotected oral sex — “blow jobs” or “going downtown” and whether you do it or it’s done to you, puts you at risk for an STD…If the partner is giving oral sex to a man, the risk increases if they have any cuts or scrapes in his or her mouth. These scrapes may include small ones caused by brushing or flossing before sex. Giving oral sex to a woman can increase the risk of infection if there is menstrual blood, if the woman has another STD in addition to HIV, or if the person performing oral sex has sores or cuts in his or her mouth.’

 

2. Pulling Out Prevents Pregnancy and STDs: ‘Better use protection,’ asserts Borreli. ‘The withdrawal or “pulling out” method does not prevent HIV or other STDs. Most disease-causing microorganisms are not contingent on ejaculation for transmission. This method is less effective at preventing pregnancy compared to condoms, the Pill, or shot.’

 

3. Birth Control Users Don’t Need to Worry About STDs: Borreli comments, ‘Birth control methods such as the pill are very effective at preventing pregnancy, but they do not protect against STDs. Condoms are the only method of protection against both STDs and pregnancy, says the Food and Drug Administration. Using a condom and also a birth control method like the pill will provide maximum protection for both partners.’

 

4. Douching After Sex or Having Sex in a Pool will Prevent STDs: ‘You’re still at risk,’ Borreli warns. ‘This classic urban legend has gained popularity under the belief that chlorine is a disinfectant that kills STD-causing bacteria or viruses. Chlorine is not a condom, and it will not kill sperm. If partners desire to have sex in a pool or hot tub, take extra precaution because latex condoms can easily break down in hot water temperatures.’

 

5. You Can Only Catch Herpes if Your Partner Has a Visible Outbreak: Borreli cautions, ‘Most people have no or few symptoms from a herpes infection. The majority of people with herpes are not aware that they have it, but symptoms such as itching or a burning feeling in the genital or anal area, swollen glands, or vaginal discharge, can last from two to three weeks. They commonly cause infections of the mouth and lips, also known as “fever blisters.”’

 

6. You Only Get STDs from Semen: ‘Think again,’ says Borreli. ‘Although semen and blood can spread STDs, some like herpes and syphilis can be transmitted by skin on skin contact. If a partner has herpes and experiences visible “fever blisters,” the sore can spread when it comes into contact with someone’s skin in areas like the mouth, throat, and cuts or rashes. A partner may become infected even before blisters begin to form.’

 

7. Lesbians Don’t Need to Worry About STDs: Borreli points out, ‘Women who have sex with other women may rarely get HIV, but the risk increases if a woman has sex with an HIV-positive woman, or injects drugs or has sex with a man who has HIV…This could happen because soft tissues, like those in the mouth, can come into contact with the vaginal fluid or menstrual blood of the woman infected with HIV. Women can spread a number of STDs to one another during oral sex, manual sex, or frottage.’

Categories: Birth Control, fever blisters, giving oral, menstrual blood, Myths, oral sex, preventing pregnancy, risk increases, sexually transmitted, sexually transmitted infections, stds borreli

How Oral Sex Can Cause Cancer In Men

When Michael Douglas announced that he had throat cancer, it came as something of a surprise that he thought there was only one culprit: oral sex. While it might seem at first that Michael Douglas was a delusional man, it become clear that what he saying was actually guided by genuine science. While he later stated that the cancer he had was tongue cancer rather than throat cancer, the point still stands that the evidence is now mounting up that giving oral sex leads to a number of different cancers in men.

There has been a huge spike in the number of head and neck cancers that have been linked to HPV over the past twenty years. It is beginning to raise alarm bells that we may need to worry about the risk of sexually transmitted infections and their potential ability to cause cancer in men. Indeed, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, between the years of 1988 and 2004, head, neck and throat cancers that tested positive for the human papilloma virus were seen to rise an astonishing 225 per cent. This is very worrying news indeed as it seems these levels of cancer are likely to continue to rise.

In fact the authors of the study go so far to argue that within the next decade the number of incidents of such cancers will overtake that of cervical cancer. It’s also true that the majority of those cases are going to be in men and will be caused by giving oral sex.  This is a point that is often missed in public talk about the HPV infection. And also remember that there is a vaccine that can prevent it.

There has been recent controversy over comments that were made by the presidential candidate Michele Bachmann about the HPV vaccine, the major aspect was squarely on young women and cervical cancer. But HPV, and specifically usually a strain called HPV-16, also causes oropharyngeal and anal cancer. This is a fact that is not often reported in the media because medical organizations, the government and academics do not want to get themselves locked into a debate about peoples sexual practices.

Until very recently, cancers of the head and neck were usually diagnosed in older people – in this instance, those with an average age of 60. Those types of cancer were usually caused by smoking or drinking too much alcohol. These types of exposures are likely to take around 20 years or more to cause the disease to occur. And, they typically didn’t test positive for HPV markers. In fact, the incident of HPV-negative head and neck cancers declined by more than 50 percent during the 16-year study period, mostly due to declines in smoking and other forms of tobacco use.

But it now seems that we are seeing the average age of head and neck cancer patients drop as increasingly younger people are beginning to develop HPV-caused cancers resulting from sexual exposure. Oral sex is thought to be one of the serious primary causes of this. Unfortunately one of the solid facts of the problem is that the best way to prevent the spread of HPV-caused cancer is to avoid the kind of practices that put you at risk. These are namely oral and anal sex – and to try to tell people that they can’t have sex in a certain kind of way would be an extremely unpopular move given how these are very mainstream forms of sexual contact. It will be interesting to see if further ideas are produced.

Categories: average age, cancer, cervical cancer, giving oral, HPV, hpv caused, michael douglas, neck cancers, oral sex, throat cancer