Dude, HELP!

There’s this guy I’ve been hooking up with on and off for a few months now. He’s super cute and the sex has always been great. I went to the health center and got my regular 6 month check up and I came up positive for…something. And this guy’s the only one I’ve been with for the last year! How do I tell him that I have an STD and he may have given it to me?

Thanks,

Freaking Out! Read More »

Across the border in my home country of Canada, rates of STDs have rapidly been increasing since 2000. Syphilis cases have increased 10 times over, while chlamydia rates have increased 66 percent. Public-health experts are saying that this can partially be attributed to the popularity of online dating.

The problem is that people get to know each other in advance, so by the time they meet there are already increased levels of intimacy. Because of this felt intimacy, people are less likely to have a conversation about safe sex. Add this to the decrease in condom use among female college students, and it’s definitely something we should be talking about.

Public health agency statistics indicate that the more the HIV epidemic appears to become a thing of the past, the less people focus on a message of safe sex. There are, of course, other factors than just online dating, but the response should be the same. Communicate with your partners, practice safe sex, and get tested. Read More »

I met him my first night of college. Although not the fairytale every girl imagines, we hit it off in the basement of a fraternity house. It was a passionate, whirlwind love affair that lasted about a month. Long story short, we don’t speak any more. I took it as a learning experience about relationships and the healing process was not easy.

It was an early morning over winter break when I got the call from my gynecologist. I was expecting the phone call and was prepared for her to tell me that I was perfectly normal and she’ll see me in a year for a checkup. She was reading through the list of diseases saying they all came back negative, until she said, “But, your HPV test came back positive. You have what’s called high risk HPV.” I couldn’t think of anything other than getting out of hearing range of everybody in the house. So, I ran into the kitchen and asked, “What do I do now?” She seemed so calm about the whole situation and just insisted that I make sure to come back in three months for a follow-up appointment, and to call her if I had any questions. Read More »

‘Tis the season to be jolly, to count thy blessings, and to make itemized lists of all the things you want. I used to wish for an easy bake oven, then Justin Timberlake’s hand in marriage, then an unlimited supply of Louboutins…oh, wait, I could still definitely go for that. In addition to a shoe closet to rival Mariah Carey’s (and world peace), I also wish for a shift in our collective sexual culture. We have all the potential to be sexually liberated, but we just won’t let ourselves — as a society — be that great. My ultimate five wishes are:

1. There would be free forms of birth control.

Unplanned pregnancy is awful. Abortion is not ideal. Luckily, there is this wonderful invention called contraception that would greatly decrease the occurrence of both. The reality of the situation is that people are going to have sex because it feels amazing, not always because they want to pop out babies, and our society needs to adjust to this and make contraception as accessible as possible. The risks of unprotected sex are far too great.

2.  Rape would never happen.

Without a doubt, rape and sexual assault are some of the most traumatizing experiences a person could ever endure, and it breaks my heart that 1 in 4 women will experience one or the other during her time in college. We live in a rape culture, where women are expected to always be available for sexual consumption and our language has stripped “rape” of its meaning (you did not rape your psychology final, okay?). In lieu of rape never happening, I would be over the moon if we could stop automatically jumping to the conclusion that all women who report rape are lying, conniving bitches who were totally asking for it because our skirts were short.

3. We could all be sluts, or prudes, and it wouldn’t be up for judgment. 

I don’t care if you’re saving yourself for marriage or for the next guy who buys you a shot, and no one else should either. As long as you’re being responsible, it’s all fair game.

4. Everyone who is sexually active would get tested regularly. 

Most STDs are not a big deal. They can be cleared up with antibiotics and are not any more disgusting than a cold or flu. If we could treat our sexual health like our dental or overall physical health, there would probably a lot less disease transmission, since people would be open about their status. Gonorrhea would be the new strep throat.

5. Everyone would have sex because they want to. 

There would be no having of sex because you feel peer pressure, or you desperately need validation, or because you were really, really, really wasted and you didn’t even know what you were doing for real. Sex should be fun. If it’s not, take a step back and re-evaluate. There’s nothing wrong with abstinence or celibacy.

Basically, I just want everyone to be sex-positive. What’s on your personal sexy wishlish? More orgasms? More kink? Less bad cunnilingus? I want to know!

The best kind of a vagina is a happy vagina. That said, vaginas are very sensitive. And when something goes wrong, it’s hard to not feel self-conscious, or dirty, or just really unnerved. More than likely, if your vagina is a bit off, it’s due to an infection of some sort.

So we won’t beat around the bush and sugarcoat it — here are the five most common vaginal afflictions.

1. Yeast Infections

Causes: When new yeast is introduced into the vaginal area (like, say, whipped cream/chocolate during sex) or there is an imbalance of bad bacteria to good bacteria (after antibiotic usage).
Symptoms: Thick, white discharge that is similar in consistency to cottage cheese, itching, burning, vaginal soreness, pain during intercourse
Treatment: Antifungal medication, taken orally or via vaginal tablets or suppositories. There are prescription and over the counter options (like Monistat and Mycelex)
Prevention: Yeast overgrows when there’s a buildup of moisture, so wear breathable cotton undies. Avoid douches and scented pads/tampons (seriously, a vagina is a vagina. It’s not supposed to smell like roses.) Eating plain yogurt with active cultures has also been linked to avoiding yeast infections.

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It’s pretty much expected that if I even so much as hint at casual sex, I will receive comments informing me that STDs exist and are deadly, and insinuate that I am a completely irresponsible person who is basically asking you to contract a herpes/gonorrhea/syphillis hybrid disease thing that will ruin your life forever…that’s only a mild exaggeration. The possibility of contracting an STD is a legitimate concern, I would never deny that.  But there is a bit of an undercurrent of shaming that is present when responses to articles seeking to promote healthy mental attitudes towards sex choose to focus on the risk of STDs.  I’m sure we’re all aware of the shame and stigma associated with sexually transmitted diseases and infections. I mean, you’d have no qualms sharing that you missed class the other day because you had a cold and wanted to get it checked out. But how comfortable would you be sharing that you skipped class the other day to pick up antibiotics for your chlamydia infection? Exactly. Read More »

Question?! Answer: Ask Tuffy Luv.

Dear Tuffy Luv,

Two days ago, I went to my university’s health center. Now, usually I completely disregard any information I get at the health center on the grounds of either A) I have heard that every year since I first took sex ed in 7th grade, or B) Those ‘doctors’ are full of ish.

But this time, by the luck of the draw, I happened to get a check-up from someone that (gasp!) actually knew what they were talking about. I’m not saying you should listen to this doctor (nurse practitioner, if you want to get technical) instead of your own, but these are a few little known facts I picked up that I thought I would share.

Beware, as these tidbits may scare you away from sex for life (or at least for the night).

1. In order for your birth control to be 99.7% effective, you must take it every day within 30 minutes of the same time.
Apparently, the hormones that make you temporarily infertile only work for 24 straight hours. According to Susan (the nurse practitioner), you should be okay if you miss the time by 1 to 2 hours. If you miss more than that, however, you should use condoms for at least a week. Read More »

In this day and age, it seems like every one of my friends is on the birth control pill.  However, unlike most girls, most of my friends went on the pill to have sex at the end of high school, and simply stayed on it to enter college.  And while most people know the basics of birth control, few people ever bother to read the fine print.  So here are some of the most important things that you should know (i.e. all the stuff that’s on that little packet of info you throw out every month):

1.   Being on antibiotics can make the pill less effective

This is something that most girls do not know, but is often the most common mistake that girls on the pill make.  Even if you are taking your pill at the exact same time every day, if you are on antibiotics, they are working so hard to fight viruses that they can sometimes fight the effects of the pill.  If you are taking antibiotics, but are still healthy enough to be having sex, use a backup form of birth control.

2.   You may not get your period every month

As I personally learned from being on Loestrin 24, sometimes the pill may make your period so light that it will disappear for months at a time.  While you should probably get a pregnancy test just to be on the safe side, missing your period for a month or two DOES NOT mean that you are pregnant.

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My first boyfriend was uncircumcised. At the young, inexperienced age of fourteen, I realized this only because one day while chilling on the futon in the den having a post BJ-sesh chat, he informed me that some of the girls he had been with (because as a sixteen-year-old senior, he was far more sexually experienced than my freshman self) were initially freaked out by the au natural state of his Scottish-born ween. Huh, I remember thinking. He’s not circumcised. So THAT’s what that looks like.

It’s not like I was totally ignorant. I had been reading Seventeen and YM since I was nine. I knew all about hymens and G-spots and that you couldn’t get pregnant from a boy shooting his load into the open waters of a hot tub, so I certainly knew that some gents had foreskins and some did not; I just wasn’t really sure what that meant, anatomically.

I didn’t actually fully experience the difference between the two until about ten months later when my boyfriend and I were “on a break” and I hooked up with another boy, birthed in the good old U.S. of A. and fully shorn to prove it. As we sweatily made out on the couch, I jammed my hand in to his shorts, confidently grabbed a hold of his manparts, and…proceeded to give him the rawest handjob in the history of the earth. Read More »