Margo Mullinax and her team at Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion recently recruited 181 sexually active men and women to take an anonymous online questionnaire about sexual diseases. The participants were specifically asked how comfortable they talking about sexual diseases with their partner. Researchers found that a little under half of the respondents felt “very comfortable” talking about sexual diseases with their partner.<\/p>\n
While most people would roll their eyes and say “Duh,” Mullinax and her team were surprised. The participants were highly educated, and a large percentage had backgrounds in sexual health education. Despite this, the team also found:<\/p>\n
– Many participants occasionally, rarely, or never got tested<\/p>\n
-Of those who had been tested, very few discussed concurrent sexual partners or when partners’ testing had occurred in relation to their last sex act<\/p>\n
-About a third of the participants said they had told a partner they didn’t have a sexual disease even though they hadn’t been tested since their last sexual partner<\/p>\n
Mullinax attributes these startling figures to the stigma still attached to sexual diseases. Despite the fact that there are 20 million new infections in the United States every year, the topic is rarely discussed. Mullinax suggested that public health campaigns should provide tips and tools to help people discuss sexual diseases with their partner.<\/p>\n
“Time to get informed,” Mullinax said. “It will only make your conversation more comfortable and ensure that you are really protecting your health.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Margo Mullinax and her team at Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion recently recruited 181 sexually active men and women to take an anonymous online questionnaire about sexual diseases. The participants were specifically asked how comfortable they talking about sexual diseases with their partner. Researchers found that a little under half of the respondents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_autoblog_aioseo_focus_keyphrase":"","_autoblog_aioseo_title":"","_autoblog_aioseo_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-std-sexually-transmitted-diseases-treatments"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t