SEXUALITY - STD's

Sexuality – STD’s

-william hay

I was watching tv with my friend and an ad came on that said 1 in 4 adolescent girls has a Sexually Transmitted Disease. I looked over and saw that my girlfriend had tears in her eyes. I asked her why. She said she was thinking of her teen age daughters.

At that point I thought she needed some important education about how such numbers are arrived at and what they really mean.

What are STD’s . These are diseases that appear to be transmitted sexually but not solely. In contrast to diseases that pass in bodily fluids there are those that are air born. The flu is an example of the latter.

Gonorrhea is an infection that can be transmitted from penis to throat, vagina or anus or vice versa from vagina or throat or anus to penis. It’s treatable with antibiotics. It’s relatively easily recognised in men because of the common discharge and the discharge can be noticed by women too though more commonly women can have the disease, be carriers, and not know it. Being tested with a vaginal swab is the best test for women and a urethral swab for men and symptomatically throat and anus swabs will pick up the organisms that cause the disease. Usually the worst thing that untreated gonorrhea can do in women is cause pelvic inflammatory disease, painful cramping and involvement of the tubes with the chance of a false diagnosis of appendicitis. The sad part is that this can be a cause for infertility because of the scarring of the tubes. Infertility and scarring may occur in men as well though is far less likely.

Syphillis is the most serious of the old time Sexually Transmitted Diseases. It was apparently what the Indians gave to Columbus and his men and because of the spread in war was commonly called the ‘French Disease’ or the “English Disease’. The treponema is not that disimiliar to tuberculosis the other scourge of latterday. The first symptom is a rash and later it can invade the brain and cause dementia.

Government decisions in the past which were somehat lacking in wisdom were commonly ascribed to syphilis. Perhaps, unfortunately, due to the advances of modern medicine the government has no such excuse to day. In end stage there were ‘gumma’s’ that literally ate away the nose or some internal organ causing death by internal bleeding. It’s treatable today with antibiotics. Penicillin’s fame was indeed related to it’s success with syphilis. History texts and old Scottish songs speak of mercury cures and use of other metals. Today it is treatable and a blood test will easily indicate whether one has or doesn’t have this disease. It became rare for decades in the western world until it began to show again more frequently in the west coast gay population. It has always be prevalent in third world heterosexual populations.

Chlamydia is another bacteria which was little known a couple of decades back. Rarely did it cause symptons though it was found to be associated with pelvic inflammatory disease that crampy abdominal pain illness that mimicked appendicitis and could lead to scarring of the tubes and infertility. It’s asymptomatic in men and not known to cause any real trouble as it really is benign in most women and men but can be transmitted. It was considered a ‘bad bacteria’ when it was found in abundance with disease but it was also found commonly without disease. It’s treatable with antibiotics. Including it in the Sexually Transmitted Disease categories has greatly increased the statistical numbers of STD without there being any overall significant worsening for the population in general.

That comes to these ‘bad’ and ‘good’ bacteria. The body is not a sterile place It is inhabilited with bugs called bacteria, virus, fungus. Most of these are good and indeed having good tenants on the body is a way to keep the bad bugs from moving in. The numbers of bugs and the combinations of bugs and the presence of too many bad bugs is one part of the ‘disease’ equation.

The other part is the immunological system. The body has a recognition and defence system to keep tract of the inhabitants on its surface and in it’s bowels and vagina and urethra and bladder. The early warning system that recognises and detects those bugs without a proper overnight parking pass call up homeland security and remove the offenders. The immunological system has it’s police and armies and a whole slew of high tech weapons that are constantly being upgraded in face of changing threats. It’s just like the computer firewalls and antivirus systems except far more miraculous.

For any disease to happen at all there has to be a play between these factors and far more. It’s not simplistic. Disease is biological, psychological, sociological (political) and spiritual.

To this end I can have a sexually transmitted disease today and without any treatment not have it tomorrow. I am myself a highly specialized self healing mechanism. If we would spend some time on learning about living rather than killing each other we’d know by now why neuts can re grow tails and limbs and be able to do this ourselves at will. But collectively the world is still too primitive politically to think of anything more important than a weapon for killing humans. Occasionally when the whole of the world’s resources aren’t being applied to that task a development in health is allowed even if it’s really a sissy childish thing to heal.

Herpes is a viral example of an STD. Interestingly studies show that almost 97% of the population have had contact with this and kicked it out. It may be something that’s living in the neighbourhood naturally but only gets out of hand when other things happen. People can have one ‘episode’ of herpes….just like a cold sore but on the genitals….and never have another. It lies dormant in the body and is only really transmittable when there is an ‘outbreak’. Just like a lip cold sore in this regard. Kissing could transmitt the cold sore for the lips when a person is infectious. Most people it seems don’t have any problems with herpes but a few have recurrent episodes and then there are those that have some episodes and then it’s over not showing up again at all or only in late stages like that other herpes, zoster, which causes shingles (itchy scaly skin usually on the back in a patch distribution that’s characteristic) and can happen more commonly in the elderly.

Then there is HIV and Hepatitis. I'm not going to even get into this discussion because the 'statistical models" and their manipulations began well before these latest sexual 'scourges'.

As a child I and every boy in my class was taken out to be shown pictures of the sexually transmitted diseases and how they would kill you in the ugliest most disgusting and perverse way if you even looked at your own genitals. Meanwhile it would take Sgte Ryan and some modern movies to finally show us collectively what the War Transmitted Diseases looked like and how deadly a bomb exploding on a child's brain could be. Work Transmitted Diseases are almost as deadly if you are unfortunate enough to work in the Agricultural or Manufacturing sectors of society. Government Transmitted Diseases are ubiquitous because of the arrogance and bullying that beaurocrats are notorious for. Statistically anyway you cut it WTD's outrank STD's and GTD's are altogether worse than WTD's and STD's together. Hence it's still safe to say Make Love, Not War.

Now consider the ‘statistics’. If one is talking about sexually transmitted disease and includes herpes one really could say 4 out of 4 boys and girls have a sexually transmitted disease. Watch this statistically because what I’m going to tell you is whatever way you slice the pie you can get 8 out of 4 people with a sexually transmitted disease depending on how you juggle the numbers. Most commonly the person with one sexually transmitted disease has another but if the statistic is 1 in 4 it may be arrived at by 1 girl having two diseases and another having 2 and the rest having none then with some fancy division you get this higher number. Further the same person often is getting the disease over and over but commonly this is how the numbers are altered upwards much like the Americans in Florida alter their vote numbers to get whatever "politically correct" number they want. Always consider statistics being flouted in terms of incidence and prevalence. Incidence meanss the number of 'new cases" and prevalence is the number of 'existing cases'. Further does the statistic reflect the number of individuals with a disease or the number of diseases because in the latter (perhaps taken from the lab) the number can be grossly affected by recurrence of the disease in one individual, several diseases in one individual or multiple testings of one individual during the course of their one disease.

And yes, the statistics are being manipulated . The statistics are what get jobs and money for the industries that are paying for the advertising and promoting the treatments. Even penicillin which is really cheap has a political lobby. If you don't believe this I have some marvellous swamp land to sell you which will come equipped with a terrorist and a drug dealer in every room.

A lot of statistics are just used to scare people and sometimes they may create the very ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ they hoped to avoid in their attempt to wake up the pollyana. The fact remains that sex is already ‘dirty’ enough in this culture that it really doesn’t help to dirty the waters more with misinformation and fear mongering. Be safe but don’t be stupid.