It’s Friday night and you just passed the hardest biochem test of the semester. Your friends drag you out for a night at the frats. After standing on the wall all night, you finally work up the courage to talk to the cutie you’ve had your eyes on. You guys decide to take it back to your room for some fun consensual sex but neither of you has a condom. Not thinking clearly, you go along with it anyway. In a few weeks, you feel fine and you don’t have any symptoms of an STI, so you decide not to get tested.
By now you’ve probably heard that Vanderbilt was ranked #2 in the top ten least sexually healthy colleges in a report by an independent research group. While this ranking is loosely based on a system measuring the 2014 county STI rate (not just Vanderbilt), average annual campus sexual assault rate and availability of campus sexual health and education resources, this research highlights the hookup culture that is so prominent on campus, and the unintended outcomes that students often encounter. While there is a social stigma surrounding STIs and the people who get them, the reality is that they’re more common than most people know. Half of annually reported cases of STIs are in the 15-24 age group, and many of them go unnoticed, leading to future health problems like scar tissue, pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. However, there’s no sure way to know that you have an STI without getting tested.
No symptoms doesn’t mean you don’t have a sexually transmitted infection. The most common symptom of an STI is not burning, itching, discharge or bleeding but actually no symptom at all. Thus, most of the time you cannot tell that someone has one just by looking at them. Most STIs can be transmitted through oral, vaginal, or anal sex and sometimes kissing if there is a sore on the mouth or skin to skin contact. STIs can result in a lifelong commitment for a split-minute decision. Thus, it is important to practice safer sex by using barrier methods like insertive and external condoms every single time especially if you have multiple partners or if you switch between partners more frequently than you can get tested.
Even if you have one single partner that you’re sure is STI free, getting tested together before you engage in sex can be a healthy part of your relationship. Communication is key, so if you’re unsure how to broach that topic, emphasize that you care for your own and your partner’s health, and you believe that these conversations can help ensure the growth of the relationship. Still, even if the sex is casual, knowing your status can ensure that you are able to pinpoint when you got it and find out how not to pass it along to your next partner.
So does a negative test result mean you’re in the clear? A negative test result means no STI-causing bacteria/viruses or antibodies for them were found at the time of the test. Each STI has a ‘window period.’ This is the time between when a person comes in contact with an STI, and when the STI will show up on a test. If the test is taken too soon after contact there is a chance that a test result is not accurate. Infections caused by viruses like herpes, HPV and HIV can take as long as 3 months to show up after you’ve been exposed.
Wanna get tested? On campus, you can go to the Student Health Center which offers full STI screenings. In the greater Nashville area, you can go to Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee, Lentz Public Health Center and Nashville Cares for free HIV testing. Vandy Sex Ed also will be hosting a HIV testing event in Sarratt 325/327 on Tuesday, November 7th from 11 AM to 2 PM!