We interrupt your regular smutty flow to bring you this <cough> public health message.
The flu is a sexually transmissible infection. Just saying. Not specifically swine flu, just the ordinary flu that leaves you miserable-for-a-week, gotta cancel yer work & dates cause you're feverish and snotular & feeling like warmed-over tapir vomit. I don't mean it takes intimate sexual congress to share it, but that intimate (and even not-so-intimate) contact will give the flu a good chance to spread.
I put it in this context because in the crowd of sluts I hang with, it's obvious even to the casual observer that we take extraordinary pains to try to protect each other from being exposed to the known, sexually-specific-and-therefore-scary bugs. What the neophyte sluts and less observant casual observers may be missing is that we take similar pains around the more mundane health issues; the obvious stuff that seems just like basic good manners until you notice the newbie at a play party not doing it, or until you're seriously inconvenienced by a date you presumed had more care or common sense:
-washing your hands between scenes, between partners, between orifices, whether or not you've used gloves.
-covering your fricking mouth when you cough.
-canceling that date and staying home until your fever's gone, your sore throat is passed and your cough has subsided.
-(in this land of socialized and occasionally functional medicine) seeing the doctor regularly, getting regularly tested, having bloodwork done for as many of the possible bugs as one can, getting inoculated where possible.
-replacing denial and wishful thinking with current information, communication and all that good stuff.
I was reading an article in [someone else's] Globe & Mail today about the recently imposed legal penalties for knowingly exposing someone to HIV. For all the lip service that the writer was giving to voicing two differing perspectives on that multifaceted issue, from what I recall the 2-page article seemed to mention using barrier protection once, indirectly. Seems pretty obvious just from this omission that there is still a public dream afoot in which the law and science somehow save the day. Somehow they'll come up with the right combination of sticks, carrots and magic bullets to allow most people to stay untested and keep having un-discussed, inebriated, unprotected sex while the unfortunate few who actually take the time to know their health status are magically locked away, made to wear beacons, forced to disclose their status, etc..
Public discussion about life & death health issues brings this attitude to the foreground, while also showing how disproportionately we obsess over the uncommon whilst ignoring the commonplace. What if there were criminal charges for knowingly exposing co-workers to your flu by coming to work sick, or not covering your mouth when you cough on public transportation? What if it were your legal responsibility to tell a new lover "I have Herpes type 2" or "I don't know what those bumps near my bum are"? Would we be so eager to jump on board in support of these (arguably far more statistically relevant, far more potentially cost-saving) legal interventions as health measures?
To be clear, I'm not advocating that these further restrictions become law. I'm just cranky that 30 years after AIDS hit the media, it's still so taboo and unusual to promote personal responsibility in the ordinary, everyday, inconvenient & unsexy ways that it's necessary. Condoms, gloves, testing, communication, education and common sense can't be replaced by any amount of punitive law, or by any amount of finger-pointing & obfustication.
Thank you. <cough>.
The flu is a sexually transmissible infection. Just saying. Not specifically swine flu, just the ordinary flu that leaves you miserable-for-a-week, gotta cancel yer work & dates cause you're feverish and snotular & feeling like warmed-over tapir vomit. I don't mean it takes intimate sexual congress to share it, but that intimate (and even not-so-intimate) contact will give the flu a good chance to spread.
I put it in this context because in the crowd of sluts I hang with, it's obvious even to the casual observer that we take extraordinary pains to try to protect each other from being exposed to the known, sexually-specific-and-therefore-scary bugs. What the neophyte sluts and less observant casual observers may be missing is that we take similar pains around the more mundane health issues; the obvious stuff that seems just like basic good manners until you notice the newbie at a play party not doing it, or until you're seriously inconvenienced by a date you presumed had more care or common sense:
-washing your hands between scenes, between partners, between orifices, whether or not you've used gloves.
-covering your fricking mouth when you cough.
-canceling that date and staying home until your fever's gone, your sore throat is passed and your cough has subsided.
-(in this land of socialized and occasionally functional medicine) seeing the doctor regularly, getting regularly tested, having bloodwork done for as many of the possible bugs as one can, getting inoculated where possible.
-replacing denial and wishful thinking with current information, communication and all that good stuff.
I was reading an article in [someone else's] Globe & Mail today about the recently imposed legal penalties for knowingly exposing someone to HIV. For all the lip service that the writer was giving to voicing two differing perspectives on that multifaceted issue, from what I recall the 2-page article seemed to mention using barrier protection once, indirectly. Seems pretty obvious just from this omission that there is still a public dream afoot in which the law and science somehow save the day. Somehow they'll come up with the right combination of sticks, carrots and magic bullets to allow most people to stay untested and keep having un-discussed, inebriated, unprotected sex while the unfortunate few who actually take the time to know their health status are magically locked away, made to wear beacons, forced to disclose their status, etc..
Public discussion about life & death health issues brings this attitude to the foreground, while also showing how disproportionately we obsess over the uncommon whilst ignoring the commonplace. What if there were criminal charges for knowingly exposing co-workers to your flu by coming to work sick, or not covering your mouth when you cough on public transportation? What if it were your legal responsibility to tell a new lover "I have Herpes type 2" or "I don't know what those bumps near my bum are"? Would we be so eager to jump on board in support of these (arguably far more statistically relevant, far more potentially cost-saving) legal interventions as health measures?
To be clear, I'm not advocating that these further restrictions become law. I'm just cranky that 30 years after AIDS hit the media, it's still so taboo and unusual to promote personal responsibility in the ordinary, everyday, inconvenient & unsexy ways that it's necessary. Condoms, gloves, testing, communication, education and common sense can't be replaced by any amount of punitive law, or by any amount of finger-pointing & obfustication.
Thank you. <cough>.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
sodome:
Vinyl might make a whole lot more sense than lambskin. The organic ones ain't virus-proof.
valcapone:
True, but she just wanted me to say, "Yeah, sure, go ahead and go condom-free! Here is a magical pill you can take to make sure you don't get any number of STIs! And yes, I endorse you using the morning-after pill as a pre-planned method of birth control!" Yikes.