Greetings!
On my travels I have noticed that some of you Tallywhacker Wielders out there have got things a bit arse backwards when it comes to the facts about STIs so I want to do a little True or False game so you won’t seem like such a ruddy fool next time there is a question about STIs at your pub quiz or whatever.
I don’t really know what questions they ask at those things as I was banned from all pubs in Great Britain before the pub quiz was invented. Anyway, here goes…
MYTH – YOU CAN’T GET STIs FROM A LIGHT BIT OF ORAL
FALSE
It may not be as risky as indulging in unsheathed fanny fun or bum shenanigans but there is still a risk of getting something nasty in your mouth. Herpes, gonorrhoea and syphilis are the most common critters to climb into your cakehole so watch out. Half of people don’t know you can get an STI from oral and just 1 in 10 heard about this fact in sex ed at school and the best way to avoid this sort of thing is male or female ‘rubber johnny’.
MYTH – STI TESTS HURT LIKE HELL AND YOU’LL PROBABLY DIE OF EMBARRASSMENT
FALSE
As a gentleman of leisure who knows a thing or two about STI tests I have to say that they are not painful or embarrassing. Ladies and gents there is nothing to fear. You get swabbed with a cotton bud, they take a quick looky-see to check if things are ticked-boo. They take your blood sometimes, depending on the test but that is quick and relatively pain-free. The health-care professional who administers the test has seen everything before and they’re aware that an STI is not a reflection on the cleanliness of a chap or chapette.
I can’t be the only one who has heard about cocktail umbrellas being shoved down a gent’s pee-hole and dragged out in order to test for infections. This idea is pure myth and if I ever catch up with the braggard who started this scary rumour, I will scrub coal in his hair. Or slap him with my glove. Or both.
MYTH – ONLY ‘THE GAYS’ OR ‘DRUGGIES’ GET HIV
FALSE
I feel like a damn fool having to even say this but HIV doesn’t give a fig whether you are gay or straight. It doesn’t care diddly-squat if you indulge in opiates. It couldn’t care less about the colour of your skin. It never fails to surprise me that those beliefs still hang around like a bad smell but they do. It is all about miseducation and that needs to change.
The problem with those beliefs, apart from that they are offensive, is that it causes some reckless fellows to saunter around whapping their tallywhackers up holes with nary a care for the consequences because they think because they don’t fall into those stereotypes, they are immune. No one is immune. Anyone who is sexually active is at risk if they don’t tale precautions.
How many people know that 18,000 people in the UK have HIV but have no clue they have it? How many people know that one-third of those living with HIV are ladies? How many know that half of cases are transmitted through hetero sex? Hardly anyone is aware of these facts so pass it on. The facts, not the HIV. Once again the safest way to do it is with a prophylactic on your chap.
MYTH – THE PILL PROTECTS AGAINST STIs
FALSE
I don’t know why anyone would believe this but they do. Once again a damning indictment of British sex education. Do you think I love doing this? I would rather be meeting up with chaps from the gents club I attend, to play conkers and knock down Ginger. Don’t worry, Ginger is a good sport and doesn’t mind at all.
I think the reason the contraceptive pill is conflated with protection is that it is seen as the female version of a condom. People primarily think of condoms as preventing pregnancy, with a secondary function of stopping you get STIs. They then automatically think the same of the pill. It is not true and condoms are needed too.
An equally daft idea is that if your partner pulls out before he ‘finishes’, you catch an STI. That idea is also totally false.
MYTH – ONLY PROMISCUOUS PEEPS GET STIS
FALSE
STIs couldn’t give a flying monkey’s uncle if you have been saving yourself for marriage and thought: “oh once won’t do any harm”.
If you have had sex in the front bottom, in the back bottom (AKA the bottom), in the face bottom (AKA the mouth), have had genital contact or even if you’ve shared a dildo or 3, you are at risk of catching an STI and it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it for the first time or for the millionth.
MYTH – STIs ARE LIKE AN UNLIKED RELATIVE: IF THEY COME TO VISIT, YOU CAN JUST IGNORE THEM AND THEY WILL GO AWAY
FALSE
Just like Albert, a hated second cousin, STIs are irritating, sometimes painful to endure and very unwelcome. The difference between Albert and an STI, is that you can’t just ignore an STI or lock them in a room and go on holiday. With STIs, even if the signs of the infection go away it does not mean that the STI has actually left you. You will still be infectious to your partners so it is unwise to leave this untested and untreated. STIs are, however, tenacious like Albert, who lived on sofa crumbs until I returned, hiding behind the door and striking me with an expensive Japanese vase. I cannot think of a finer metaphor for STIs and I’m sure you agree.
MYTH – YOU DON’T NEED TO WEAR A RUBBER JOHNNY IF YOU’RE DOING BUM FUN
FALSE
Some silly billies out there are having bum fun without using a ‘rubber johnny’ for protection. Using a condom is the best chance you have of avoiding catching an STI, even if it isn’t always 100%. This is why you need to be tested regularly.
Use of a water-based lubricant makes it less likely that the prophylactic will break. Some people use nothing or spit or oils, all of which may be cheaper, especially using nothing which, whilst being very budget-friendly, is also STI-friendly, and you do not want to be friends with an STI. They’re always borrowing money off you and making you infertile.
In conclusion: condom + water-based lube = safer bum fun.
MYTH – YOU CAN GET HERPES FROM A TOILET SEAT
FALSE
I mean, if you’re sitting on disgusting toilet seats, you aren’t going to be the cleanest pup at the pageant but this myth doesn’t make a jot of sense. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows that Herpes Simplex, which is a virus, is spread by direct contact of mucous membranes (in the mouth, genitals, etc.) with saliva, sores or secretions of a herpes-infected person. It can be spread whether there is a visible sore or not and condom use is your best bet of avoiding infection.
Oh and door knobs, drinking receptacles, towels, etc. should be feared no longer. You can’t catch it from them.
MYTH – CONDOMS PROTECT AGAINST EVERYTHING
FALSE
Whilst they are the best protection against nasties that lurk in the bodily fluids, they don’t offer protection against everything. Tallywhacker in fanny action with a ‘rubber johnny’ on will reduce your risk of HIV to only 20% compared to sex without a rubber on so it really is your best bet if you want to rut like a wild beast.
Condoms don’t offer full protection from skin-on-skin STIs like Herpes, HPV and Syphilis unless the infections themselves are where the condom covers. It is always the best decision to get your chap checked to make sure you know what’s going on downstairs.
MYTH – “I’M A MAN WITH A KEEN SENSE OF STIs SO I WOULD KNOW IF I HAD ONE”
FALSE
Um, no. You are a buffoon of the highest order. Which is not a compliment! You don’t know a damned thing. Get tested. I don’t know if I made myself clear. Let me say this again: GET TESTED. The reason that STIs are spread is because you have some nincompoops out there who are extremely over-confident in their belief that they would never or could never pick up an STI. Or maybe they’re just burying their heads in the sand. If they are burying their heads in the sand, I’m here to kick them up their behind and hopefully get some sense into them.
The same goes for the idea that you can tell if someone has an STI just by looking at them. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need specialist clinics to handle the STI crisis, we’d just employ these lickspittles who know everything. That would be crazy.
MYTH – ANY WEIRD RASH, PAINFUL URINATION OR YUCKY DISCHARGE IS A SIGN OF AN STI
FALSE
No one likes the unexpected and if your waterworks are leaking, the first thought is usually that it is an STI. It may be that and that’s why you should get tested but also, on the otherhand, it can be a urinary infection unrelated to sex. It is always best to get these things tested, but as I have mentioned before, just because you don’t have these types of symptoms, doesn’t mean you don’t have an STI.
MYTH – JUST GET SOME ANTIBIOTICS DOWN YOU AND YOU’LL BE RIGHT AS RAIN
FALSE
Whilst that fantastical modern medicine can do a lot of wowser things, it can’t cure every STI.
HIV and Genital Herpes cannot be cured. They can be treated with antivirals but cannot be removed from the body. There is also word around the bordello of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea. All that a chap about town can do is wrap his chap up before he whaps his chap up and go to the clinic to get the pipes checked.
MYTH – WEARING TWO RUBBERS GIVES DOUBLE THE PROTECTION
FALSE
Nope. Double nope. They actually increase your chance of getting an infection as the friction between the two condoms could cause them to split. Did you ever see a fellow wearing two hats when it rained? No, of course you haven’t.
MYTH – IF YOU’VE ALREADY HAD THE CLAP, IT WON’T COME BACK
FALSE
Herpes and HIV are with you for the long term but even if you get successful treatment for those crafty (and hard to spell) buggers like Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea, you can totally get them back if you do the beast with two backs with an infected person. Sometimes partners can re-infect each other if they aren’t both treated, so be a smarty pants, get checked, get treated and complete your treatment before there are any more dalliances.
MYTH – STIs ARE A YOUNG PERSON’S GAME
FALSE
I may be getting on in my years but I don’t yet qualify for the ‘Silver STI Shagger’ status. You see, with the divorce rates rising, the older gents and ladies are out there on the hunt for new mates and I think they have it in their old minds that they are too old to catch ‘the clap’ or ‘the clam’ or ‘the gift that keeps on giving’. It could be habit for the old fogeys that they didn’t use a rubber with their ex so they don’t need to now. They’re not usually worried about unplanned pregnancies but they should rubber-up their old ducks and use their bus passes to get to the clinic for a check-up. I just stride there like the virile man that I am. I told you, I’m not old. Okay?
I hope this has been of help to you. I also hope you noticed that they were all false. If you got them all right on your quiz sheet, you should be proud as punch about that as there isn’t a prize. Apart from being very unlikely to get an STI.
Yours Unfaithfully,
Chappy the Chap