{"id":7078,"date":"2009-02-23T01:13:58","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T06:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=7078"},"modified":"2011-08-08T02:43:29","modified_gmt":"2011-08-08T07:43:29","slug":"guest-post-representing-sexually-transmitted-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/02\/23\/guest-post-representing-sexually-transmitted-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Representing Sexually Transmitted Diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"

As former a\u00a0sexual health educator and current sexuality studies professor, I\u00a0meet students whose ideas about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)\u00a0have been shaped by\u00a0the ‘scary slideshow’:\u00a0that series of full-color, close-up shots of the\u00a0worst infections.<\/p>\n

(Not safe for work–explicit images of STDs)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"wartvulv\"<\/p>\n

\"warts\"<\/p>\n

Are these images representative?<\/p>\n

Consider the likely socioeconomic status of the men and women whose genitals are used to ‘educate’ the rest of us.\u00a0 Think about the guy who takes out his penis each time he needs to urinate, sees yet another new wart growth and doesn’t seek treatment — isn’t it likely that he has little or no access to healthcare,\u00a0never received comprehensive sexual health education, and may have larger life stresses (poverty, hunger, homelessness) that have led him to make STD treatment a low priority in his life?<\/div>\n
Some sexual health programs have tried to temper these scare tactics by using STD cartoons in place of graphic photos.\u00a0 For example, the University of Bath\u00a0website features “Warty”:<\/div>\n
\"warty\"<\/div>\n
\n
However cute “Warty” may be, I’m not sure that the University of Bath students are any more likely to understand their real risks of contracting HPV.<\/div>\n
The ‘scary slideshow,’ though,\u00a0prevails as the dominant series of educational images.\u00a0 But, as horrified as students are by these images of disfiguring diseases,\u00a0they are also reassured by them.\u00a0 After all, it must be easy to avoid contracting a STD — just\u00a0avoid having sex with people who have\u00a0‘cauliflowers’ of warts sprouting from\u00a0their genitalia.\u00a0 The\u00a0truth about\u00a0these epidemics is far scarier:\u00a0most of us who are infected are\u00a0undiagnosed, diagnosed but unclear about\u00a0risks of transmission, asymptomatic and believing our lack of symptom equals being cured,\u00a0or in denial about the reality of our symptoms (e.g., “Isn’t that just a pimple?”).<\/div>\n
If we\u00a0want to accurately strike fear into the hearts of sexually-active individuals, then we might want to develop\u00a0a STD awareness campaign that visually speaks the truth.\u00a0 Imagine\u00a0a series of tasteful nude images of\u00a0beautiful, sexy men and women whose genitals are clearly devoid of sores, lesions, and warts:\u00a0tag lines below each photo might read “I don’t know\u00a0that I’m infected with genital herpes”<\/em> or “I know I have cervical HPV but my doctor never\u00a0told me I’m contagious.” <\/em><\/div>\n
<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/em><\/div>\n
\"capture9\" <\/em><\/div>\n
A few websites post PG-13 versions of these types of images to accompany\u00a0posts about sexually transmitted infections:<\/div>\n
\n
But,\u00a0it may take more explicit images to drive home\u00a0the point that no matter how ‘healthy’ a potential partner’s external genitalia\u00a0appear to be,\u00a0s\/he might still be infected.<\/div>\n
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(Images found here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
——————————<\/div>\n
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Adina Nack is an\u00a0associate\u00a0professor of Sociology at California Lutheran University<\/a> specializing in medical sociology with a focus on gender inequality and sexual health.\u00a0 Her book,\u00a0Damaged Goods?\u00a0 Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases<\/a> came out in 2008.\u00a0 For STD resources and information about how to have a happy and healthy sex life after becoming infected, please visit Adina online at\u00a0www.adinanack.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our\u00a0Guidelines for Guest Bloggers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As former a\u00a0sexual health educator and current sexuality studies professor, I\u00a0meet students whose ideas about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)\u00a0have been shaped by\u00a0the ‘scary slideshow’:\u00a0that series of full-color, close-up shots of the\u00a0worst infections. (Not safe for work–explicit images of STDs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,34,252,120],"class_list":["post-7078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-education","tag-healthmedicine","tag-sex"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7078"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7092,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7078\/revisions\/7092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}