1 in 4 College Students Has Cooties

Last week an eye-catching infographic was posted at Online Colleges, a resource for people looking for information on web-based education and related topics. The graphic alarmingly states that 1 in 4 college students have a sexually transmitted disease, citing improper or lack of male condom use and the consumption of alcohol as major contributing factors. The graphic, featuring an illustration of a young Caucasian male wearing a fetching pair of boxer shorts, was immediately picked up by a number of blogs and websites for college students. It seems the idea that getting sick from having sex is new and surprising to young people, and that’s as disturbing as the 1 in 4 statistic.

The infographic was created in-house using data collected from a number of third-party sources: getstdtested.com, a business that provides at-home STD testing for outrageous fees, stdandhivtesting.com, another service fee-based testing service, collegehealthadvisor.com, a clearinghouse of articles related to generalized health on campus, nursingschools.net, a guide for online nursing schools, ashastd.org, a page from the American Social Health Association, who advocate the same STD prevention methods as the CDC (see below), stdservices.org.net, a defunct address for a page now called yeah.com, that bastion of completely vetted double-blind tested scientific information: wikipedia, and cdc.gov, the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When asked why the team chose to exclude women who have sex with women as a demographic, Muhammad Saleen, one of the creators of the poster said: “It was not our intention to exclude anyone from our infographic, all the data presented on there is from third-party sources and data sets and any gaps in the information are because of the datasets used.” [Read more...]

Wednesday News Roundup

mouse2Teen Girls Bear the Burden of STD’s According to CDC – RH Reality Check
Fess Up, Faux Clinics – Broadsheet
The Anti-Abortion Protest That Wasn’t – Broadsheet
Health Care Will Reform Birth Control, Too – The Wichita Eagle
Broaching Birth Control With Afghan Mullahs – New York Times

Tuesday News Roundup

mouse-clickDear Mr. Stupak, Do You Trust Women? – RH Reality Check
The Democrats’ Own Trojan Horse – RH Reality Check
NARAL Delivers Over 97,000 Signatures to Harry Reid – RH Reality Check
Teenage Girls Bear the Burden of STD Transmission – Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates
Will the Senate Stand Against Stupak? – The Nation
Insurance Execs Confirm Stupak Amendment Will Kill Abortion Coverage – RH Reality Check

National HIV Testing Day

aids-ribbonYes, that would be correct. Today, June 27th, is national HIV testing day…and everyone should use this as an opportunity to increase awareness surrounding issues of bodily health. It is absolutely vital, as feminists, to take our health into our own hands and stay fully informed about our bodies. The National HIV testing day is an annual campaign coordinated by the National Association of People with AIDS, in an attempt to get people of ALL AGES, to get tested.

Stigma surrounding HIV still remains one of the number one barriers to getting tested, and it is important to dismantle the taboo surrounding sexuality that prevents every day people from getting tested.

Tell your friends, colleagues, family, etc. Tell them that today is the day that we stop the stigmatization, encourage others to be proud of their sexuality and to know that there is nothing wrong with getting tested to stay safe. Conservative right-wingers in this country think the solution is to stay silent and preach abstinence-only values. We have all seen how effective this campaign of sex-negativity has been, and in order to fight back, let’s disseminate the information necessary to get people on board with transparent discussions about sexuality and bodily health. [Read more...]