#sties

[amphibianaday]

day 1786

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

would you like to tell us about your research on virginity?

but also...wdym STIs aren't as scary as we think??? I was told most of them are incurable? I know you can make aids untrasmittable and that they've even succeded in curing it a couple times but that's about it. I would love to be educated about this

yeah, the basic idea with the virginity project was that the whole concept of virginity is pretty bullshit in the context in which it was initially significant, namely cisgender women being penetrated by cisgender men, so as soon as you take it outside of that context by introducing gay and trans sexuality it totally falls apart. I mean, hell, it stops working if you even look at two cishet people doing literally anything OTHER than penis-in-vagina sex. I tripped up so many people initially when I started asking questions like "okay, so you don't think a woman loses her virginity from a man going down on her. so what if it's two women? what's the difference?" and just really getting people to face down their very penis-centered view of the sex, to the result of several people telling me that it kind of made them reevaluate what they actually think of as the first time they had sex. it's also fascinating to either read other people's accounts or discuss firsthand how queer people have either tried to make themselves fit into the binary of virginity - queer man disagreeing over whether or not you have to have penetrative anal sex to lose your virginity or oral sex is sufficient, a fascinating case of a lesbian who felt that have sex with other cis women didn't "count" and asked a cis male friend to have sex with her just so she could feel satisfied that she'd lost her virginity - or abandon it entirely. Hanne Blank's book Virgin was a formative starting point, and it really exploded for me from there.

as for the STIs - hey, bad news! you fell victim to the scare tactics used to make people afraid of sex! almost all sexually transmitted infections are very easy to treat and cure with the right medicine, which is why it's important to get tested regularly and check in with your healthcare provider at the first sign of something amiss. pubic lice, scabies, trichomoniasis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis - all of those are pretty easy to get rid of with some help from your doctor and a run to the pharmacy!

the major exceptions are the 4 H's: herpes, HIV, HPV, and hepatitis B.

herpes is with you forever but is an incredibly mild companion to share your body with, considering most people never experience any notable symptoms and those who do can curb the severity with medicine.

it's also worth noting that herpes is so common as to be virtually ubiquitous; the World Health Organization consistently estimates that somewhere around 80% of the world's adult population is carrying herpes simplex virus 1 or herpes simplex virus 2. a great deal of those people don't even get it from having sex, but rather by catching HSV-1 from a parent or other people they come is close contact with as a child.

you're actually thinking of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) when you mention AIDS becoming untransmittable, but that's still a very good thing! the care available for people with HIV has come incredibly far since AIDS first became known and claimed so many lives, and today it's more than possible for people infected with HIV to live long, healthy lives by taking the proper medication to manage their viral load.

with management, people with HIV will not develop AIDS (which happens when the immune system is sufficiently depleted by HIV) and by consistently taking their medication people with HIV can become undetectable (the viral load in their body is too small to be detected or measured in tests), at which point they are unable to transmit the virus to other people.

HPV (human paillomavirus) comes in many different strains, most of which are absolutely harmless and go away on their own after a couple of months or years of freeloading in your body. I cannot emphasize this enough: HPV is so common that virtually everyone who has sex has, will have, or has had it in their lives, and the vast, VAST majority of those people will never be troubled by it literally at all.

the trouble comes from a few strains of HPV that can cause genital warts, and a few others that can cause cancers in the throat, anus, cervix, vulva, vagina, and penis. while HPV can't be treated, you can reduce your risk of developing cancer by getting the HPV vaccine if you haven't already and, if you have a cervix, getting regular Pap smears to catch early warning signs of cancerous developments.

hepatitis B is a viral infection that targets the liver. in rare cases it can cause chronic health problems that can be very dangerous, but I have to emphasize that's not common. in most adults who get hep B, there will be no symptoms and it will resolve itself in a matter of weeks. the infection is riskiest in children, but at least in America most people have received vaccines against hepatitis B as babies since the 90s.

in conclusion: get your shots, take your medicine, use protection, get tested, and talk to your doctor, but know that if there's one thing humans are good at it's figuring out how to manage STIs. we've been doing it for a long time - most sexually transmitted infections and parasites have been with us since before we we became modern humans - so we're really good at it!

[penn-dragon]

Mom said it's my turn to draw @ford-owner's au

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Subaru Impreza WRX STi WR1, 2004, by Prodrive. Prodrive Advanced Technology are best know for their work with Subaru's WRC team. The WR1 was a special edition of 500 cars to celebrate Petter Solberg winning the Driver’s Title in the 2003 World Rally Championship. It was modified by Prodrive to produce 320hp and was equipped with a driver’s control centre-differential (DCCD) that allowed torque distribution between front and rear wheels to be manually selected. 

[chaoticace2005]

Cherri: You wanna go upstairs?

Sir Pentious: Sure...

Cherri: You have protection?

Sir Pentious: W-why? What's up there?

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Just a decade ago, syphilis infections among infants were nearly eradicated in Canada. Yet there were warning signs the bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) — known for causing painless sores, organ damage, and stillborn infants — was making a comeback. First, rates started rising among adults in the early 2000s, followed by an alarming spike in congenital infections passed from mothers to their babies.  The latest federal data shows there were nearly 14,000 cases of infectious syphilis across the country in 2022, as well as 117 instances of early congenital syphilis. That's a nearly 15-fold increase from just eight nation-wide cases of syphilis reported in infants five years earlier. "When I started in clinical practice, just over 20 years ago, we'd see syphilis like every couple months," said Patrick O'Byrne, a nurse practitioner with Ottawa Public Health's sexual health clinic. "And I would say it's now daily."

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[shih-coulda-had-it]

and how extensive was this practice

[forthlin]

[punk-jester]

since i watched the movie at the cinema it was in italian and let me say. deadpool calls wolverine "pulce" (flea) which is a mean joke about him having fleas at first but i'm so used to hearing it as a cute nickname (usually a teasing one for younger or more inexperienced people but it can also be genuine) that it just grew on me as the sweetest thing ever

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Subaru WRX STI S207 NBR Challenge Package Yellow Edition, 2015. A special edition of 100 cars finished in Sunrise Yellow with special engine tuning boosting maximum power output to 328PS.

[gkettle]

Gay beasts

[orbitsuns]

[cars-are-life]

[spread-the-influence]

"Hello my children~! I baked pie!"

[ X) ]

[bitchgtr]

I finally made it to the cherry blossoms this year 🌸

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