How to Have the STIs Conversation | Our Bodies Ourselves

Talking about sex and sexuality can be hard. No one teaches us how to do it. Dr. Evelin Dacker, a physician and sex educator, speaks here with NPR's Marielle Segara. Dacker shares tips on how to communicate with potential partners about sex, including STI (sexually transmitted infection) status.

There are two categories of STIs: bacterial and viral. Bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics. They include gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis. Viral infections may be suppressed by our immune systems. While they don’t go away, we can decrease the presence of the virus so that we don’t transmit it to others. These include HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), HPV (human papillomavirus), and herpes.

When it comes to sex and intimacy, it is important that we set our own personal guidelines. To aid us in doing so, Dr. Dacker developed the S.T.A.R.S. Framework. This guides us in communicating our:

S: Sexual health needs
T: Turn-ons
A: Avoids
R: Relationship intentions and expectations
S: Safety needs

In the video, Segara and Dr. Dacker act out two scenarios that demonstrate this framework in conversation. One scenario depicts a conversation where both people are negative. The second scenario depicts a conversation where someone is herpes positive.

I like to say the worst STIs that we give each other are shame, guilt and fear. And we walk around with that a lot. We walk around with that baggage of, oh, my gosh, if I have sex with more than one person in my life, then there is this thing that's going to give me this shame. And if I ever come back with something positive, then that's going to mark me as being something that is not desirable.

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SOURCE: NPR: Life Kit • AUTHOR: Marielle Segarra, Iman Young, and Clare Marie Schneider • LAST UPDATED: March 22, 2023