Sex, Covid, Chlamydia, and Me

Photograph by Lida Everhart

I recently had an experience hooking up with someone where the connection was unreal. Two bodies and two hearts intertwined with all the passion and buildup that one could ever hope for. My summer had been arguably dry, so I was thrilled to return to campus life in Boston to be around my contemporaries and to better my mind and spirit. 

One aspect of this just happened to be continuing my journey of sexual and romantic exploration. After all of that time, my first experiences back were well worth the waiting period. However, within days of returning to Emerson College, I could feel my body deteriorating. It started with a cough. Then a sore throat. Then taking COVID tests daily. Though I was only ever faced with negative tests, I started wearing a mask to class. One day, I received a text that my sexual partner was experiencing other sorts of symptoms. With some discomfort, he got checked out––thankfully, it was only a UTI and we both remained STD and illness-free.

 Still, this raised all sorts of questions for me. When people such as students enter a new community, are illnesses to be expected? Should we fear them? What are the safety implications of putting yourself out there and hooking up?

Within only a few weeks back at school, There have already been multiple cases of COVID. While the pandemic is far behind us, illnesses are here to stay. Seasons are changing and temperatures are dropping, and with that comes an increase in influenza cases as well as the coronavirus. According to an ongoing study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, cases of the flu have generally spiked between December and March since 1982 all the way until 2022. Additionally, their website states that many other diseases reach peak height during this season including rhinovirus, colloquially known as the “common cold.” 

Just like the flu, the coronavirus often mutates and with this comes new and unusual variants. All that can really be done through modern science is predicting what the next variant will look like so that vaccines can be made. Really though, very little else can protect us from these changing bacteria and viruses.

Due to lockdown and lack of resources, COVID in society affected access for testing sexually transmitted infections, or STIs. According to an article from Planned Parenthood titled “Planned Parenthood and Student Leaders Launch Pilot Initiative to Expand Access to Condoms on College Campuses,” 2021 saw over 2 million STI cases nationwide by the time of the article’s publication in October. The CDC statistics connected to this article cited a lack of ability to test as well as less resources, as funds were allocated toward COVID. To me, I can see how young, hot-and-bothered adults could be driven crazy by the lack of physical touch. Without proper testing, this exacerbates the problem. As we fall head first into the semester, it’s a fact that our immediate shift in social life would cause ailments to spread, but due to a lack of easily accessible information and tests, this sexual explosion could cause STIs to spread as well. So what can we do?

Know your status and trust your doctors! In a world where not only STIs and sex are utterly stigmatized, diseases have now turned into a great fear for young people like ourselves. Now more than ever, we all fear being accidentally exposed to illness, therefore we must communicate with any and all of our partners. I was lucky enough to have my sexual partner text me when he started to worry, but not all people are so open. If we cannot talk to one another, how can we expect to be completely naked both literally and figuratively? 

Finally, when it comes to any disease, we can protect ourselves by following necessary steps such as listening to our bodies, wearing protection, and masking when necessary. Though we’ve made it out of the pandemic woods, diseases still lurk in our sex lives and on the streets. We need to be able to trust one another, and that requires trusting ourselves first. Test, communicate, and stay safe!