On Tuesday, we started the lesson on STIs. Not the greatest lesson to leave off on going into Thanksgiving break. Anyways, this was probably my first formal lesson regarding STIs. I’ve never been the squeamish type, but I didn’t really enjoy seeing these pictures and most of the time I just didn’t look at the screen or I only looked for a second. While this lesson made me uncomfy, I do think it is an important one to learn.

In my wellness management class, I had learned that a majority of the sexually active population is between the ages of 15 to 24. At 15, we were barely being taught about sex, so learning about STIs was never really in the question. Like I had mentioned in my blog post where I had talked about learning about sex, it wasn’t that we weren’t allowed to learn these topics, but it never fell under the course requirements. I do, however, think in some of our required science classes that it should be required to be taught.

When I was in high school, I was in the Sports Medicine Academy. Not all of our classes were about sports medicine, but were much on the medical side of any science class I ever took. I expected to learn more about stuff like STIs in those classes, but I can’t really recall anytime it was formally taught. Even though I am grateful we are being taught about it now, I do think that it something we should be taught earlier on. If the majority of the sexually active population is between the ages of 15 to 24, we need to either start these discussions our freshman year of high school or earlier.

I also don’t believe we should use STIs as a tactic of deterring sexual activity. I know plenty of parents who teach their kids about STIs, but only to scare them away from sexual activity. What should be done is to teach young people (or anyone for that matter) the importance of the use of condoms and talking to your sexual partner about if they have been tested as well as the importance of being tested regularly. Most colleges do free STI testing (we do it in our health center and we have free condoms as well!!) and we should normalize going to get tested rather than make it something to be embarrassed of. There’s nothing embarrassing about self care and your health!