OPINION & EDITORIAL
Campus safety includes sexual health
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by James Maslowski
Tuesday, December 9, 2003
If you have had a new sexual partner or multiple sexual partners this semester, you are at risk of having contracted an STD and should get tested. Even if you feel healthy, getting tested is important because some infections are asymptomatic — that is, they don’t have symptoms. You may, therefore, be infected even though you feel fine.
Testing is beneficial because the sooner an infection is detected, the sooner it can be treated. Early treatment can, depending on the diagnosis, cure infections, suppress symptoms, prevent complications or provide a combination of these benefits. Testing is also key because you are less likely to transmit an infection if you know you have one.
Testing is easily available on campus. The Blue Bus Clinic, located at University Health Services, provides testing free of charge. Call the Bus Clinic at (608) 265-5600 to arrange an appointment, which can usually be scheduled within a week.
Because you have an appointment, there will be little or no wait. When you arrive, you meet with a clinician in a private room. Men take a urine or blood test, depending on the infection being screened. Women are given a pelvic exam or take a blood test, depending on the infection being screened. For both sexes, testing takes half an hour, tops. Confidential test results are received within a week.
Though logistically easy, getting tested can be emotionally difficult, and feelings that keep students from getting tested should be recognized and respected. However, because getting tested benefits your health and the health of your sexual partner, and because not getting tested may threaten your health and the health of your sexual partner, these feelings are worth overcoming.
One feeling that keeps students from getting tested is fear. Students do not want to get tested because they are afraid of testing positive. If you feel similarly, you are not alone. Many students have, in the face of this fear, turned away from testing. But many, too, have gotten past their fear and made it to the clinic.
We think there are good reasons why you should choose the second path. If you get tested and your results are positive, we cannot deny that you may face difficult news. But of great benefit to your health is that you face your infection early, when treatment is most effective.
If, on the other hand, you are infected but do not get tested, you merely put off the diagnosis you eventually must face, and you miss out on the benefits of early treatment. The longer a disease goes untreated, the more harmful it becomes. Wouldn’t it be better to know about your infection now than later?
Wouldn’t you also rather find out now that you are not infected? If you get tested and the results are negative, a heavy worry is lifted from your shoulders. On the other hand, if you don’t get tested, you must continue to worry that an asymptomatic infection hides within you. You must continue to worry that you are infecting your sexual partner. Wouldn’t it be better to find out now? We respect the fact that getting tested can be scary, but the case for overcoming this fear is stronger.
Students also avoid testing because it makes them feel ashamed of themselves. Getting tested makes some students feel irresponsible, reckless, stupid and promiscuous. To avoid these feelings, students avoid testing. We don’t think avoiding testing is the right response to these feelings. Early discovery and treatment of STDs is crucial to your health and the health of your sexual partner. By getting tested, you are being smart and responsible. If you want to avoid shame caused by perceived recklessness, you should not make the unwise and unsafe decision to not get tested.
You should not be ashamed of taking care of yourself. When you get tested, you overcome your fears to make the smart and healthy move, and that is something to be proud of.
James Maslowski (jpmaslowski@wisc.edu), Laura Kelash (lmkelash@wisc.edu) and Tom Burgess (tburgess@wisc.edu) are seniors majoring in communication arts.
