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Hi Sasha,

My partner broke up with me about five weeks ago.

Even though there were a lot of things wrong with the relationship, the thing that worked well was the sex. But even that was not enough to sustain the relationship. Since then I’ve been going to massage parlours to get off.

I currently need to mind my funds because I am off on sick leave, but my desire for intimate contact to fill my loneliness has been pretty strong lately. I used to see escorts but I’m worried about contracting something despite the fact that I’ve always played it safe and only use the better agencies. Seeing escorts is more satisfying than the old rub-and-tug and body slide.

Any thoughts?

Duck

Dear Duck,

Well, of course it’s a huge relief to hear that you’re seeing women from the “better agencies.” It’s not widely known (damn STI educators are always trying to suppress this information – they are a menace, those people) but the words “upscale” and “exclusive” are universal deterrents for all STIs. I do worry that your dwindling funds will lead you to making a decision that will put you in contact with someone who does not have the Universal Upscale Barrier, though, so let’s come up with some strategies to prevent that. This could include masturbation, so I hope you’re prepared to take care of some of your needs on your own.

Oh, Duck. STIs like snazzy pussy just as much as ratchet pussy. They don’t care whether the pussy works for the Donald Trump Agency or if it’s simply attached to a civilian. No matter how you pronounce Versace, if you’re engaging in oral, vaginal or anal sex with anyone whose sexual history has not been made 100 per cent clear from the outset, there is always a chance of exposure to a multitude of ingenious infections and viruses. Even if you use condoms, skin-to-skin viruses like herpes, molluscum and HPV hang out in areas a condom doesn’t cover.

I feel like when people are having a lot of sex with people who have a lot of sex with a lot of people and then get all shirty about STIs, they’re thinking like this: I want to play soccer with David Beckham but I don’t want him to win. It makes me bonkers.

Think about how wily these viruses are. Think about the millennia they spent figuring out which areas of our bodies we like to clap together. I can just picture them hanging around their teeny-tiny water cooler, killing themselves laughing, “Can you believe dude thinks that a classy typeface and a lingerie set from Agent Provocateur are going to deter us from our goal?”

And though sex workers are generally well versed in safer sex practices, anyone who, for example, gives or receives oral sex without barrier protection, has multiple partners and doesn’t contract herpes or HPV isn’t doing anything different than a person who does contract it this way. He or she has simply decided that the risk is worth the financial gain or fun.

Instead of acknowledging that STIs are as normal to sex as colds and lice are to daycare, we create an irrational moral climate around them and make up myths about how not to come in contact with them. Because we can’t be honest about our desire for sex, we can’t be honest about what can happen when we have it.

Getting an STI means nothing more than that you, like so many others, have pressed your skin against someone else’s skin, and that when you did that, you provided safe passage to the citizens of a microscopic universe. Head and Hands recently published the zine STIgma featuring stories by people living with STIs explaining the impact they’ve had on their lives. I love how honest it is.

Do your best, Duck. Use barrier protection for all your exchanges and try female condoms, which provide more skin-to-skin protection. But if you contract something, just know that you’re no better or worse than someone who did the same thing and didn’t get a pantful.

Sex workers are doing what they can in the area of STI protection, but it’s ridiculous for clients to expect both unprotected oral (giving or receiving) services and zero risk. Protection and safety only work when they go both ways.

If you’re really worried about STIs and you want someone to put her mouth on your dick without a condom or rub her crotch all over your thighs, then be cautious about skin-to-skin contact with a sex worker whose job puts them in contact with a lot of people. If you don’t want to be cautious with a person whose job puts them in contact with a lot of people, then you’re not allowed to get all fucking crazy on him or her if you contract something.

Sex workers don’t like being treated like vectors of disease but the fact is, as human beings, we are all vectors of disease: colds, chlamydia, the flu, scabies, lice, chicken pox, molluscum, warts, scrum pox, orf…. The list is almost endless.

Labelling sexually transmitted infections as more disastrous than non-sexually transmitted ones is something worth reconsidering. Here’s a thought: you get chicken pox because you are a person. You are a person because someone had sex. If someone didn’t have sex for you to get here, you wouldn’t get chicken pox. So the fact is, all viruses are sexually transmitted, to some degree.

There are days when I believe that humans’ primary purpose is to move germs around. Life is made interesting for us so that we stick around to do that. I’m not shitting you – this thought crosses my mind frequently.

Community Notes:

Exciting news, friends! Alison Bechdel, creator of Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, is at Trinity College’s George Ignatieff Theatre on Saturday (December 1), 1 pm, for a conference on childism.

“I’ll be talking about my memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? in the context of Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s ideas about childism,” says Bechdel. “It’ll be kind of an illustrated lecture, with examples and readings from my work.”

If you can’t attend, Bechdel will also be at the Centre for Social Innovation (720 Bathurst) on Sunday (December 2) at 5:30 pm. “The Beguiling event will be a more casual thing where I do a reading from Are You My Mother?, show some slides of my writing and drawing process, and do Q and A.”

Don’t miss these opportunities to hear Bechdel discuss her work, and get that copy of Fun Home or Are You My Mother? you’ve purchased (from one of our local independent bookshops, of course!) for your very lucky friend, partner, spouse or relative signed in time for the holidays.

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