Sexual Freedom Still Carries Risk

[Anonymous]

This take won't take long. Just a musing of a story that recently happened to me and served as a cautionary tale.

Over the last year I've grown increasingly sex positive. Instead of one monogamous relationship I've embraced dating around and am seeing 3 people steadily and have lately added 1 or 2 to that cycle that I don't see regularly. It is great! I have built up my confidence and I have learned a lot of different perspectives from people I wouldn't normally get to know. As the amount of sexual exploits I had grew, the more powerful I felt and more sure of my path I felt.

I also met Sarah. She was a mere 20 years old, had only been with 1 person in her life, went to a Christian college and came from a very conservative household. The kind where birth control is banned.

After our first date I told her she seemed too conservative for me and I didn't want to corrupt her. That must have been a trigger for her and she assured me that wouldn't be an issue. Our second date didn't even leave my house.

I didn't see her much, but maybe one or two other times. It was clear my attitude rubbed off on her while I did, and she picked up a similar lifestyle.

A couple months later she texted me and told me to get checked.

One of the guys she was playing with was freaking out because he clearly now had something. Turns out it was both Herpes and the Clap. Yikes. That poor dude had only been with one girl before being with her, and they were both their first.

Lucky for me, I got tested and found out I only had the Clap. At least that is curable, but I then had the wonderful responsibility of informing 5 different women that I have been with in the last 6 months that they probably need to get checked. I never had symptoms but I could have become sterile it looks like.

Sarah's journey into sexual freedom lasted about 4 months before she got stuck with STD's, one of which will be with her forever. Mine lasted about 10 months before I got stuck myself. Sarah got that call a week before we were planning a weekend to play. I sure got lucky... sort of.

The thing about STD/STI's is that so many have no symptoms. The other thing with them is no one wants to believe or admit they have them so they put off getting tested, then forget about it entirely. Those people that carry them look like any normal person, you just don't know.

Before you speak up, yes I regularly use a condom. Unless you're using one during foreplay too, you're still at risk.

I'm not sure if my story has a point or a moral or an argument. I suppose I just wrote it because outside of the women that I've been with, I won't feel comfortable talking to other people in my life about this because of the judgement I'd receive, yet if more people talked about it maybe we would have more experiences to draw from to make our actions more informed.