Over the last month or two, I’ve seen more than one discussion about various aspects of STIs in women at some feminist blogs and discussion boards, and something keeps coming up that’s troubling me.

We have to be VERY careful about broad generalizations that STI transmission is all about sex with men or all about vaginal or anal intercourse with penises involved: not because of ego or protecting the status quo, but in the interest of protecting everyone’s health, sexual and emotional well-being and not fostering further invisibility.

For certain, lesbian rates of many STIs are considerably lower than rates for heterosexual or bisexual women. There’s plenty of sound data to back that up: it’s not myth or propaganda.

Well, kind of: it should be recognized that in a lot of data collected about lesbian STI rates, “lesbian” is defined in some pretty limited ways — such as meaning ONLY women who have NEVER had any form of sex with men or been with partners who have, and who have never been raped by men, which is a very small portion of the lesbian populace — so that we can only talk about lesbian rates of some STIs cautiously, knowing we likely don’t have the full picture. Lesbian women also tend to get screened for STIs less often, and are sometimes even discouraged from screenings by their healthcare pros and partners, so knowing the rates of STIs in the lesbian population is tricky. Now, with some infections, we can feel a bit more confident: lesbians who ONLY ever sleep with women and whose same-sex partners have only ever slept with women (and this is a very small part of the lesbian populace) DO have decreased risks of many STIs compared to WSM’s, sparing risks of BV, Herpes, Hepatitis B and HPV as well, all of which do commonly show up in WSW, at rates similar to those of WSM (the BV rates are actually higher in lesbian women). Behaviour, screening results and how lesbian is defined aside, we know enough about the simple mechanics of STIs to know that due to the transmission modes of some, lesbian transmission is unlikely or uncommon.

But here’s the rub. Not only is heterosexual vaginal or anal intercourse NOT the only way to transmit and contract STIs, not by a long shot (and lord knows for young women, that myth has hurt them anough already) but lesbians get STIs, too. Clinicans and popular ideas that this isn’t so have endangered lesbian women, not offered protections. And there has been something of a history in the lesbian community at-large, largely because of the enabled myths that only women who sleep with men get STIs, of extra shame for dykes who land an STI. Whose partners will accuse them of cheating with men, for instance, or just full-stop freak out because having to use barriers when they never have before is somehow this ginormous pain in the ass (and cooking for a huge potluck isn’t?). Whose community won’t support them, or where lesbian women with an STI feel they cannot even speak to it, which is obviously both emotionally awful as well as an extra danger per public health. That’s tragic stuff, especially for a person who is already marginalized to begin with.

Like I said, by all means, STI transmission DOES occur more often with women who sleep with men and men who sleep with men, and for younger women, whose cervical cells haven’t finished developing, there are extra dangers with heterosexual intercourse.

But dykes get STIs too, even those who have not ever or do not currently sleep with men. While I’m all for talking to girls and women about the extra health risks posed in sleeping with men, and all for supporting people in questioning heteronormativity, I think we have to be careful how we do this. Treating lesbian sex as if it were a sound form of safer sex isn’t smart for the state of anyone’s health or well-being, and any form of silencing when it comes to STIs has always done nothing more than keep them as prevalent as they are, and keep those with them deeply ashamed of something that is the genital equivalent of a common cold, in the case of many STIs.

Plus, I’m wary of sending any sort of sexual message out there that pushes ANY orientation on people, no matter what it is. We already know this is an issue with default heterosexuality, so why it wouldn’t be with bisexualty and homosexuality, I couldn’t tell you. Once upon a time, way back when, I was doing some radio thing where someone called in all knickers-in-a-twist saying something to the effect of me “turning” teenage girls gay. My thoughts and response to this were that quite frankly, if I could I would: imagine, if you will, what that’d mean for global rates of fluid-transmitted infections like HIV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea; for teen pregnancy rates, for sexual coercion and sexual abuse rates, for learning about sexual pleasure that isn’t merely vaginal, if even, just for the most developmental years, we could assure that all teen girls only had same-sex partners.

I said that only somewhat tongue-in-cheek (and I confess, also wanted to hear the blissful sound of a wordless conservative when I said that). But the other half of that equation is that even if I had that magnificent power — or any power to influence them that strongly– there’s no way I’d weild it because I don’t see positives in anyone pushing a sexual orientation or a certain type of sexual partner (aside of the type that will treat you well, care for you, and have real interest in mutual pleasure and responsibility) on someone else, for any reason. We come from a long, nasty line of sexual shame and the negatives of sexual “normalcy” or homogenous sexual ideals as it is: we don’t need more, and when we’re talking about wanted, consensual sex, I can’t see any sound rationale in telling anyone to try and feel differently than they do.

Right now, it is STILL a massive struggle to get people to just use latex barriers, to get regular sexual healthcare (and of course, to be able to point them to places they can get it freely and affordably), and to work with partners to co-support in regard to both. We KNOW and can easily show that these things put together ARE highly effective in reducing the spread of STIs, even those like Herpes and HPV for which barriers don’t provide quite as much protection as they do for fluid-borne infections (it’s about a 30% differential, so still, wuite a bit of protection).

There is still, in both the adult and young adult population, a lot of ridiculous B.S. about how latex barriers put something “between” partners and limit intimacy…and all the while, somehow, what the birth control pill does to the female body and aspects of female sexuality isn’t considered a limitation or something that comes “between” people. Go figure. Women, heterosexual and queer alike, STILL have one hell of a time simply handing over a condom or a dental dam as simply as it should be and saying, “Hey, use this,” with no questions asked and no resistance given. And younger people take their cues from older people in this, both in what is directly said to them, and in what they overhear in conversation, or see older adults say in media, on the net in discussions, what have you. (In fact, we’ve had more than one adult come to Scarleteen talking about how awful condoms are to wear, when the adult in question hadn’t even used one in the last two decades, and had no clue that the condoms of old are not the condoms of now in terms of their useability and comfort.)

Point is — and I feel able to speak from the front lines here, since I live on them daily — we still need a lot more of THAT address and discussion, not anything which makes us think there are more ways to avoid that, as if barrier use, sane boundaries and preventative healthcare was this awful, annoying thing we should somehow try and get around. Not some other forms of sexual guilt, shaming or greater invisibility, even if that’s not the intent of such things which can and do result in those.

We have no real way of knowing what the spectrum of sexual orientation would be for us as a population if gendernormativity and heteronormativity weren’t pushed down our throats the way they are. We can reasonably presume, though, based on what we do know, that without all that crap, we’d likely be a largely bisexual populace to varying degrees. But even in that ideal, I think it’s safe to say that a majority of people, men and women alike, would still be feeling plenty of opposite-sex attraction, would still want to act on those attractions and would act on them. So, any approach to STI prevention and reduction that doesn’t acknowledge that and work within that framework not only can carry some profound sexual and emotional negatives, it also just isn’t going to be effective. And I can’t for the life of me, see how women (or men) continuing to be plagued with illness, sexual or otherwise, futhers feminism and gender equality.

filed under Heather Corinna | feminism | rantapalooza | sexuality
posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am

follow responses to this entry through the rss 2.0 feed
you can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.