Sexual health is a subject that most people usually don’t like to talk about, but we all do our best to take care of. It’s more than just what you do to clean up after intimacy, and it isn’t something you should only worry about when you’re being intimate with your partner. Everything from the kind of underwear you use, to the hygiene products you use contribute to your overall sexual health. For example, it’s a fairly common misconception to assume that a woman’s vagina is supposed to have a fruity or flowery odor. The reality of that fact is that a woman who is properly taking care of herself will smell of virtually nothing. Using scents, certain body lotions, and lubricants during sex, can actually cause irritation, and actually harm her, especially those that contain sugar. The same is consistent with men. Wearing certain types of material like restrictive underwear, spandex, silk, and other items that restrict proper airflow can cause a buildup of bacteria leading to an unpleasant odor. This is just a small fraction of what it means to take care of your sexual health.
Sexual health goes beyond just what you wear and clean yourself with. It encompasses things like being regularly tested for sexually transmitted infections (STI’s), showering regularly, gently scrubbing parts of your body that can build up bacteria—especially areas that create crevasses or folds in the skin. In fact, being proactive about being tested regularly is one of the few ways to find out if you have an STI. Most STI’s are asymptomatic—meaning the only way to know if you have one, is by getting tested. The reality of this fact becomes apparent when someone tells you they have HSV-2, or Herpes, as it’s more commonly known. Most people immediately assume they had unsafe sex with an infected person. The truth can sometimes be far more complex than that, as Herpes can be transferred through various means aside from direct sexual contact. This is why it is essential to be tested, and retested, regularly. This principle also applies to people in committed relationships. Even if you trust your spouse implicitly, to completely negate the fact that you can still contract some form of an STI, or to ignore the fact that you may already have one, is absolutely illogical. HPV (Human Papillomavirus) is the most common type of infection in the U.S. and affects nearly every sexually active person. You can even contract it through normal, non-sexual skin-to-skin contact. Still sitting there thinking, “I’m fine, and that will never happen to me because I’m with one exclusive person”? If you are worried, rest easy as an HPV vaccination has been developed in recent years, but the point stands—sexual health delves deeper than just showering properly, and failing in any category of it can have potentially drastic lifelong effects. The only true way to ensure your lifelong health is by being proactive, and taking the necessary steps to ensure you are taking care of yourself.
