Our friends at InSPOT.org, in conjunction with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, have put together the following information to help you deal with your STD, and the dilemma of notifying your recent sex partners. We thank them for sharing this information with us so that we may share it with you. Sometimes good things get passed around too!
How to decide if you’ll tell him you have an STD
Most gay men pick up a few STDs during their lifetime. And every time, we face the same dilemma: Do we tell our playmates or not?Contemplating telling him
Health professionals try to answer it for us, saying (in an authoritative voice): ‘You need to tell everyone you’ve had sex with in the past six months.’ But obviously, the decision isn’t theirs. The choice is ours to tell as many, or as few, people as we wish.
Deciding what to do isn’t always easy or simple, especially if you haven’t faced this fact of life before or turned away from it last time. If you’re unsure what to do, here’s some advice and information to help sort things out.
When you’re trying to figure something out, give yourself time to contemplate and work it through to get an answer that feels right. Resist the temptation to give up or shut down because it seems too overwhelming or too messy.Getting the facts
If you get spun-out, remember the core of the dilemma: Will I tell anyone I slept with – yes or no? And until you’ve answered that question, avoid trying to figure out who you’ll tell or how you’ll tell them.
Try ‘contemplating’ with a trusted friend. This does mean you’ll have to come out about having an STD. Have no fear, chances are they’ve been in your shoes before and will give you all the details. Ask what they think and how they would handle it without letting them push you into anything too fast. It’s your decision.
If telling a friend sounds impossible, are there other people to tell? Someone older whose not too close? Someone from a chat room or someone you could just email? Talking to someone who isn’t directly involved is really helpful. Shame drives us to hide. And hiding out doesn’t make understanding life’s challenges any easier.
Knowing why giving them a heads-up is recommended may also be helpful. Here are two reasons:If you've decided to tell your partner or partners that you have an STD, here's more info:
Having an untreated STD makes HIV transmission two-to-four times more likely. 80% of people who have an STD don’t know they have one.
By putting those two facts together, what he doesn’t know can hurt him by making him more vulnerable to other diseases. Therefore, you might be taking him out of harm’s way.
Here are a few more facts:
If you decide to tell him about you, you wouldn’t be saying he has one too. You’d just be recommending that he get checked. Most STDs are treatable. If yours is treatable, his is too. There are ways to tell him anonymously. A new website service at InSPOT.org allows you to send e-cards letting him know either anonymously or from your email. STDs have been around forever; they’re 100% natural and some are unavoidable unless you’re celibate or in a monogamous relationship. They are germs and viruses just like the ones that cause Strep throat or some colds. Would you tell him if you had Strep? What’s come around is still going around. It could affect you again, one of your friends or a friend’s friend.
This decision doesn’t have to be ‘all-or-nothing.’ You could decide to tell some people and not others. Sometimes, it’s too hard to go back and have contact with a particular guy. Sometimes, it’s impossible because there’s no way to get in touch. That’s understandable.
And if you do decide not to tell any of your past partners, consider telling someone. STDs are just part of life. Having one shouldn’t be a reason to hide, or to hang your head. – as gay men, we’ve done enough of that already.
How to Tell Him You Have an STD
Telling someone you have an STD is never fun. On the other hand, it doesn’t have to be a horror show. With a little advance planning and a few helpful hints, all should go well.Who will you tell?
The first step is to know what you have, how it’s treated and if it’s curable or not. Click here for the basics about the most common STDs.
Next, make a list of all the people you think might need to know. The conservative guideline is to tell everyone you’ve hooked up with in the past six months. Hopefully, getting the list together won’t involve using a spreadsheet. Just do the best you can.Ways of making contact
In some cases, you may not have to go back six months. If your STD normally shows symptoms within 12 days and it just so happened that a few weeks ago you went on a weekend-long sex binge, re-creating a six-month, sexual history might be overkill. Use common sense. However, if the STD has the potential for serious consequences if left untreated, like syphilis, telling everyone you can think of is a generous thing to do.
Then, it’s time to consider all the ways of getting in touch and figure out which ones will work for you. The obvious choices are calling him, dropping off a note, mailing him, emailing or arranging a meeting. Or, depending on where you live you may be able to use inSPOT.org, a service whereby you can send an e-card to tell people they may have been exposed. The website has several cards to choose from which can be sent either anonymously or from your email address.What to say
The next step is to match each guy on your list with a method of getting in touch. A good rule of thumb is: the more personal the relationship, the more personal the method should be. In other words, think twice before sending an e-card to your boyfriend! Dropping a card off at his house definitely means more than one sent through the mail. Phone calls mean more than cards. And so on...
When letting him know also means telling him that you haven’t been exactly monongomous, it’s probably best to tell him in person. To make it easier on him, tell him at your place so he can feel free to leave if he needs some space). If you want the sexual relationship to continue, you have to muster-up the courage and just do it. You’ll survive -- just like the generations before you have. If the relationship is strong, it’ll just be a blip on the screen someday.
The final step is to figure out what you’re going to say. At a minimum, two things should be clearly communicated:Simple as that.
- "I just found out I have _____" and
- "I wanted you to know in case you wanted to get checked."
If you want to say more: "How I got it or when I got it doesn’t matter to me. I just wanted you to know because we messed around and you may have it too." Or "I found out that most people with STDs don’t know they have one, so I thought I’d give you a heads-up."
If it’s someone you sleep with regularly, you’ll also have to ask them to let you know when they’ve finished their course of meds and are in the clear so you can have sex again. The last thing you want to do pass the same STD back and forth. Once you’ve both been treated, you can pick up right where you left off.
InSpot now has extended services to people living in the following areas:
US CITIES:
- San Francisco
- Chicago
- DC (Metro Area)
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Philadelphia
- Portland
- Seattle
OUTSIDE THE US:
- Ottawa
- Toronto
- Romania
For more information on additional locations, please visit the InSPOT.org website.
If you do not live in one of their service areas, you still can employ the techniques and services described above to notify your partners.
BarebackHealth.net strongly encourages you to notify the people you've had sexual contact with as soon as you learn that you have an STD or HIV. Quick notification allows them to test for and treat any STD-related problems early on before any damage is done, or to get on HIV meds quickly if they should test HIV+Positive.
If you have any misgivings about notifying your sex partners, consider how you would feel if they found out they had an STD and didn't try to notify you.
It is only possible to contain HIV and other STD's through testing and disclosure. Please do your part.
Thank you!