It’s practically sex educators’ catchphrase: get tested!
I have indeed gotten tested, many times. I have requested panels from my GP, and sought out specialized clinics. I have kept on top of my sexual health all the years I’ve been sexually active (with the exception of the first few, when I didn’t know better). I’ve gotten tested between partners, and any time I think I may have put myself at risk.
But I would be lying if I said it was easy. Getting tested has felt hard every single time.
The thing about having an anxiety disorder is that sometimes you can’t tell the difference between real problems and imagined ones. Sometimes encountering a real problem once makes you fear that same problem coming up every time you run into that situation thereafter. Sometimes you manage to convince yourself the problem isn’t worth fearing, and then it comes up again, “proving” you were right to be scared.
That’s exactly what’s happened to me with STI testing: it’s become a locus of worry, because while testing me, doctors have erased my bisexuality, called me overzealous for getting tested more than once a year, and shamed me for being polyamorous and promiscuous (two separate identities that don’t necessarily overlap!). These things have only happened to me a few times but they’ve nonetheless made me dread getting tested.
I know I’m not alone in my medical anxieties. When I reported on an at-home HPV testing kit for Glamour in 2017, I spoke to people who’ve been unwilling or unable to get tested due to concerns around doctors’ and clinics’ slut-shaming, fat-shaming, and ableism, just to name a few. I have it easier than most, being a usually-able-bodied, white, cisgender, middle-class person living in a country that has publicly funded healthcare – and it’s still hard for me to go. That makes me worry for all the people less privileged than me who avoid getting tested for fear of how they might be treated – to say nothing of other barriers, like location and cost.
I thought about this a lot when STDCheck.com reached out to me wanting to sponsor a post and a giveaway. Crucially, you can order tests on their website and then just take a provided requisition form to the testing center of theirs that is closest to you. This presumably eliminates most or all of the “So why did you come in today?” conversation that is (for me, at least) the most intimidating part of the process. Their services are confidential, fast, and available in over 4,500 testing centers across the United States.
The internet is a huge blessing for me as an anxious person, letting me do things like scope out the layout of an unfamiliar café before I go there for the first time, or make restaurant reservations through a form so I don’t have to call and talk to a human. It might seem like these accommodations are impossible or unlikely in the medical field, but that doesn’t have to be the case, and I’m glad!
Here’s some exciting news: STDCheck.com is offering one reader of my site a $50 gift card you can use toward their services! You can enter below. The giveaway is only open to entrants who live in the United States, and it will run for one week. Best of luck, babes!
Note: this post was sponsored. As always, all writing and opinions are my own.