ClueChick: real clues from a real chick

A friend was recently recounting to me her tale of woe with regards to trying to start sleeping with someone new. In the course of the flirtation, my friend commented to her lust-object that she'd like to know what his STD testing status is, and if he knows his partners', she wanted to know those, too. Her lust-object took this badly, and said, "I would never insult my partners by asking them to get tested!"

Upon hearing this, I first laughed and rolled my eyes, but having given it some thought, it's more than eyeroll-worthy; this kind of attitude is actively contrary to healthy casual sexual encounters. Let's talk about why.

First, everyone has different levels of risk-aversion. And, it seems, everyone thinks that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either paranoid or stupid. I'm explicitly not taking that stance. It's your job as a sexual person to decide what risks you're willing to take, and to be open about that with the people you sleep with. It's also your job to protect yourself, and that means asking questions like, "Have you tested positive for X, Y, or Z?" If you don't ask, it's not reasonable to be upset later that your one night stand turned out, oops, to have tested positive for all of the above, but didn't tell you because she was embarrassed or didn't think it was a big deal or figured you didn't care since you didn't ask. So, figure out what's important to you, what level of risk you're willing to take on, and how to manage that for yourself.

Okay, so now's the time where I call someone stupid. "I wouldn't insult my partners by asking them to get tested," is essentially equivalent to saying, "I would never have the bad judgement to sleep with someone with an STD." This is a fundamental misunderstanding of a) people, b) STDs and c) what it might mean for someone to have an STD.

People who have an STD are not somehow different from people who do not have an STD. And they certainly don't look different, so there's no way to tell just by how someone looks whether or not she or he has an STD. So if you think your judgement is good enough that if you're hot for someone, they must be "clean", you're wrong. Additionally, people who have come up positive on an STD test are not somehow bad people. So, saying that inquriing into someones disease history is insulting is... well, let's just say that I'm not impressed with this logic.

If you're comfortable sleeping with someone without discussing diseases and risk, great, that's your choice, and more power to you. But don't mistake your risk-tolerance for some kind of moral high ground or ultra-fantastic interpersonal filter.