Sylvie Hill

The Ottawa XPress

…don’t you?

What better way to prove you’re getting laid? Nothing says you’re desired like a bout of chlamydia. What a catch you are.

And isn’t it exciting when your new lover is an International Man of Mystery? Like, when he doesn’t tell you about that sexually transmitted disease he got from another planet or, more intriguing yet, doesn’t even know he’s carrying some bugs?

In an extreme case, this sounds like Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker Trevis Smith, the 29-year-old CFL player who is HIV-positive and is alleged to have endangered the lives of several women with whom he was having “relationships” and unprotected sex while he was also married with two kids.

But they say in every great relationship, we should always try to inject a bit of mystique…

Mystique my ass, man. The last guy who said I was being nosy when I asked him when he last got tested got his balls kicked out my door, Chuck Norris-style.

Actually, it’s not true. I was meek and recoiled.

And what a mistake that is for anyone who gives a rat’s ass about their genital health. But in this, my buddy Bert says I’m neurotic. He and the women he’s been with insist a good fuck is worth an STD and accidental pregnancy.

Well, we here at Shotgun would rather eat some shit and die than have sexual intercourse with a nobody, waste our precious time treating a herpes outbreak, or puke all over the bathroom floor, grâce à la morning-after pill.

Bert says I’ve got vestiges of Puritan values. I say Bert’s a slut. He goes:

“It’s about passion!” And I’m like: “Bert, you’re having cheap sex.”

I’m not puritanical ’cause I’d rather eat crabs off my plate at Flipper’s with my date than off of him.

Sexy and competent lovers agree to take their penises on down to the sexual health clinic at 179 Clarence Street (234-4641) before getting naked anywhere near your privates. People who are reluctant, in my experience, are tossers.

Like the guy I dated when I was 25. Up until then, I had only slept with one dude but I figured that “real life” was about fucking and being less idealistic about love. So, I jumped in with Michael Owen who said he loved me one night when he was stoned.

But lucky for me, around the same time, a girlfriend was having problems with her new crush, which helped prevent a stack of my own from happening with my guy. I asked her about why she hadn’t slept with her date either. It’s ’cause she was babysitting her new friend – genital warts.

After learning about the cauliflower explosions that infest the folds and tucks of the vagina, I freaked out! Mistaking the usual fleshy bits and bobs inside the female flower for the disease, I thought I had it and was going to die.

Then I realized it was just the coffee, cigarettes and sleeplessness from pulling an all-nighter to finish an English assignment talking, and I accepted it was impossible to contract the disease from my own hands or my lovely first boyfriend who deflowered me, bless his soul.

But I thought Michael Owen should get checked now. Just in case.

He told me with assurance and borderline arrogance, “I get tested every six months, doll.”

Case closed.

And I was just supposed to accept that like Bert’s chicks do? No. I insisted Mr. Cool hightail it to the clinic, fast.

A-ha! Fucker had asymptomatic chlamydia. His screwing some other guy’s girlfriend for two years probably had something to do with that. Remember the television commercial where the two people are in bed, then more beds multiply by the dozen? It’s an ad for sexual health and it shows how when you sleep with someone, you’re also sleeping with everyone they’ve slept with. STDs: The gift that keeps on giving.

But you almost need a degree in Sherlock Holmes to figure this shit out. Had Michael Owen really gotten tested six months ago? Was this one of those cases where the STD takes a while to develop and so they don’t find it on the first test? Even if you both get tested, how can you be sure your partner isn’t developing or catching something else in the interim?

But Bert says that sex is dangerous and that is what’s so appealing about it. Heroin’s dangerous too, so I don’t use it.

But we can’t really stay away from sex, can we? We can’t. So, like in football, before you score, you need a kick-ass strategy. First, get tested. Guys, get a stick up your dicks; and ladies, spread ’em for the speculum. Let’s go!

Yes yes, we all cringe when we think of some nurse jamming the long dry swab up your man’s pee hole. But you cock-swabbers can later have a blast forcing your lady to kiss your bobo better.

Step two: STD sounds a lot like “steady.” Steady on your mark. I love steady. Go steady. Why go casual? What’s your problem, man? Is your name Bert?

Lastly, the greatest lovers I know can count their sexual conquests on one hand. So where the fuck does Bert get the idea that sleeping around is hot? Top 40 radio? ‘Cause I ain’t hearing it in my Calexico.

– Sylvie Hill