Apparently, “Chlamydia cases are reaching unprecedented highs.”
That’s what Louisiana State University’s newspaper reported this week, and the sentence is enough to make anyone cringe.
Feel free to pause and think up a few easily-devised LSU jokes (which I always encourage), but the sexually transmitted disease numbers are national. Loyola is probably no exception.
It’s pretty common in a lot of social circles here on campus to treat sexually transmitted diseases pretty nonchalantly. If you’re not affected, you have at least a few close friends who are, whether you’re aware of it or not.
A lot of students have come to accept it as an inevitable, the bane of being sexually active in college, and understandably so; anything can become normal when it’s commonplace. The equation is simple: a night out after a long week, plus birth control, plus sexual tension, minus a condom, equals major regret.
The same Reveille article reported that 317 of 715 surveyed students said they didn’t use a condom the last time they had sex.
It’s ironic how important birth control is in this equation. It has empowered us, but it has made us unbelievably stupid. Women still swear by it as if it is the 1960s and all we have to worry about is pregnancy, when 19 million new STDs develop each year.
As a graduate of a Catholic, all-girls high school, I have fond memories of drifting to sleep in religion classes to STD statistics, endless percentages and “one-in-four” numbers lectured in class for months. But I’ll spare you the slim odds we’re all generally aware of and point out just one piece of information.
Louisiana ranked the No. 2 state with the most reported cases of gonorrhea, and Louisiana is among the country’s highest in reported chlamydia and syphilis cases.
Look it up, and it will freak you out even more when you see Louisiana near the top of the list of 50, standing sheepishly above most of the rest of the country. Why do we always top the worst lists?
Every STD mentioned here so far is a treatable one, but diseases you’re stuck with for life are just as common at Loyola. There are a tremendous amount of college kids who have no qualms with ruining someone’s life this way after one night and an even bigger amount of those who do it unintentionally.
Still, between unforeseen accidents and unfaithful relationships, STDs can still infect despite persistent attempts to prevent them. Sometimes, there’s nothing else you could’ve done.
Just don’t be unbelievably stupid. Realize that if you don’t have your own condoms, you might not care after five drinks.
Keep in mind that an overwhelming majority of people who have herpes aren’t aware of it. And be aware that if you reach the age of 25 without ever contracting an STD, you are in the minority.
Katie Urbaszewski is a mass communication sophomore and a Maroon news editor. She can be reached at [email protected].
