Yesterday’s lesson was an STI game…bingo…or shall I say BINGO!! (Sing it with me now…B…I…N…G…O…and Bingo was his name-o!)
Today’s lesson from Teaching Safer Sex is somewhat more staid, but no less important or impactful. Understanding STIs is apparently simple, and yet rampant misinformation plagues the popular conversation. From believing that anal sex carries little or no risk to believing that all STIs are equally problematic for the body to believing that syphilis is a thing of the past, medically accurate and up-to-date information needs to be regularly available to people of all ages.
DON’T PASS IT ALONG!
Objectives
By the end of this lesson, participants will be able to:
- Explain how easily a sexually transmitted infection (STI) can spread with unprotected intercourse.
- Describe how common STIs are in the United States and explain the differences between bacterial STIs and viral
- Assess their own behavior for risk of sexually transmitted infections.
Rationale
One of the greatest deterrents to the practice of safer sex is the mindset “it can’t happen to me.” Yet statistics show that, in the United States, there are 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections each year and that young people aged 15-24 account for almost half of those new cases. This lesson dramatizes the rapid geometric progression possible in the spread of a sexually transmitted infection and encourages participants to think about the reasons why many people do not protect themselves. It uses incidence and prevalence charts to demonstrate the large number of people who are infectious and emphasizes the importance of honest assessment of one’s own risk.
Note: There is an alternate version for teaching this lesson that is included after the handouts.
An alternate version?? It’s a two-lessons-in-one-deal! I don’t know how you can pass something this fantastic up. So I’m just going to say it. If you don’t already own Teaching Safer Sex, you should buy it now:
