Be Informed
I’m sure you have heard or know how it feels when you meet “the one”! Or that’s what you think at the time. He is older than you and just sweeps you off your feet. Before you know it, sex is on the agenda. Your friends are all doing it so it must be okay right? Did you know that sex is a choice? And that most sexually active girls are having sex with a guy who is at least 4 years older than them? And that they are not his first!
Most girls are only really worried about falling pregnant and don’t know that there are over 25 different sexually transmitted diseases! And you can get them even if you use a condom.
STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) are easily spread from one person to another during sex. Some examples include:
- Clamydia is probably the most common and can make you sterile if left untreated
- Genital Herpes is incurable and causes eruptions of painful blisters and ulcers on the genitals
- HPV or Human Papilloma Virus can cause vulvar burning, itching, pain and even warts. If not treated it can lead to cancer
- Syphilis is a bacterial infection that can be treated but if left can cause brain, nerve and cardiac problems and even death.
- Gonorrhea is bacterial infection and can be treated but many people have it without symptoms and left untreated it can cause infertility
- Hepatitis B can cause severe liver damage leading to cancer, many of the children born to infected mothers develop liver cancer.
- HIV (AIDS) – Most people infected with HIV will develop AIDS within 10 years. AIDS leads to death.