"Don't just wrap it up, get TESTED"

First, read this post at A Belle in Brooklyn. Honestly, if you don't read my post, make sure you read THAT post.

I can't emphasize the importance getting tested, enough. It just makes good sense. Unfortunately, we get defensive when we're asked to take a test and we're scared to ask our partners to do the same, even though it's our health at stake.

1 in 5 people have herpes. Herpes isn't HIV but it also isn't cureable. As one of Belle's commenters points out, we get so caught up in HIV/AIDS that we forget there are a host of other STI's out there that can have serious effects on our bodies if they go untreated.

I'm reminded of my freshman year in college. It was mid-first semester when there was a chlamydia out-break in my class. A guy happened to be on the phone with a friend of his checking his voicemail (I think he wanted to play a message for the friend). He mistakenly played a voicemail from the on-campus clinic telling him his results were in. The friend inquired and he admitted he had chlamydia, but didn't want to tell anyone.

The friend told his girlfriend, not knowing that SHE had slept with him.

The girlfriend told one of her friends knowing that while that friend hadn't slept with this guy, they had shared partners since she had come in contact with him.

When all was said and done, anywhere from 6 - 10 people may have contracted chlamydia and the guy who had it "first" wasn't going to tell any of them... and let me also add this came out shortly before Thanksgiving break when many of them went home to their significant others...

As I was reading Belle's post, I was simultaneously having a conversation with a friend who was telling me about her weekend. She may or may not have lost a friend or two over some choices she made sexually.

I told said friend to get tested today during her doctor's appointment... this isn't a game...