Always looking forward to another sexual adventure? While it’s good in that it makes you feel giddy and all, it’s also dangerous if you are not taking adequate precautions to protect yourself. Yes! Sex is amazing: yes! The feeling is out of this world. Mind you, at the twinkle of an eye you could be headed for your worst nightmare if you don’t take heed.
Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) or Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) as the case may be are real. They are out there to haunt you and frustrate the hell out of you. But who says you can’t enjoy your sexual life without any fear of contracting no STIs? Nobody. You just have to step on the brakes and move off the fast lane.
This piece has been written to intimate you on the best ways to protect yourself against sexually transmitted infections.
STIs are what?
STIs are sexually transmitted infections. They are diseases transferred into one’s body during vaginal, anal, or oral sex or any other sexually related activities like kissing. Examples of STIs include gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV/AIDs, genital warts, genital herpes, chlamydia, and so on. These diseases can destroy one’s body system in no time especially if they are not quickly diagnosed and treated.
Hence to avoid the physical pain and mental stress that accompanies having to deal with these diseases, it’s only reasonable that you protect yourself against them.
Here are the six best ways to protect yourself
- Use Latex Condoms
Every time you would be engaging in any sort of penetration, whether vaginal, anal, or oral, ensure you use a latex condom. Ensure you have it on the entire time during the act. Latex condoms do not break easily and are properly lubricated to withstand the pressure that accompanies penetration. Condoms are not effective when it comes to preventing STIs or even pregnancy, however, if used properly can shield you from contacting chronic contagious diseases.
- Wash before and after sexual intercourse
You must ensure that you wash your genital organs before and after sexual intercourse. By so doing, you’d be washing off dirt hence, preventing the body from absorbing bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are microscopic organisms and can linger in a warm and moist environment. Thoroughly wash your genital organs and clean them with a neat towel.
- Regular and periodic checkup
While there are large cases of acute STI infection is because most victims do not discover on time that they are harboring such diseases in their body. This is so because they are not given regular and periodic checkups. As such, a periodic and regular checkup is good in that, it helps you to know if there’s anything wrong with your body system. It makes it possible to spot any form of illness hiding in your body. Hence, proper medical attention is recommended to take care of such before it escalates into something more devastating.
- Get a vaccination for Hepatitis B
Hepatitis B is an incurable infection that targets the liver and destroys it within a short while. It is also contracted during sex. There are three-shot vaccines that you can also take to prevent yourself from this malignant infection. The vaccines help your body’s defense mechanism to withstand and neutralize the virus to some extent. However, beyond the vaccine, other precautions must be taken to prevent contracting this virus. Such precautions like the use of condoms during every sex.
- Avoid sharing towels or underwear
Underwear clothing should be personal. In fact, for the sake of proper hygiene, all your clothes should be personal. From what is known, STIs can also be transferred through body fluids. So, fluid deposits on an infected person’s towel might still be active when you pick up such towels and use them on your body. The point is you could get infected by using towels and underwear of an infected person.
- Jump off the wagon
Alcoholics are prone to unsafe sex. Hence the need to stop your consumption of alcohol. A drunk person or someone who is has been thrown into an ecstatic fit will not remember to take the necessary precautions when they want to have sex. They could go to the extent of sharing sharp objects and injectable substances and in the process contract the infections. It’s only safe that you stop taking alcohol or reduce its intake so that when you want to have sex, you’d still be in your right state of mind.
- Abstinence
The surest way to protecting oneself from STIs is by total abstinence from sex and other sexual related activities be it oral, anal, or whatever. If you can abstain, be faithful to only one sexual partner who is not infected too.
