4min chapter

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Ep 57 Herpes: Stop the STIgma

This Podcast Will Kill You

CHAPTER

The Social History of Sexually Transmitted Infections

For hundreds of years, sexually transmitted infections have been used by some people to drive a particular narrative. The sexual revolution of the 1960s really changed the landscape in terms of normalizing sex and talking about it. This social movement gained momentum with policy changes such as the legalization of birth control pills and abortion. Herpes suddenly became the symbol of the consequences of sexual liberation.

00:00
Speaker 1
Okay. Some health care professionals were even hesitant to label HSV2 as a sexually transmitted virus since it could also be spread non-sexually. So that takes me to the next question. What happened to flip the switch on herpes? Yeah. Before I start to answer that, I want to say that for this part of the story, I'm focusing on how the stigma of herpes grew in the US in the last few decades. I don't really know how herpes is perceived in other parts of the world, but I would love to know more. So if you have any info or articles or personal experiences, please send them our way. I would love to know more about that. Okay. So for hundreds of years and into today, sexually transmitted infections have been used by some people to drive a particular narrative. As Alan Brant pointed out in a book I read called No Magic Bullet, which is about the social history of STIs in the US, these narratives fall into three basic themes. One is that sexually transmitted infections are considered punishments for immoral behavior. Another is that people use STIs to argue for a more conservative or restricted sexuality. And the third is that an STI is not simply an STI. It's a symptom of a much larger systemic issue and indicative of the decay of society as we know it. So those are like the three primary narratives that it had been used to in terms of like to make some sort of moral argument. Yeah. For a long, long time, more prominent STIs like Siflis and Gonorrhea were used as the cases in point, but then came antibiotics. And these painful deadly diseases that were delivered as divine punishment cleared up with a quick course of penicillin.
Speaker 2
Oh, this is fascinating
Speaker 1
here. And then the sexual revolution of the 1960s really changed the landscape in terms of normalizing sex, having all different kinds of it, talking about it, and most importantly enjoying it. And the sexual revolution deserves a much more nuanced like history retelling than I can give it, or than I'm going to give it right now. But I'll recommend a book that covers some great ground. But casting off the puritanical attitudes about sex that had prevailed for hundreds of years provided a little glimpse into what it might be like to live in a progressive non-judgmental society. This social movement gained momentum with policy changes such as the legalization of birth control pills and abortion. Make love, not war, was the motto, and also the name of the book on the sexual revolution that I was going to recommend. But, you know, of course, the sexual revolution wasn't the utopia that is often described to be some of the more prominent figures held racist or sexist or homophobic views. And there were still clear boundaries on like what was or wasn't acceptable and, you know, and so on. But that glimpse looked great to some people. To others, it looked dangerous. The youth of America was destroying the natural order of things, quote unquote. And it's not like the stigma or shame surrounding sex or STI's disappeared during this time. It was just drowned out by louder voices for a little while. And when the sexual revolution started to wane a bit in the late 1970s for a number of reasons, including economic downturn, commercialization of sex, sort of disillusionment overall with this movement, there were plenty of people ready and willing to take back up that mantle of sex is bad and you deserve to be punished for having
Speaker 2
it. But
Speaker 1
they needed a new villain to fill the roles previously held by Sifla, Skaneria and Klimidia.
Speaker 2
Because those are treatable
Speaker 3
now. Uh
Speaker 1
huh. Enter herpes. What? Herpes despite being for the most part, as you described, a very benign infection that does not require sexual contact to transmit. Herpes suddenly became the symbol of the consequences of sexual liberation.

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