Sexology

EP193 - What You Need to Know about STIs with Ariel Watriss

Sep 8, 2020

42:02

Welcome to episode 193 of the Sexology Podcast! Today it’s my pleasure to welcome Ariel Watriss to the podcast. In this episode, Ariel speaks to me about how she became involved working around the STIs, misconceptions people still have about STIs and analyzing the risks around sex.

Ariel Watriss (she/hers) is a nurse practitioner currently working in college health at Tufts University Health Services. She started there in 2013 and in June 2018 was promoted to be the Sexual health specialist for the clinic.

She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the MGH Institute of Health Professions School of Nursing in 2011. Prior to her time at Tufts, she worked at the Fenway Community Health Center in their research department, the Fenway Institute. She was the primary clinician providing care to study participants and performed medical procedures in multiple HIV prevention biomedical studies, including HIV PrEP studies.

Before attending nursing school, she ran the HIV counseling, testing and family planning programs at the Sidney Borum Jr Health Center (a health center for disenfranchised and LGBTQ youth). She was the recipient of the American College Health Association (ACHA) 2015 Affiliate New Professionals Award for the New England area.

Her professional passions include LGBTQIA health, sexual health, and helping young adults navigate their own health advocacy. She has presented talks at national and regional conferences on HIV PrEP/PEP/sexual health, and has served as a panelist on CDC HIV prevention education programs.

In this episode, you will hear:

How did Ariel get into this work?
Misconceptions around STIs
Looking at the issue of shame and best ways to counteract it
Analyzing the risks around sex
The basic information that people need to be well informed
Looking at the hierarchy of concerns around STIs
How there is a lot of confusion and stigma around herpes
Looking at the treatments available for STIs in 2020
Why an STI diagnosis is not a death sentence or the end of your sex life
Learning when to best communicate you have an STI to a partner of prospective partner
Navigating hook up culture with STIs