Sex is held up like a basketball team trophy. Everyone talks about the victory, there’s much back-slapping, high-fiving and, in some well-deserved cases, celebration. Yet sexual health issues are glossed over for being too graphic or unpleasant, silenced with a curtailing “Ewww, gross!” Cultural attitudes toward sex today have made it so that sex in any form is a popular discussion topic, while personal health is meant to remain a secret. Companies are aware of our shove-it-under-the-bed attitude about our sexual health and market a number of drugs to fix our problems in the most discreet way possible. Without proper understanding of the drugs you can conveniently purchase in pharmacies, though, avoiding uncomfortable discussions with doctors could lead to worse consequences than a little embarrassment.
Thanks to my own experience, I can talk about over-the-counter female yeast infection treatments like most women talk about cheating ex-boyfriends. You know how long your roommate could rant about her ex? I can go five times longer about so-called yeast infections.
What companies often fail to make clear to consumers is that yeast infections, which their products are intended to treat, have practically identical symptoms to bacterial infections, which yeast-infection products do not treat at all. The only way to determine what is fungal or yeast, and what is not, is for women to have a bacteria culture taken at the doctor’s office. Yet women see advertisements for products that promise to instantly and discreetly fix a crotch on fire and flock to drugstore counters. I was one of these women. What I got, though, was a crotch full of drug-resistant bacteria, because the medication wasn’t for me. Had I waited and gone to my doctor, the infection wouldn’t have reoccurred weeks later, and I would have gotten the proper oral antibiotics earlier.
And gentlemen, don’t fall for the advertisers who suggest that if you’re not performing like a stallion, you need a pill. We need to become wiser consumers. If we research with skepticism the drugs we take for our sexual health, we are less likely to fall victim to well-placed advertising that targets our inability to talk frankly about our sexual health.
Bottom line: If you’re having issues down south, go to Student Health or the emergency room. Never substitute solid medical advice for information from an advertisement that you may not fully understand. We have good resources at the University, and a little discomfort and shoe-gazing at the clinic is a lot better than untreated sexual issues. After all, poor health impacts the fun stuff, and that’s the last thing we want, right?
Mary is a first-year College student.
Read More
U.Va. students and physicians team up for another year of free kidney screenings
By Merrill Hart | November 5, 2024Saturday’s screening marked the first by KDSAP at Portico Church, near IX Art Park.
U.Va. Health sees a spike in COVID-19 cases
By Emily Horn | September 4, 2023U.Va. Health ended their vaccination requirements in August, and masks were made optional in most hospital areas in early April.
U.Va. Cancer Center harnesses $12 million grant to support opportunities for undergraduates, ongoing research and new center
By Ellen Wu | January 12, 2023The grant provides an opportunity to establish the Center for Systems Analysis of Stress-Adapted Cancer Organelles, which seeks to find the cause of cancer in individual organelles.
