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Announcing that you have an STI can lead to a strong reaction from a sexual partner.
SEXUAL HEALTH – « I was afraid of hurting them, that they would consider me dirty and that they would judge me on the number of people I slept with…” When Baptiste*, a 25-year-old Parisian, had to warn his sexual partners regarding his chlamydia, he was afraid of their reaction. One of them never wanted to see him once more, claiming that this “STI story” had it ” cooled “.
When you have a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) or HIV, telling people you’ve had sex with recently helps “It is up to everyone to take care of their health and break the chain of contamination”, remember Erwann Le Ho, the coordinator of the LGBT+ center in Alpes-Maritimes and a sexual health center in Nice whom we contacted by phone.
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Especially in a context where read IS « are on the rise among young people.as Emmanuel Macron said in December. According to Public Health Francethe incidence rate of chlamydia diagnoses among women under the age of 25 increased from 3.2 per 1,000 people in 2018 to 5.2 per 1,000 in 2021. Over the same period, it doubled among men of this same age group (from 1.4 in 1,000 to 2.9).
But telling your partners, current or former, that you have an STI can be a risky exercise. For Erwann Le Ho, the best way to announce it is to be “ factual, to de-dramatize and to indicate the place where one can be tested”. But he thinks that “some issuers are afraid of receiving a negative reaction and do not pass on the information”.
fear of reaction
A 21-year-old student in Aix-en-Provence, Paul had chlamydia and gonorrhea. “I was afraid of the reaction of my partners”, he remembers. “I was embarrassed and felt ashamed. Especially with the people to whom I was a little attached, he admits before continuing: “Me, when I found out, I panicked a bit. I figured people would react the same way and potentially think I’m a bastard. »
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“The fear of the reaction of the other is legitimate”according to Erwann Le Ho. “There is a whole imagination behind STIs. Some are connoted as being dirty. They reflect the image of someone who has an unbridled sexuality with multiple and regular partners. There can be a shame regarding that”he analyzes before specifying: “Having a lot of sexual relations is not necessarily socially valued. You can get a very guilt-inducing welcome. »
Paul faced mixed reactions. “I sent a bit the same message that I had received”, he says. If some partners were afraid at the time of the announcement, the twenty-something admits that “People took it pretty well”.
“Salute the responsibility of people who warn”
Pauline, a 25-year-old nurse from Toulouse, also received different reactions when she warned her sexual partners regarding her chlamydia. “I tried to be clear and bring things up in a delicate way. I was embarrassed and ashamed. But the last person I had sex with was understanding and caring. “, she says.
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The experience was more complicated when she had to warn her ex-boyfriend: “I knew he was going to find it repulsive. He made me look like a bitch and blamed me. I’m sure he didn’t get tested because he was in denial and had a little too much male pride. »
When Nicolas was diagnosed with HIV twelve years ago, the reactions he received when he told his ex-partners that he was HIV positive were sometimes very violent, HIV being particularly stigmatized: “People never answered me. Others insulted me, told me that I had given them AIDS voluntarily…”
According to Erwann Le Ho, “The reaction of people who are informed should be: ‘Thank you for informing me, I will check it on my side’”. For him, “we must salute the responsibility of those who screen themselves and who prevent”.
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“A contact case strategy”
So how do you avoid this kind of reaction? According to the coordinator of the sexual health center, young people are not sufficiently informed regarding STIs: “They don’t know how to react and protect themselves. Destigmatizing STIs should facilitate the transmission of information. »
He keeps on : “We must also play down screening. It still scares a lot of people. But it should be a banal, innocuous and regular act. Prompt and frequent screening allows STIs to be identified and treated more quickly. »
For Nicholas, “it is up to the policy to put in place a contact case strategy” to fight once morest STIs. The reason ? “People have to be kept safe and private. It’s not normal that it’s up to us to do that, ” pleads the one who has more than 160,000 subscribers on the TikTok account of his association @supersero.
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This is precisely the subject of a notice published this Thursday, March 9, 2023 by the High Authority for Health. It proposes to change the legislative framework in order to “to offer the patient in whom an STI is diagnosed the possibility of choosing the manner of informing his partner(s). (…) The idea would be that the health professional or a third party can inform the partner of a patient with the latter’s consent. » A law which would come on top of the measure concerning free condoms in pharmacies for those under 26, put in place last January.
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