True statement.

However, safe sex is extremely important.

The thing is, the taboo about stds isn't making people think it's more important to wrap it up. It's putting them in denial about treatment and what they might have and who they might sleep with that could have something. They say, well it must be absolutely horrifying. I could tell the type of person who would have that. I can't have this or that, i don't sleep with that type of person. I'm not that type of person. This little bump? that can't be a big deal. No I don't need to get tested. Only people who take a lot of sexual risks have stds.

That's the problem.

You can't get proper treatment and proper safety measures taken unless people accent that stds are not icky heathen sex demons. They are viruses and bacterial infections just like you can get anywhere else in every other way, they just happen to be transmitted best in that particular way.

That said, the thing with HPV is not really about the warts. It's about how it's related to cancer. And it also counts for the few people who get it extremely bad. Same with herpes. For *most* people it's just an outbreak here or there, often once. For some, though, it can be nearly disfiguring and affect their lives and comfort dramatically. That is a problem. Several stds can cause infertility in women and that's even when you get it treated promptly. They are a big deal. Not an icky sex heathen omg my life will end big deal. But they are a big deal.

AIDS is not the only STD that can kill you or do "serious damage." Do some research before making a post like this and making yourself look ignorant.

I agree with almost everything you have to say, though I will have to correct you about other STDs not causing serious damage; if untreated, there's a lot of diseases that can turn into potential killers, including your genital warts, which are linked to causing cervical cancer (again, if untreated).

If people were tested more often and took more of an interest in caring for their bodies, then STDs really aren't as bad as society makes them out to be. Most STDs are curable and all of them are treatable.

Yes, it can be frustrating but I find that as living with my own STD, I can educate others about how I take care of myself. What I find sad is that though I have an STD, i'm probably the healthiest person I know because it has made me take better care of myself.

And on a unrelated note, please don't use the word retarded unless you are actually talking about an individual with mental retardation. It's incredibly disrespectful and you're taking the word out of context.

I personally take ANY std very seriously. Its way to easy to to protect yourself these days. I'm sure mistakes happen even after protection happens but treatment is always important.

Safe sex is extremely important, especially for women. Like you mentioned, you contracted HPV even without "having unsafe sex." That is because if the thin, sensitive skin of the inside of your vagina comes in contact with any fluids (or even skin, sometimes) of an infected partner, you can get the disease. Unfortunately, people think that condoms are the be-all, end-all of safe sex.

As has been mentioned before, many STDs can cause you harm, even if they don't outright kill you in three weeks. Sure, humans have survived STDs and will continue to, but the question isn't about survival, it's about quality of life.

I have asthma. Do I really want another disease that's with me 24/7 ? No.

Humans survived much worse conditions than today in all areas. I've lived without electricity or running water - not signing up to do it again.

I don't think it's possible to be too uptight about something that could potentially effect your physical vessel indefinitely.

And for the ones that can be cured... they can be cured - so they can wait to have sex. Even if I really, really liked that person - I could wait until they were treated.

It's like, if they had any other illness spread by close contact, not necessarily an "STD". I can wait.

Yes, many of these STDS cause huge problems if untreated. But if you visit your doctor regularly and make sure to get treated if you have something, it's EXTREMELY unlikely anything life threatening will occur. And Herpes may be very bad in certain cases, but can be greatly alleviated with viral-suppressant drugs.

about 80% of people get some strand of hpv it is very common and most strands of hpv have no syptoms. some strands of hpv can go away on their own some can lead to genital warts it can be given to you from birth (having a parent infected w hpv) or it can be gotten through sexual intercorse. I myself have had hpv when i was 19 but went away. I no longer have it thank god.

The reason there is such STD 'terror' is because many of them go without symptoms for up to 2 years. This gives a person with one a lot of time to unknowingly infect others.
Also, while a lot of them have treatment options, many of them are lifetime diseases which can have complications. One thing a lot of people fail to consider is that the medications for such diseases often can interfere with other medications. Most people develop other illnesses throughout life, and I don't mean just the flu or a cold. Diabetes, lupus, cancer, high blood pressure, etc. Not to mention the side effects of medicines. Hell cancer, diabetes, and problems related to high blood pressure are 4 of the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. already, and are a lot more difficult to avoid developing (impossible in some cases) than STDs.
I think people should be scared of getting one, fear is often a motivator for action - in this case safe sex.
However, I don't think that people should be as discriminatory against people who have STDs as they often are. They are just normal people.

As someone who actually has HPV---the strain that causes cervical cancer, I feel I need to speak out here.

First, I had genital warts. Cauliflower-like growths on my labia and just on the inside of the vaginal canal. I required laser surgery to remove them. It was painful and the healing time was obnoxious and the salve to keep the area clear of unwanted bacteria smelled like death in a tube.

After that procedure, I was then screened every six months for changes in my cervical tissue. Lo and behold, I had changes that were pre-cancerous. So, I had a procedure to remove those. Again, painful and the healing process sucked.

A year and a half later? Yeah, you guessed it---rinse and repeat. And that's when I stopped counting. I was having a procedure to cut off parts of my cervix at least once every year and a half until I turned twenty-five. It wasn't until I was 27 that I finally got a pap smear back that was "normal".

So, in no uncertain terms, genital warts does have the potential to become a danger to one's health in terms of causing cervical cancer. I know because I've been there. No one tested my strain. I spread my legs and the doc said "yep you've got warts and it's one of the worst cases I've seen in a long time".

HPV transmits through skin to skin contact, regardless of the use of condoms. That's a little fun fact no one bothers to tell girls when they're reaching maturity. They also don't bother to tell you that there isn't a test for men for HPV.

Your case of genital warts marked you as lucky, because many woman aren't nearly as fortunate to learn that it's the "non-cancer causing" strain of the virus, of which there are about thirty different types altogether and more are being discovered every year.