All You Wanted to Know About Sex (12 page)

In Men:

• A burning feeling when they pass
  urine
  .
  

• A
  discharge
  from the
  penis
  .
  

Treatment
—Antibiotics from your doctor or a
Special Clinic
. In women, chlamydia can lead to
Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID)
. PID can make a woman
infertile
. So if you have had
sexual contact
with someone who has got chlamydia, you should go to your doctor or a
Special Clinic
straightaway.

8
.
Syphilis

Cause
—A bacterium which you can get by
having sex
with an infected person. Syphilis is not very common these days.

Symptoms

Stage 1: 1-2 weeks after infection.

• A painless sore on or near the
  vagina
  or
  penis
  .
  

Stage 2: 2-6 weeks after infection

• A rash on the body.
  

• You feel as though you’ve got flu (headache, sore throat, fever).
  

Stage 3: Years after infection

Stage 3 is very rare because most people are cured before this stage. Symptoms are:

• Permanent damage to the heart, brain and other
  organs
  .
  Treatment
  —Can be cured with antibiotics which you can get from your doctor or a
  Special Clinic
  . You will need regular check-ups after you have finished the antibiotics to make sure the infection has been cleared up. Syphilis must be treated early. If it is left untreated, it can kill you.
  

9. Scabies

Cause
—Scabies can be passed on through
sexual contact
with someone who is infected but this is rare.

Symptoms
—The tiny creatures which burrow under the top layers of the skin make you itch very badly. The itching is often worse at night. You may have red raised bumps on the skin, particularly between fingers or under the breasts, around the waist and on genitals or buttocks.

Treatment
—Can get rid of it by treating the whole body with a special lotion which could be purchased from the chemist. Some people also wash their bed-clothes, towels and flannels in very hot water to avoid getting scabies again, although the risk of infection in this way is very small.

10. Trichomoniasis

Cause
—A tiny organism or
cell
which affects the
vagina
and
urethra
. You can get trichomoniasis by
having sex
with someone who is infected.

Symptoms In Women:

• Yellow or white
  discharge
  from the
  vagina
  which is quite smelly.
  

• Itchy vaginal area.
  

In Men:

May have no symptoms so they may not know they have got it.

Treatment
—Special tablets which you can get from your doctor or a
Special Clinic
.

11. Thrush

Cause
—A yeast infection which you can get by
having sex
with someone who is infected. But you can also get thrush without
sexual contact
. It is caused by a yeast called
canadia albicans
which affects the vulva and vagina in women and may affect penis in men.

Symptoms
—Signs for a woman that she has got thrush include itching around her vulva and a thick white discharge from her vagina. The vulva may also smell a little and it may hurt to pass urine. Signs for a man that he has got thrush include a sore and itchy penis.

Treatment
—Women who think they have thrush can try treating themselves by putting a
tampon
dipped in plain yoghurt into their vagina. If this does not work, they should see their doctor. Doctor may prescribe
pessaries
and possibly a cream. Men are usually given a cream.

12. AIDS

AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a condition where natural defences against infection are knocked out. This meaning that AIDS patients are likely to get infections which the body would normally fight off. In people with lowered resistance, these can prove fatal.

AIDS victims may develop certain kinds of cancer, as well as serious infections in the lungs, skin or digestive or central nervous system.

Cause
—AIDS is caused by a virus known as HIV. When it gets into the blood stream, it may kill off certain white blood cells which normally act to fight off germs. This leaves the body open to infections of all kinds.

The two main ways in which the disease is passed on are—by direct sexual contact; and by getting infected blood into the blood stream. This deadly virus is also known to be transmitted from the mother to the unborn baby in the womb or at birth, or to a baby through the mother’s milk.

Symptoms
—A few of its symptoms are:

Swollen glands
especially in the neck and armpits;

Profound fatigue
, which lasts for several weeks.

Unexpected weight loss, fever and swelling at night
, lasting for several weeks.

Diarrhoea
which lasts for more than a week with no obvious cause.

Shortness of breath and a dry cough
lasting longer than they would if they were just from a bad cold.

Marks on the Skin
, pink or purple blotches which appear all over the body and look like bruises or blisters.

But remember, each of these symptoms is quite common and may be due to some other cause. It is only when they all occur together—and last for a long time—that there may be reason for concern. Even then, only laboratory tests can prove whether someone has AIDS.

Treatment
—There is no treatment for AIDS. All of those diagnosed as having had AIDS for more than two years, have died. AIDS has now appeared in thirty three countries and all inhabited continents. In India, first case of AIDS was reported in 1986.

Condoms and vaginal foam are partial barrier to all diseases. Check that your intended partner has no obvious signs of infection. If your suspicion persists, postpone genital contact. This may nip a new relationship in the bud but you won’t end up with gonorrhoea, herp, AIDS etc. Be careful with any new partner especially if you know he or she has had a lot of anonymous relationships.

The risk of disease is accepted as the price of sexual freedom. If you promiscuously ride the sexual merry-go-round, the odds are against you.

Birth Control Techniques

In recent times, more and more families in the world have voluntarily and successfully imposed a limit on the number of children they have inspite of strong opposition from various religious groups. Birth control is the most crying need of our time, at least for India. Our population has already crossed the 100 crore mark.

Many people, even well educated are uninformed about conception. They do not realise that pregnancy can occur from a single act of intercourse or that the few drops of fluid that sometimes appear on the tip of the penis during the excitement contain sperm which can be tranferred by hand or penis to the vagina. Whenever a woman is ovulating there is the possibility of conception. And contrary to popular belief, ovulation can occur even during menstruation period.

Reproduction can be prevented at any stage of the reproductive process, before or after conception or after birth. The birth control methods fall into two categories: Reversible methods and Irreversible methods.

THE REVERSIBLE METHODS OF BIRTH CONTROL

The Pill

The pill is a birth control drug containing synthetic oestrogen and progesterone in dosages that alter normal menstruation so that ovulation does not occur. When it first came out, the number of side effects reported made many women reluctant to use it. But modern research has reduced many of these by discovering that a milder dosage is just as effective and is safer for use over a long period of time. The modern pill is the result of dogged research and concerted efforts of many researchers. They realised that during pregnancy, when ovulation and periods cease, levels of oestrogens and progesterone in the blood are naturally high. If they could manage to produce a state of pseudopregnancy by giving extra doses of these hormones, ovulation would be halted and conception would not occur. There are more than hundred different contraceptive pills in use worldwide.

The pill is 99% relibable provided it is taken regularly for a fixed number of days within a 28-day cycle. It is not expensive either.

Some women feel side effects such as nausea or changes in menstrual flow. The pill is not recommended to any woman after the age of forty. There is no evidence that the pill encourages breast cancer, on the contrary it may actually reduce such risks.

Withdrawal and other Methods

Withdrawal method is also considered as contraceptive method in which the male withdraws the penis from the vagina just before ejaculation. But this technique is not reliable because the penis often releases semen containing sperm even before ejaculation, and because many men find it difficult to withdraw near the peak of sexual excitement.

The only advantage of withdrawal is that it is better than nothing. Other behavioural methods, such as oral sex is much more effective, though they too cause frustration and are not to everyone’s liking.

In most women, breast feeding postpones ovulation and therefore, chances of conception for about six months after child birth are very less.

Douching is also regarded as useless contraceptive procedure, by the time it happens, many sperms have already entered the uterus and begun their journey towards the oviduct.

Rhythm Method

Couples using the rhythm method avoid sexual intercourse when they think the woman is at her most fertile. But this is not a very reliable method because it is difficult for the woman to know exactly when she is ovulating and there is no really safe time when a woman can be sure she will not get pregnant.

The two more reliable rhythm methods require that she checks, daily and without fail, either her body temperature on waking or the nature and amount of mucus around her cervix. Both these methods are highly unnatural practices for most women. It requires not only a regular and predictable life style but also a strong degree of motivation and discipline. The temperature methods cannot be relied upon until the woman has recorded her temperature daily for a minimum of six months. She then has to determine when, within each cycle, there is consistent rise in temperature following after a consistent low.

Three days after the rise has peaked, coitus is allowable until the onset of next period.

The cervical mucus method monitors daily discharge from the cervix. A day or two before the ovulation, mucus taken from the cervix turns from cloudy and sticky to clear and stringy in consistency.

The safe period starts four days after the clear mucus appears and lasts until the onset of the next period, after which the mucus changes back to cloudy.

Another method of determining a safe period is to monitor the menstrual cycle for six or twelve months and then, assuming that subsequent cycles will be similar. It helps in recognising the danger zone, usually ten to nineteen days before the start of the next period. The remainder of the cycle is safe.