Welcome Back to School
Try Not to Get Chlamydia
This is the week that my family goes back to school. I know it’s late; in some places kids have been back for almost a month, and most college kids have been tucked into their dorms for a couple of weeks, but around here summer ends today and school starts tomorrow.
I am not looking forward to it. My kids are big, yet it still takes an inordinate amount of effort to get everyone out the door in the morning, and then there are places to go after school and homework to do and dinner to make. I prefer these shapeless days at the end of summer when people get up whenever they want, complain that there’s no food in the house, and eventually probably maybe do something. But Phineas and Ferb were wrong: there are far fewer than 104 days of summer vacation, and alas they must end.
A couple of weeks ago, in preparation for college drop off, someone on a local FB group asked parents for advice on what teens really needed in dorm rooms apart from the obvious X-long twin sheets, towels, and a well-stocked shower caddy. A friend of mine who is on her third kid at college replied that she sends an extended first aid kit that includes condoms, emergency contraception, Covid tests, liquid IV (for hangovers and stomach bugs), and Narcan (the nasal spray that can rapidly reverse a drug overdose). Someone else suggested adding fentanyl test strips so kids could see if anything they were taking had been laced with this extra-dangerous drug.
I loved this harm reduction strategy which acknowledges that kids will have sex and get drunk and possibly use drugs and seeks to protect rather than scold. I wrote this:
You know I love the condom/EC idea and especially love that as a mom of boys you included EC, but honestly in this environment as a mom to girls, no one is going to college without an implant or IUD.
I promptly got in chastised.
Some of you may remember that I got in trouble on another local FB group for not taking it seriously enough when an seventh grader drew a giant penis and balls in mud on the outside of the middle school. (Those who don’t remember can read about it here.) In that case opposition to my flippancy was in the pearl clutching “how could you be such a bad influence on kids by finding vandalism of any kind amusing” vein.
This was different. I’m sure that in other areas of the country people might suggest that sending a young woman to college with an IUD is akin to sending her with a license to have sex and permission to be promiscuous. Here in my very blue bubble, however, I was accused of something reproductive injustice instead.
The original poster came back fast arguing that while this might be okay for my family, it was not universal. They wrote, “I however do not want any person forced to have an IUD or other as a mandate for education.” Another commenter added that IUDs and implants are often counter indicated. They wrote, “This can't be a blanket statement. This should be a conversation between the student and their doctor.”
My comment may have sounded flippant or strident, especially to those who don’t know how flippant and strident I usually sound, but did anyone really think that I was suggesting we don’t let people with uteruses go to college unless they have a long-acting reversible contraceptive already implanted? Did they really think that having made that rule, the all-powerful me would not have added an exception for people with medical contraindications?Were they imagining me strapping my children to the kitchen table and sticking an implant in their arms using nothing but a Swiss Army Knife?
My point, in case it was unclear to anyone reading it here, is that we are living in a time where unintended pregnancy can have huge consequences. The issue in this case isn’t that someone would be forced by newly imposed abortion laws to carry to term a pregnancy they did not want. That is unlikely to happen to a college kid from this town because our state codified abortion rights before the Dobbs decision. If the kid in question can get home (which does, of course, require resources), they will likely find the services they need. What terrifies me are the stories of emergency situations—like ectopic pregnancies—that can’t immediately be medically addressed because newly imposed abortion laws have doctors fearing jail time. This life-threatening manifestation of right-wing politics absolutely could happen to kids from here or anywhere who head to college in the South or the Midwest.
The best solution to this problem—apart from getting a new Supreme Court—is not to have an unintended pregnancy during college, and the best way to do that is to use long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) like the IUD or implant. These work better than other methods because they require no effort on the part of the user: no one has to remember to take a pill, change a patch, or get a shot. Once they are in place, LARCs work for between three and ten years. Both the IUD and the implant are over 99% effective. Both also require multiple visits to a health care provider during which you can and should discuss any relevant medical issues.
As I said in my rebuttal, I can’t control anybody’s reproductive health decisions, not even my own children. I can only say that as a parent who watches these issues closely, I think people with uteruses should go to college with the most effective method of contraception possible.
Another person who felt like quibbling over my comment pointed out that even if you sent a kid to college with an IUD or an implant, they would still need condoms to protect them from STIs. To which I wanted to say: “Dude, I visited the only condom factory in the United States twice. I know more about this than you do.” I didn’t. She is right of course. Even with a LARC in place, the college first aid kid needs condoms.
This Year We Study Calculus and Chlamydia
We should probably consider making this kit for high school students as well. There is a rumor going around of a small, localized outbreak of chlamydia amongst incoming seniors at two nearby high schools. This may not be true; I’ve heard it mostly from other incoming seniors and their parents. No one I talked to had confirmation, but everyone had questions that usually started with “Wait, that’s one of the curable ones, right?”
So, I thought I’d do a quick back-to-school lesson on chlamydia:
Chlamydia is a bacterial infection of the genitals (penis, vagina, cervix, urethra) or anus. It can also infect the throat and eyes.
The CDC estimates about 4 million cases of chlamydia a year. Less than half of those get reported meaning many people don’t know they have chlamydia.
Chlamydia is more common in young people—estimates show that 1 in 20 sexually active young women ages 14-24 has chlamydia—for both social and biological reasons.
Chlamydia is spread through semen as well as cervical and vaginal secretions. You can get it from oral, vaginal, or anal sex.
Symptoms of chlamydia can include a burning sensation when you pee or abnormal discharge from the penis or vagina. Chlamydia, however, is often called the silent infection because many people have no symptoms at all.
If found and treated, chlamydia can be cured with antibiotics.
Untreated chlamydia can lead to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, other health complications, and ultimately infertility.
The CDC recommends that all sexually active young people under 25 get screened for chlamydia at least once a year.
Condoms are very effective against chlamydia because they block the exchange of bodily fluids between partners.
Both of my kids have sex education this year, and I am looking forward to tales of what they learned (though I know one of them won’t tell me anything). I actually hope they don’t spend very much time talking about chlamydia. These facts are pretty boring and can be found on any number of informational websites (some of which I’ve written). I hope sex education points out the risk of STIs; acknowledges that the risk goes up if you have multiple partners at the same time (which is how one person in a town having chlamydia can become a mini-outbreak among incoming seniors); encourages condom use; and emphasizes the importance of regular STI screenings.
Then I hope it moves on to discuss more complicated topics like our society’s discomfort with sexuality; how gender is a social construct; gender roles in sexual relationships; what does and does not constitute consent; why porn is not universally bad but is problematic and unrealistic; the role of abortion in health care and politics; and the importance of respecting everyone’s choices about gender, orientation, and behavior. I hope that it fosters both critical thinking and empathy.
I fear that it will do neither.
Even in my liberal blue bubble, sex education can be lacking. I helped a neighbor with her homework years back and had to look up where the seminal vesicles were. (No middle schooler needs to know where the seminal vesicles are.) I recently heard some horror stories about sex ed in our high school that included a teacher telling her class that once a girl had unzipped her partner’s pants, she was committed to going through with “it.” (Nope, consent is always revocable.) And I know that much of the eighth-grade class is dedicated to the classic egg-as-baby-makes-you-realize-teen-sex-is-bad project.
We watched the Buffy episode about that very project this weekend and while I am pretty sure that no slimy demons with mind control abilities will hatch out of our eggs, I am also pretty sure that no one will make the “Gee, this was hard, I better keep my legs crossed until I’m 30” connection either. Nor should they.
Did I mention that I’m not looking forward to school starting?