Safe Sex in Sobriety
Written By: Anjelica G
Hey, remember those safe sex presentations they gave in school and treatment centers? Yeah, of course you do, they were also known as nap time! Remember what was said in those presentations? Nope, me neither. They were boring as hell and pretty f**king unrealistic. Who stops in the heat of the moment and says, “Hey Bobby, I can see we’re about to start bumpin’ uglies but first I need you to answer a few questions. How many sexual partners have you had? Do you have any STD’s? Do you like STD’s? When was the last time you were tested? Ever use needles? Ever share needles? What about butt-sex? I just want to be safe!”
Are women in recovery practicing safe sex?
No One’s Using Condoms
Let’s be honest here, no ones asking those questions. No one cares. No one’s using condoms and certainly no one’s using dental-dams or whatever the hell they things are called. Asking a guy to put a condom on is enough of a boner-kill, imagine what would happen if you whipped a dental-dam out of your pocket. Yup, you’ll never see him again. You might as well just hop up and take a cold shower, honey.
Who the f**k has safe sex anymore? But more importantly, why don’t we? Listen, I’m a woman in recovery (with a past that makes Anna Nicole Smith look like a saint) and even I just sat here for a good twenty minutes trying to think of a reason why we don’t practice safe sex. There isn’t a reason.
Is it laziness? Do we truly believe that we’re forever exempt from STD’s? Hey, Magic Johnson is still alive and kicking. Maybe we just don’t care? I really have no idea!
I’m not going to write all the dangers of unprotected sex because everyone knows them and if you don’t you’re just dumb. So, if we all know it’s bad, why do we still do it so goddamn much?
IF ANYONE SHOULD BE HAVING SAFE SEX, IT’S DRUG ADDICTS!
I see a common pattern with women in recovery. Broken, insecure women go into treatment and fall in love with some day-one-dingbat who doesn’t understand how to put his life together. For some reason, these young women always say the same thing, “Bobby understands me.” No, he doesn’t! Bobby only understands that you have a zipper on your pants and it goes down!
Once Bobby and Whitney get out of treatment, they think their rehab romance is going to last forever. What do they do? They drive the good ol’ skin bus into tuna town. They don’t think of the huge risks associated with unsafe sex. They don’t think of the even bigger risk of having unprotected sex with an IV drug user, who’s just short of thirty days clean from his three year meth and heroin bender. Sounds like you’re keeping it real safe, Whitney.
You Can’t Fix It Later
See, as addicts, we’re stubborn. We don’t learn ‘till we crash. However, STDs aren’t, in most cases, things we can fix later.
You never know if the “man” you’ve been sleeping with has been sneaking out of his halfway house to meet up with those classy chicks from backpage.com. You never know if the “man” you showed your tata’s to, behind the dumpster of your local twelve-step clubhouse, has been sharing needles with BooBoo, the HEP-C infested homeless cowboy.
So, saddle up there sweetheart, you’re in for a ride – a ride to and from the hospital, several times a month, to treat your brand new STD.
There’s no women’s treatment center you can check into to get rid of HIV. There’s no twelve-steps that help you recover from Hepatitis. No, The Doctor’s Opinion isn’t about how to cure an STD. Being a woman in early sobriety, you’re already emotionally vulnerable – don’t make your bodies vulnerable, too.