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Damaged Goods? Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases by Adina Nack, Ph.D.
Many people succumb to the stigma that a woman with an STD is a slut, dirty, stupid, and/or damaged goods. This is just not true. Many women, and men, are diagnosed with STDs every day. This has nothing to do with their morality or ethics. Often it has to do with a lack of real knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases and a belief that “this can’t happen to me.”
This book is written for women who are seeking more information and a community of sorts when faced with the diagnosis of HPV (human papillomavirus) or HSV (herpes simplex virus). Dr. Adina Nack, herself a woman living with HPV, began her research when she realized there was no comprehensive information out there for women like herself. Even the medical community seems to have an inconsistent knowledge of what women, and men, need to know about these lifelong and potentially life-threatening, sexually transmitted diseases.
More importantly, Dr. Nack’s research gathers the stories of women and how they feel about their sexual selves after being diagnosed. Dr. Nack divides her findings into six stages of sexual self-transformation that women go through as they learn to live with, and enjoy sex with, an STD. The stages she describes are sexual invincibility, anxiety, immoral patient, damaged goods, sexual healing, and finally reintegration.
In stage one, sexual invincibility, women do not want to believe that they have an STD, much less one that is not medically curable like HPV or HSV. Women and men maintain a myth that they are immune to these STDs, and others, based on ideals of “protected” sex. The fact is HPV and HSV can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact even when a condom is used.
During the anxiety stage, women worry about what will happen to them, short-term and long. Will they be able to produce and deliver healthy children? Will they end up with cervical cancer? Will treatments be painful and/or embarrassing? This leads to the third stage of immoral patient, wherein their practitioners actually condemn women. Some women report being called stupid or slutty, or worse, by the medical professionals that are supposed to be caring for them. Even worse, many medical professionals either don’t know current information about HPV or HSV, or don’t bother to share this with their patients, leaving patients feeling even more vulnerable and afraid.
In stage four, damaged goods, women begin to employ various methods of dealing with their diagnoses within their interpersonal and potentially sexual relationships. Women wonder when is the best time to tell a potential lover that she has been diagnosed with an incurable sexually transmitted disease, and may pass it onto her lover. The other problems encountered here are how to manage sexual relations with a disease that is often not seen or felt. In fact, many men are likely carriers of HPV and may never show symptoms. Nor is there an easy, comprehensive way of testing men for HPV if they have not expressed any symptoms.
During the stage of sexual healing, women not only attempt to come to terms with their new status as an infected person, but must also deal with the reality of treatments and possible financial obligations if health insurance is not available.
Finally, reintegration allows women to bring together their diagnosis and risk awareness together with their desire for intimacy. Although some of the women interviewed chose celibacy, most found ways of restructuring their sex lives to include better protection strategies for their partners and themselves.
Dr. Nack's book provides factual information as well as emotional responses about HPV and HSV. If you are a woman who has been diagnosed or just want some of the real facts about the transmission of or effects of living with these STDs I highly recommend reading Adina Nack's book.
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