“Hey, what’s your status?”
“I’m clean.”
How many times have you or someone else you know had this conversation? How many times have you met a fling or potential relationship and wanted to discuss sexually transmitted infections (STIs)? How many times have you referred to having a negative status as “clean”?
Let’s be honest, we've all done it at some point. Teenagers, adults, students, and even health educators have done this.
Me included.
Growing up, a lot of us in the United States of America didn't grow up with adequate sex ed, if we had it at at all. Some got abstinence-only education. Others grew up seeing grotesque pictures of areas infected with STIs, supposed evidence of sex’s inherent dirtiness.
Getting an STI meant the end of the world.
We grew up in a society that stigmatizes and continues to stigmatize sex and STIs and people that has STIs. Even self-identified advocates for people who have STIs, who advise people to get tested often to lessen the stigma and anxiety about getting tested, will describe themselves as “clean”, rather than “negative” when asked about their own status.
In society, acts and groups are regularly deemed unclean for the purposes of heteropatriarchy and white supremacy. As a Black person assigned female at birth and is perceived as a “woman”, my body is deemed less “clean” because of the hypersexualization put upon me by others.
Because of the lack of knowledge about sexual health, especially sexual health that is related to queer, trans, and non-white bodies (which also have higher rates of STI transmissions due to lack of resources), we act out oppressive behaviors without even realizing it. We use STI status as a badge or shield to deflect some of that "unclean" stigma given to us by society.
By doing this, we perpetuate stigma even further.
When you call yourself “clean”, you exclude a variety of people. You exclude people who had gotten an STI as a result of sexual assault or an abusive relationship. You exclude people who are born with STIs because of situations beyond their control. You are belittling people who had dealt with addiction and not had access to harm reduction methods.
Calling yourself clean forces a false dichotomy on you and other folks, if you’re clean, then the person who has a STI must be tainted, dirty.
Stigma around STIs shames survivors of rape and sexual assault. By crafting STIs as a punishment for sex, we shift the responsibility of a violent act onto the victim.
When we confine people with STIs to that dichotomy, we force people who are survivors of abuse and rape into isolation and further perpetuate the narrative of not being deserving of healthy consensual relationships. To create an environment where survivors aren't systemically punished for being targeted and surviving a traumatic assault, we need to smash this narrative of purity and cleanliness around STIs.
As someone who was assaulted and in a past relationship with someone who constantly blamed survivors for their trauma—which is ironic because she was a survivor herself—I have been afraid to reveal my history because of the forced shame I had as a survivor who was also “sleeping around”.
Even though I didn’t get an STI from my assault, it was still very hard to talk about. It’s also hard for other survivors of assault, ten or more times so when you’re a survivor who has gotten an a STI as a result of assault or rape.
Most STIs are curable and all of them are treatable if caught early. One is still able to have a wonderfully healthy sex life if given the right information. However: when people shun others who may have STIs, less people are likely to be open and candid and willing to share.
The seemingly innocuous statement that you're looking for someone "drug and disease free" on online hookup sites perpetuates the societal assumptions that people with STIs 1) aren't capable or deserving of consensual partnerships, and/or 2) might not be capable or educated on safer sexual practices.
Funnily enough, you're using a hook-up site to slut shame people.
But this is where it stops being funny: by announcing you're unwilling to hook up with people who might have STIs, and thus implying you yourself are "clean", you're playing into a binary of purity that will eventually bite you. How likely is it that someone responding to your "drug and disease free" invitation is going to show you their test results? And have you ever been tested? Or is that something you haven't had to do, because only people who might be "unclean" in the first place would get tested?
Creating a sexual environment for yourself where frank, realistic discussion of bodies and sexual histories is treated with suspicion or alienation only magnifies the risk of being harmed by your own ignorance.
It's always totally okay and safe to partake in unsafe sexual behavior until it isn’t.
While some folks who have STIs might have slept around, others are in currently faithful relationships and ended up getting an STI because of a past relationship. STIs don’t discriminate; it doesn’t matter if you’ve fucked your husband or the entire football team. Calling yourself “clean” brings a more heightened sense of panic to a variety of situations.
If you want to discuss status with potential partners, fuck buddies, et al, that’s fine!
In fact, it’s completely advised to do that.
Here are some statements folks can say related to status instead of “I’m clean.”
I don’t have [insert STI here].
My status is negative for [insert STI here].
I am [insert STI]-free.
I checked and no [insert STI here].
Also, here are ways to ask for status without having to use the term “clean”:
What’s your status?
Have you gotten tested? What STIs did you get tested for?
Do you have or had any STIs ?
The tone is also important in how you do this—you have to make sure when discussing STIs it comes from a place of concern, trust, care and not out of disgust. Other than talking about your status being “clean”, if you say one of the alternative statements in a rude way, you are still perpetuating stigma around STIs without calling yourself clean. You are still implying you are above folks because you don’t have an infection.
STIs are not the end of the world. Confronting and resisting the sexual doomsday starts with minding your words and opening yourself to have what can be difficult but necessary and even ultimately affirming discussion.
Clean refers to homes and subway cars. Clean refers the plate of wonderful food you just had. Clean refers to whether or not you have taken a thorough enough shower.
It does not refer to your status or the status of your partners.
Stop calling yourself clean.
Erase the stigma.