Dave I/O

Wouldn't it be nice if things had changed since the 40s?

It’s coming up time for my regular STI screening. I firmly believe that anyone who’s sexually active, even if – like me – you’re extremely fastidious about using protection, should get themselves tested frequently. There are plenty of STIs out there, and some of the most common have symptoms that are easy to miss – or no outward symptoms at all. The vast majority can be cured, and the rest can be effectively managed.

There’s no reason not to know. You can have your results texted to you, and for the majority of people you can expect no more than a urine sample, a blood sample, a quick examination and a few swabs.

If you’re based in the UK, you can find your local NHS STI testing facilities by going to this page on the NHS Livewell site, entering your postcode on the right under “Services near you”, and then clicking “STI Testing / Treatment”.

Anyway, preaching aside, I was having a chat the other day with a friend of mine who’s equally careful with her sexual health. Quite innocently, she remarked that she was pleased that her tests recently “came back clean”.

A full panel of negative results is, of course, fantastic news. My issue, though, is the term ‘clean’ in this context. STIs are still massively stigmatised in our society. Massive headway has been made toward removing that stigma in the case of HIV, which is of course fantastic. However, insinuation of a sexually transmitted infection is still an insult against someone’s character. Infection means reckless promiscuity, says the social stigma, and promiscuity is a sign of a bad person.

While I was writing this, a member of the nationalist EDL group kindly proved my point. Click for big.

It’s gendered, too. Rarely have I heard of a man’s STI status used as a slur. The suggestion of infection is nine times out of ten directed against a woman, in equal parts by other women and by men. That fits with the patriarchal mindset when it comes to promiscuity; a woman is a slut, a man is a stud. A man can catch an STI from a promiscuous woman, but a woman is to blame for catching an STI from a man. Male promiscuity is lauded, or at the very least seen as somehow uncontrollable or ‘to be expected’. Female promiscuity is disgusting, a sign of ‘unwomanly’ conduct. It’s the same old story.

So, to refer to a negative STI status as ‘clean’ implies that a positive status is ‘dirty’. It’s not desirable, of course (outside of fringe ‘bugchaser’ elements, anyway), but it’s no more indicative of some kind of morally bereft lifestyle than a case of food poisoning. Both an STI and food poisoning are illnesses brought about by doing something fun – fucking and eating, respectively – but nobody ever hid a case of food poisoning for fear of being shamed.

Of course, the question is raised for those of us with moral views that reject promiscuity – what harm does this all do? Morals are subjective, after all. Well, it’s quite simple – when you shame something and make it ‘dirty’, people hide it. Look at anyone who isn’t heterosexual, or has experienced mental illness, or feels that their gender identity is mismatched with their body. Forcing people to hide these things does damage to them, causing depression and forcing them to live in fear of being ‘found out’.

There’s more than that, though; STIs are an even more special case. Because of their infectious nature, and the fact that people quite like fucking, hiding them can further their spread unnecessarily. Even if a sufferer uses standard prophylactic protection such as a condom, the STIs that can spread from and to the larger genital area like HPV and genital herpes are a risk. If you’re sleeping with someone, and they’ve got a cold, they tell you and you adjust contact accordingly to avoid infecting yourself. Without the stigma, these conditions can be managed and monitored at appropriate times to do exactly the same thing – but when a sufferer feels that they need to hide it, that management and monitoring becomes impossible.

Get yourself tested. Encourage your friends and lovers to get tested. It’s free on the NHS, and it might even save your fertility. If a positive result shows up, talk to the NHS counselling service and your GP to understand the implications for your sex life and make the necessary adjustments.

And please, for the sake of ethical sluts everywhere, use ‘negative’ or ‘all clear’ instead of ‘clean’ when talking about your STI status.

Cranes! Industry! Deliciousness!

The army of posts sitting in the Don’t Sleep, Dave! category of this blog are a testament to the simple fact that I rather enjoy energy drinks. From Red Bull, and its Gummi-Bears-meets-diesel flavour, to the caffeinated Lilt that Canada gives us in the form of NOS.

That said, I’ve never been able to get behind Monster energy drinks. Their flavouring isn’t what I’d instantly describe as unpleasant – though I wouldn’t call it pleasant either. It’s just a bit wrong. The green-branded cans taste a bit like caffeinated apple juice, but slightly too fragrant in a pot-pourri kind of way, for example. It wasn’t until I emptied a blue-branded can into my face that I was able to finally pin it down.

They all taste like deodorant.

Instead of sticking with a fruit flavour or a mixture of them, the people behind Monster seem to have decided to attempt some kind of bouquet of tastes. This works for wine – or, at a push, jelly beans. It doesn’t work for something that you’re already predisposed to find an artificial experience.

The other day, though, on an adventure dedicated to the fact that I’ve not written about canned caffeine for a while, I came across a new drink from Monster, called Monster Rehab. It seems to be aimed firmly at the hung-over market, just like Rockstar Recovery. It’s not carbonated, and it’s a fairly simple concoction of sugary still lemonade, iced tea and caffeine.

It’s absolutely fucking delicious.

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed an energy drink to this degree before, and it doesn’t flake on the caffeine content either – a very respectable 32mg/100ml, in the standard 500ml Monster can.

It’s fast replaced my morning cup of coffee purely due to the lack of, er, ‘intestinal involvement’ that comes from lacking the other alkaloids found in coffee itself. It’s nice, it works, and I genuinely wish it was stocked in more places.

There’s the rub, you see; as a new product, and potentially a test product, it’s not as easy to get hold of as the more usual Monster drinks. Still, it’s worth looking around, because I’ve yet to find a more palatable way to get jet fuel into my bloodstream.

I didn't think furries were this big on soap in the first place.

I’m not sure how I discovered it, but I ran across Contact Caffeine the other day. They sell fragranced soaps, with caffeine mixed in.

I wasn’t convinced by the prospect of absorbing caffeine through the skin. Each product page on the Contact Caffeine site contains the following argument -

Caffeine is water soluble, so can absorb directly through your skin in the shower.

At first glance, this seems pretty reasonable. Use the soap, leave a thin layer of caffeine on your body, and absorb it transdermally. Unfortunately for them, I know how to use Google. A researcher at Erowid answered a similar question and discovered that skin absorption for caffeine is 1.6% for 9.3mg of caffeine and 17% for 1mg of caffeine, both absorbed over a 100 square centimetre area. Trouble is, to even get to those tiny numbers, it needs to be held in contact with the skin for four hours.

Then you have to play with the fact that caffeine is water-soluble, and when you have a shower you’re covering yourself in water. Its solubility will cause it to be washed away rather than adhere to the skin.

Even after the low absorption rate and the fact that if you’re using the soap properly then you’re washing the vast majority of it it off your skin, caffeine is extremely insoluble in fats. The thick epidermal layer acts as an insulating wall between the water-rich, caffeine-soluble inside of your body and the caffeine residue from the soap.

What it comes down to is that even if the caffeine does make it past all of these barriers, the amount you’ll get into your body is minimal.

If you want caffeine, deliver it orally where it can come into easy contact with water-rich tissues and enter your bloodstream efficiently. If you want fragranced soap, buy some fragranced soap. Contact Caffeine do, ironically, sell decaffeinated versions of their soap with only the fragrance added.

Just don’t fall for a gimmick that doesn’t stand up to scientific reasoning.

Especially when furries have been let loose on the branding.