Transcriber: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Alejandro Riaño
Hello.
So, sex is awesome, right? (Laughter)
Like, it's really awesome that we get to have sex
with other people.
But there are things about sex
that are less awesome.
Things like STDs.
STDs are not awesome. (Laughter)
And I grew up in a generation where a quarter of us
were infected with STDs.
And I grew up in a city, San Francisco,
where, when I was growing up, I was convinced
that I was going to die of AIDS,
because that's what people did around me.
They died of AIDS.
And I live in a city now, Baltimore,
where half of the black men who have sex with men,
who are tested for HIV, come back as positive.
STDs are not awesome.
STDs can kill you.
STDs can cause infertility
and do cause infertility in thousands of women every year.
STDs cause ectopic pregnancy,
which is when a pregnancy occurs outside of the uterus,
which can actually kill a woman.
And STDs cause weird discharge, and bumps,
and herpes, and warts.
And all of these things totally suck.
And even if you don't have symptoms,
even if you don't have long-term health complications,
STDs still are not awesome.
And the thing about STDs is that they cause billions of dollars
in health care spending every year.
And we still don't seem to make them a very high priority.
And STDs, luckily in some ways, are sexually transmitted.
They're spread through sexual networks.
And not everybody who's part of an infected sexual network
will themselves become infected.
Some people use condoms.
Some people are just lucky.
And of those people who do become infected,
most won't show any symptoms --
It depends a little bit on the STDs --
but most people won't show symptoms,
they won't get diagnosed
and they'll continue to spread the infection.
Luckily, some people do become diagnosed.
Sometimes, it's because they have symptoms.
Sometimes, it's routine screening.
But what if everybody who is diagnosed
told all of their ever sexual partners?
And what if they told all their ever sexual partners?
And they told theirs? And they told theirs?
Well, we'd end up doing with curable sexual transmitted diseases,
as we could actually clear a network of disease.
We could actually eradicate STDs
from entire communities.
And with diseases like HIV, which are incurable,
we might not be able to eradicate it right away,
but we would solve the spread,
because people who know that they're infected, who are diagnosed,
are far less likely to spread it to others.
They're a lot more likely to use condoms.
They're a lot more likely to take medication,
which lowers their viral load,
which makes it less likely that they'll transmit the disease.
And they change their sexual behavior to become less risky.
Now, this is something that we can do with these diseases
because they're sexually transmitted,
and we couldn't do that right with influenza,
which is airborne,
and we couldn't do that with malaria,
which is transmitted by mosquitoes,
because we don't really remember every mosquito that ever bit us,
but we do tend to remember people we have sex with, most of the time.
(Laughter)
But there's a problem with the fact
that these diseases are sexually transmitted,
and that is that sex is awkward!
Or, rather, we're really awkward about sex.
And we're especially awkward about STDs,
and that results in the majority of partners
not being notified right now.
Luckily, there's this thing called the internet.
And the internet is awesome.
The internet is quite possibly
the most awesome health communication tool known to men,
or, rather, it would be if we used it right.
And the internet is really good at helping us do awkward things.
Now, a lot of times, those awkward things are watching porn,
or ordering dildos online,
or finding a threesome on Craigslist, right? (Laughter)
But there are socially awkward things
that we could do for social good
that the internet could help us do as well.
And that's sort of where the idea for this website
called "So They Can Know" was born.
And this is something I've been working on for about three years,
and we launched last month.
And it's designed to help people to use the internet
to do the socially awkward thing of notifying their partners
when they've been diagnosed with an STD.
And it was created entirely by volunteers
and launched at a cost of less than 5,000 dollars.
And the website helps people inform their partners in two different ways.
So, one reason that people don't tell their partners
is because they don't really know how to have that conversation, right?
This is not something that your parents teach you how to talk about.
This is not something that your friends teach you how to talk about.
And this isn't something that's shown in TV shows.
It's not shown in movies.
You have absolutely no way of knowing
how to have this conversation,
unless you just make yourself do it.
And so, the website features tips and scripts about how to do this,
and videos that actually model what that conversation looks like.
And for people who just, at the end of the day,
are not going to do it,
we also allow them to anonymously notify their partners.
And so, what that does is it allows people
who've been diagnosed with STDs
to send their sex partners anonymous e-mails.
They're sent from "So They Can Know"
and say what they may have been exposed to,
whether or not they'll show symptoms --
and, if they do show symptoms, what those are likely to be --,
what long-term health complications can arise,
how the disease is transmitted,
why they can benefit from going to see their doctor.
And then, it refers them back to the test page of "So They Can Know",
where they can search for a testing site near them, with their ZIP code,
find a doctor that takes their health insurance
and does STD testing through ZocDoc,
or order a self-collection kit online,
which is available in certain areas of the United States.
Now, this is one website,
but there's so much more that we can
and should be doing with technology
to improve sexual health,
to make it a littlee bit easier
for people to be responsible for their own sexual health,
for the health of their partners and the health of their communities.
And if we, as a society, decided to make this a priority,
invest in this or have new low-cost initiatives
that could help us eradicate STDs,
and we decided to embrace our own awkward sexuality
and the sexuality of others,
with joy, and tolerance, and courage,
I believe we could create an STD-free generation.
And that would make sex more awesome for everybody.
Thank you.
(Applause)