Media Storm - S2E6 STIs: We need to talk about men and HPV - with Alix Fox

Starting point is 00:00:00 Td Bank knows that running a small business is a journey, from startup to growing and managing your business. That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website, to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. Matilda, have you ever had an STI? Helena. Kind of a question is that. What a question. What a question.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Well, look, I don't blame you for not wanting to say because there is a big social stigma associated with STIs and no one really wants to talk about it. Yeah, but I just realised as you say that, that me not wanting to say is the same as me saying that I have an STI. And let's just be real with our listeners. the answer is yeah, I've had I've had

Starting point is 00:00:58 chlamydia twice from the same guy first time he gaslit me and blamed me then he lied about taking the treatment and then he gave it to me again Wow, what a story I mean you're laughing Sorry, sorry, sorry mum Oh man

Starting point is 00:01:11 But this is the thing you're saying sorry mum But like here's the thing SDIs are extremely common But through a combination of social stigma And let's face it, terrible sex education we don't talk about them enough. But what if I told you that there's an STI that 80% of people will be infected with at some point during their lives?

Starting point is 00:01:33 Wait, did you say that right? 80% of... Wait, 80% of all people? Seriously? 80%. It's called HPV. Heard of it? Yeah, I've heard of it. At school, I remember them inviting us to get vaccinated against it

Starting point is 00:01:48 to prevent cervical cancer. But there were so many, even at the time, there were so many rumors about it and so much misinformation, I guess, about HPV that I still don't really understand it. What were some of the rumors at your school? So I think the main one I remember was that you were only, you were only being invited to get it if you were virgins. So anyone who'd had sex wasn't able to get the vaccine. Oh yeah. Yeah, I absolutely heard that one. That's not true by the way, listeners. You can absolutely have it if you're sexually active. But one of the other biggest misconceptions about HPV is that it only affects women or people who have a cervix.

Starting point is 00:02:28 Oh yeah, that's an assumption I had. Did you know men could get HPV? I know I'm going to regret this and this is going to be embarrassing but no, I didn't. That's not embarrassing. It's you and many, many others. And that's what I'm looking at this week. I'm off to speak to men who are living with the effects of HPV and those who have used their experiences to change the vaccination process for. boys and men. And I'll see you back in the studio with a very special guest to discuss everything around this media storm. Don't have sex because you will get pregnant and die. They taught us that if girls have sex, they will be diseased and pregnant and everyone will hate that. More sex can mean

Starting point is 00:03:10 more risk of STIs. That's the problem, isn't it? Everything is based on love. And the person who loves us most of all is people that practice certain types of sex. It wants to wear a condo when they're Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia and I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's investigation. STI's, we need to talk about men and HPV. What do we know about HPV from our media? I'd almost be embarrassed not to have HPV at this point.

Starting point is 00:03:44 A few TV shows have tried to tackle the topic. He doesn't have HPV. HPV? He was tested and he doesn't have it. Oh, your boyfriend was tested for HPV? Yes. Well, that's absurd. And why is that absurd? Because there is no test for men.

Starting point is 00:04:00 Aside from that, it's pretty much radio silence. But what if I said most people will get the most common STI at some point in their life? Human papillomavirus, or HPV, has more than a hundred different strains or types. It doesn't usually cause any symptoms and most people who have it don't have any problems. However, some strains of the virus cause genital warts and others can cause abnormal cell changes that can turn into cancer. You've probably heard that cervical cancer is linked to HPV. But did you know, HPV can also cause anal cancer, penile cancer and some types of head, neck and throat cancer. If you don't try and keep positive and keep focusing, you can get quite down about it.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And the quality of life issues surrounding people who survive these cancers are not given anywhere near enough attention. Men can get HPV and can pass HPV on. But it seems like many don't know that. I'll admit, never heard of them, but assuming from the acronym, they're probably STDs. I thought HPV was a form of cancer. and I didn't know men could get it. I don't know what HPV is. Is it a UTI?

Starting point is 00:05:21 I feel that it's a UTI. I know that there's different variants of it. I know that one variant can lead to a heightened risk of cancer in women, which is why it's vaccinated against. I do know what it is, and I do know that men can get it, but only because of my amazing girlfriend who educated me. I do know what it is because a former partner of mine had it. I knew that women could get HPV with a risk of developing cervical cancer.

Starting point is 00:05:51 Risks for guys are actually way lower in that the worst thing is, I think, like, genital warts. Otherwise, you know, you're not, you don't get infertile or anything like that. I had no clue. Men get it, let alone develop cancers themselves. I thought it was symptomless. And I didn't know that men could get it. So why do we still think of HPV as a woman's issue? I am a doctor based out of India. I aim to use very jargon-free, simple language to explain sexual and reproductive health to people over there.

Starting point is 00:06:21 Dr. Tanya, who goes by the online presence, Dr. Coutaris, has been posting about HPV for years in an effort to get people vaccinated against the SDI, especially in India, a country where sexual health is not generally openly spoken about. She thinks preventative efforts have been more focused on women for two reasons. The first is that HPV is a very common virus, you know. They say that if you've had sex, you would have been exposed to HPV. With that high of an incidence of people being exposed to it, the repercussions tend to be very seriously severe for women or for vulva owners.

Starting point is 00:07:00 More often than they tend to be for penis owners, it is very rampant. And I feel like that adds to the pressure that people have on getting more women vaccinated. Even I call it the cervical cancer vaccine, you know, initially. that's what I did so that more people would, you know, if your cancer vaccine, more people are going to get aware of it. And the other reason I think is good old-fashioned hatred of the idea of sex. The cervix is still related to reproduction. It's still related to baby making and baby delivery as opposed to the penis or the anus. So I think it's just patriarchy, disserviceing everybody as it does.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Cervical cancer is the most common HPV-associated cancer, but other cancers caused by HPV that can develop in people who don't have cervixes can be just as devastating. Hi, Helena. Hi, George. How are you? Yeah, just let me know if the voice is no good, then I can always do it later for you. I didn't speak to George for too long because he's currently in week five of treatment with some side effects making it difficult to speak.

Starting point is 00:08:06 I had HPV-16 squamous cell carcinoma of the left tonsle and it had also gone into some of my lymph nodes on the left side of my neck and it had transmitted slightly into one or two on my right. How did you feel when you got that diagnosis and had you heard of HPV before that? No, I hadn't. HPV for me was something

Starting point is 00:08:30 I was totally intimate to, I'll be truthful with you. So we were sat in the room. and then they said to me, sorry to tell you, you've got cancer, sorry. And then they related, it was HPV related. At that point, our world kind of stopped, if I'm honest with you. We went into a bit of a bubble. It just felt like he was talking, and I couldn't actually hear anything. It was just, I saw his lips moving, but not actually register.

Starting point is 00:08:59 All I heard was the word cancer. From there, when they actually described what the HPV cancer was and the virus, and they said that it's the same one that causes cervical cancer in women, it was kind of a shock really to think that that was something that was prevalent in men but I haven't really known about. So I kind of assumed it was maybe a generational thing. Now that I've done a lot more research on it, yeah, it seems to have been there's been a battle going on for quite a long time

Starting point is 00:09:23 around the whole vaccine for boys and the girls. There was a battle. In September 2008, the HPV vaccine was rolled out for girls in the UK. It protects against four of the high-risk strains that are thought to cause cervical cancer and genital warts. The HPV vaccine for boys? Well, that came in over a decade later in 2019. Its introduction was in large part due to the work of HPV action, a partnership of 51 organisations including the Throat Cancer Foundation.

Starting point is 00:09:58 I spoke with Jamie Ray, the founder of the Throat Cancer Foundation, who is based just outside of Edinburgh. I saw someone 11 in the morning, and by 1140 I was told that I most likely had cancer in my right tonsil caused by a virus I'd never heard of, the human papilloma virus. Yeah, that was the start of a whole new chapter of my life, to be honest. Following his treatment and recovery, Jamie established the charity to provide information and reassurance for those facing throat cancers and to campaign for gender-neutral HPV vaccination. In 2017, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said that the HPV vaccination should not be extended to boys, as it is not cost effective.

Starting point is 00:10:44 I asked Jamie how they overcame that barrier. As a National Health Service, and I appreciate you have to be careful how you spend resources. But we had our own modelling done through HPV action that showed quite clearly that the modelling they were using was very flawed. We're only looking at one set of numbers, about looking at the long-term effects. And they also weren't taking into consideration the money they were currently spending, which was in excess of £50 million a year, treating genital warps through sexual health clinics, etc. Now, okay, I appreciate. Most governments don't think long term.

Starting point is 00:11:21 They're there for four years, and then that tends to be the window they look at. And this was looking at a 20-year window. The policy relied on herd immunity. The idea being that if around 80% of the female population is vaccinated, then the rest of the herd, in this case men, will be protected. But there were glaring issues. If all sex were to do between men and women, that would be true. But we don't live in that world.

Starting point is 00:11:52 We live in a world where men have sex with men and women, or just men. or whatever. You know, that's the nature of human beings. It always has been. So again, they were ignoring reality. And those were the grounds that we were taking them to court. In June 2016, the UK government then confirmed a rollout of vaccination for men who have sex with men, age 45 or under, at sexual health clinics. However, there were further problems with this approach. He's trying to get rounded by saying, men who have sex with men can go along to sexual health clinics, and if they identify themselves as a man who said sex with men, we will offer them a vaccine if they're between the ages of 18 and 45.

Starting point is 00:12:35 And again, that was nonsensical. You know, a lot of men who have sex with men because of stigma, because even though things have changed so much, I'm a gay man myself, I know what it was like growing up, and not be able to tell anyone who you really were and having to pretend, and it's not healthy psychologically. play. And here we were more or less creating a scenario again where men had to hide, if you like. So none of this worked. So their get a jail card free, if you like, wasn't a good solution. In 2019, after threatening a judicial review on the grounds of sex discrimination, the government changed their policy and decided to allow boys to receive the HPV vaccination.

Starting point is 00:13:18 Steve Bergman also helped change the vaccination legislation for boys and men. In May 2015, Steve was diagnosed with HPV squamous throat cancer. Up to the age of 56, I had been absolutely fit and healthy. I mean, you're talking about 20 years of cycling, running, keeping a healthy diet, all that kind of stuff. And then I was diagnosed with this HPV. cancer, and it was stage four. And that seemed like, oh, it's stage four. Stage five is deaths. Throughout his illness and treatment, Steve recorded his progress and made a short film to

Starting point is 00:14:02 support the vaccination of boys against HPV. It led to him becoming a significant voice in the campaign. I realised that I had to do something very big to complement what I was going through. The magnitude of it was enormous. And the other thing was I soon realized that there aren't very many men of my generation who are prepared to put their hands up and say, I got this through sexual contact. It's not because I was massively promiscuous

Starting point is 00:14:35 or wasn't promiscuous, because the reality was, the contracting HPV, you can get it on first contact. And so it wasn't about sexual orientation of promiscuity, it was just about, it's happened to me. And the cards fell badly for me. And my HPV that had been sitting inside me for so long, then shifted and became a cancer. Misconceptions about promiscuity add to the stigma associated with HPV in men.

Starting point is 00:15:08 I contacted Jason Mendelson, who campaigns under the name Superman HPV and lives in the US. I am a survivor of HPB-related tonsil cancer, which was a term, by the way, I never heard of. I'm in 2014 when I was diagnosed, married almost 26 years, and three kids. And I have a website and speak as often as possible to draw attention to a diagnosis I had never heard of because my friends called me Superman during chemo and radiation. Radiation is like having a sunburn on top of a sunburn. Imagine someone cracks a glass bottle and then shoves the shards of the glass down your throat. And then you have sores in the inside of your mouth.

Starting point is 00:15:47 A few weeks in, I was scared, honestly, because I knew no one who had this diagnosis. And I made videos to my children saying goodbye. And they went something like this. One day you're going to get married. I'm not going to be there. I've said this hundreds of times every time it chokes me up. Because I imagine, you know, any parent,

Starting point is 00:16:10 that's the reason I share my story so other parents don't have to make videos to their kids saying goodbye. I remember like it was yesterday, I decided I would stand at the highest mountain, share my story because I always feel like what happens if I'm the one connection to that man or woman so their kids or grandkids get vaccinated. And I help protect that one family from enduring the pain that my family dealt with, having to worry about their dad passing away. In the U.S., the HPV vaccine was introduced for boys in 2011.

Starting point is 00:16:44 That's eight years before the UK. But the history of the guidelines is complex, partly due to healthcare and complicated insurance issues. Studies show that current adherence rates are low, especially among college and university-aged men. This could still be due to a huge lack of awareness and stigma. I think the stigma only exists because it deals with sex. Who are we kidding?

Starting point is 00:17:07 And all because of people with their stigma, we have not been protecting kids for it for as long as we could and people never make fun of someone with a cancer diagnosis whether it's HPV related or not but tongue throat and tonsile cancer for many people from oral sex right no joke but I can't tell you how many people have actually made that physical gesture of oral sex to me when they find out I had cancer and they think it's funny like I mean it's so insensitive if someone has cancer you need to be sensitive caring, compassionate. There's no joke there.

Starting point is 00:17:45 It could be you, it could be your wife, it could be your kids, it could be your parents, it could be anybody. Cancer has no borders. It shows up at your door and it knocks. And all of a sudden, you and the people you love are impacted. So how do we move away from stigma and towards education? If you put a normal person, right,

Starting point is 00:18:06 just put me on TV, play it everywhere and let people see that, like, every day, people get this. I mean, I think three out of four adults by 30 will have HPV. I mean, say that. I mean, how is it that Jason Emelson, age 44, surrounded by physicians everywhere, never heard of HPV related tongue throat and tonsal cancer or the vaccine until I was diagnosed. Makes no sense to me. More people need to stand at the top of the mountain, shouting their story to protect the people within their network. And hopefully, I don't know what that's, called but when you have your network that goes to another network that goes to another network

Starting point is 00:18:44 it will be shared around the world and hopefully will eliminate cervical cancer will eliminate hb related tongue drug tonsil cancer anal cancer and the others um that's what i hope for that takes us back to the studio thanks for sticking around Welcome back to the studio and to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. This week we're discussing STI's sexually transmitted infections and hope to break down the stigma and misconceptions that pervade our mainstream media when this topic is reported on. With us today is a very special guest. She's a broadcaster, writer and sex educator who has worked for years to demystify sex relationships. and STI's. Also, have to mention coolest job ever. She is the script consultant on Netflix's sex education. Can't believe I'm saying this, but welcome Alex Fox. Thank you so much for that.

Starting point is 00:19:53 A welcome so warm, I'm slightly perspiring. I'm so happy to be here that Forel Williams will probably sue me for copyright infringement, which is quite frankly very rich coming from him. I love how enthusiastic your everyday welcomes are. Of all of the email exchanges of yours I've read none of them say hi how are you doing every morning i write a new ridiculous intro and use that for everybody that day i think my most recent ones have been hope that you're so over the moon that you could reach down and scrape up a little sample of lunar cheese with your first fingernail oh my god that's just so generous just spreading the joy it's so beautiful some people i think would prefer i was spreading it slightly less liberally and speaking of liberally spreading the joy

Starting point is 00:20:35 Shall we talk about STI's? In the first half of this episode, we heard about men living with the effects of HPV and how they still face inappropriate comments and assumptions about them. We heard about how they were mistaken for being promiscuous or having cheated on their partners or they had jokes in inverted commas

Starting point is 00:20:57 made at them about getting HPV from oral sex. It's not just HPV though. What do you think of the biggest social stigmas around STIs in general and why are those stigmas so harmful? We are generally very judgy and condemning when we talk about STIs if we talk about them at all because more broadly we tend to be judgy and condemning about sex and sexuality in a way that we really aren't about most other things. I see there being four main problems with the discourse around STIs in society. First there's so much shame associated with them. Secondly, that

Starting point is 00:21:35 leads to silence. We just don't, we don't pipe up about what's happening with our downstairs pipes or the rest of us. When we do talk about it, there's often sensationalism or there's a lot of spurious info. Can you give us a little example of what you would categorize as spurious as opposed to sensationalist? To give you an example of sensationalism, when we do talk about STIs in schools, for example, it's often really fear-based. I am going back, I'm going back a little bit here. I'm 40 now, So when I went to school, pretty much like fire and the wheel feel like there were new things. But the aim was to absolutely take any horn away from us by showing us the most extreme cases of advanced STIs that had been allowed to fester for many, many years. We were looking at pictures of people's bodies that were like horrible cross between a tin of custard, a sheet of bubble wrap and a Victorian house fire.

Starting point is 00:22:28 That leads to gossip mongering. Talk about how if you tip Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper into your cavities after sex, then it might prevent pregnancy or STIs. I heard that Coca-Cola one at school a lot. Did you hear that one at school? I heard that. Our sex education was so Catholic. It was really more about morality. I just remember leaving without any awareness of the fact that the sexual universe is.

Starting point is 00:23:01 is crawling with disease because I didn't know that the sexual universe existed. Right. That gap left by a lack of education is often filled by gossip, myths and mysteries. And that's when you get talk about, oh, you can catch STIs from a toilet seat. And that's the spurious. That's the spurious. Full disclosure, I was just trying to be a literative. It's almost like you're a professional educator.

Starting point is 00:23:26 The result of this, people are very unwilling to go. and get tested. They don't go and get tested. We know that a lot of common STIs tend to be asymptomatic. You won't necessarily know that you've got them unless you go and get a test. A lot of STIs are dangerous if they're left over time. They can lead to things like pelvic inflammatory disease or can affect your fertility, all sorts of things. When people do get tested because of all this stigma, because of the silence, because of the spurious info, because of the sensationalism, If they get a positive result, if they've experienced greater stigma, they are less likely to tell the people that they need to tell that they may also be at risk of having an STI and that they also need to get tested. Other things that happen are that people who have a positive STI result may well experience depression.

Starting point is 00:24:15 Again, there was a study this time in 2012 that showed that people who have herpes are twice as likely to suffer from depression twice. all sorts of rumours can spread about somebody who has a positive STI result. That can result in things like effects on their relationships, even intimate partner violence, because most people don't understand how STIs are spread and the fact that some STIs can lay dormant in the body for a really long time. So basically, you're saying that because we don't know the different way that infections can occur, the different ways that infections can lie dormant, the assumptions we have about sexual behaviours and cheating that it indicates are not necessarily

Starting point is 00:24:59 true. Bang on. It affects people in terms of not just the current relationships they're in, but their future possible relationships as well. A lot of people who have long-term STIs see themselves as, quote, unquote, damaged goods. They worry that nobody will ever want them again or they can do. They don't know how to bring up the topic of having an STI. in the spirit of Media Storm

Starting point is 00:25:24 being a pod where you go further than the top line chit chats I did want to chuck maybe a few things into the mix that are factors affecting STI's stigma at how we deal with them or not in society that I don't see dissected as frequently. One of these is ageism. I did some work with age UK a couple of years back.

Starting point is 00:25:47 There is a problem with older people experiencing climbing rates of STIs, and there are all sorts of factors affecting this. Viagra means that people can get hard-ons and get their leg over for longer into their golden years. Things like HRT mean that people with vaginas can have more comfortable penetrates sex for longer if they wish to. The increase in divorce means that people are having new partners later in life. There are all sorts of issues with, for example, people with dementia sometimes not remember. remembering who their partners are in care homes.

Starting point is 00:26:23 I've spoken to some people for whom their sexuality was illegal when they were younger and so they're experimenting now. A lot of these things are joyous, a lot of these things are challenging to us and a lot of these things, unfortunately, are taboo. So sex education, it's not just for school. Sex education is for all ages. Sex education ideally should be for all of your life because you're always affected by sex.

Starting point is 00:26:48 Whether you're getting it or whether you're not. My point really is there are so many things feeding into the problems that we see with STIs. It's not simple. It infiltrates so far into our societal structures, which means that improving matters sometimes can be quite overwhelmingly complicated and feel like a really big job. I don't think that's an excuse not to do it, though. And I think the more people we have on side take. making a multi-pronged approach, which sounds quite spiky, doesn't it?

Starting point is 00:27:23 I think that's where we will see more success. We always like a multi-pronged approach to sexual pleasure. We do. While we're talking about all these stigmas, let's talk about if the mainstream media perpetuate those stigmas and what language the media uses. Because if when talking about STIs, we want to move away from shame and towards education,

Starting point is 00:27:46 not using stigmatising language plays a huge part in that. And actually initially when we were working on this episode, we were using STIs and STDs interchangeably. So STDs being sexually transmitted diseases. Is that a phrase we're not meant to use? Strictly, STIs are sexually transmitted infections. STDs are sexually transmitted diseases. And STI is only considered officially a disease

Starting point is 00:28:12 when it causes symptoms. So I prefer to use STIs because it ignores. knowledge as the fact that you can be a carrier without showing any symptoms at all. You can be asymptomatic. You've mentioned it earlier. Another word that we commonly associate with STIs is clean or the concept of cleanliness. You know, are you clean? I'm clean. Many people don't think twice about using that kind of language, but could it feed into this stigma that is associated with STIs and that as you've really clearly explained is ultimately creating a vicious cycle of silence and more infection? Yeah, you hear people say all the time, oh, I've

Starting point is 00:28:46 got a clean bill of health. My STI results are clean. I prefer to say my results came back negative or my results are all clear just because using the word clean implies that a positive result is somehow dirty and perpetuates that idea that you have been behaving in a filthy or shameful way in order to contract an STI. Definitely it's a sexual concept because when we were getting our coronavirus tests done we wouldn't say oh I'm clean are you clean of coronavirus? It's actually reminded me when we did our episode on abortion, because the way abortion is spoken about in the mainstream media is also very, very stigmatized, but abortion is incredibly common. And it's kind of the same here. Like, STIs are so stigmatized, but they're also incredibly common. So perhaps if we

Starting point is 00:29:33 spoke about STIs as if somebody with an STI was listening, instead of using a kind of negative status as the rhetorical default, we might actually go some way to change. how the mainstream media reports on STIs, just a thought. No, I think that's a really good point. We also want to speak about what kind of images are used in the media when discussing STIs too. I was actually looking at an article quite recently about STIs and it had a stock image of condoms and then it was only maybe four or five paragraphs into the article where it mentioned

Starting point is 00:30:09 that the STI in question can't be fully protected against just by using condoms. So what kind of images do we see usually in the mainstream media when they're talking about STIs? This is a tricky, sticky one, isn't it really? It is, as you say, really common to find just stock images of condoms or of white couples as well in a bed. One of my personal peeves is that when we talk about STI testing, when I see articles and reports on this, they're often accompanied by a picture of an absolutely freaking massive file of blood. vial of blood. That is, you know, bigger than King Kong's finger. I think that's kind of unhelpful. We know now that there are all sorts of tests where you can just pop a little swab up

Starting point is 00:30:55 your vagina and swirl it round like a little genital merry-go-round. It's possible to test for HIV just through your saliva. So this massive tube, I think, is potentially causing massive problems as a piece of imagery. When we are looking at the misinformation out there, is it fair to say that maybe quite a lot of that comes through the concept of wellness and the industry around wellness. I'm thinking Gwyneth Paltrow talking about vaginal steaming and putting jade eggs up your vaj. There's so many products claiming this will make your vulva smoother or lighter or more magical. Has the wellness industry made it harder for the media to give accurate information about sexual health? I do think social media, the people who run

Starting point is 00:31:43 social media platforms need to take more personal responsibility for the way that they handle sexual content. Instagram is just one example. I have reported countless accounts that I have seen advertising herbal cures that purport to cure HIV and AIDS or that will clean out your pussy and make it so spick and span that Mr Sheen will want it for his very own. And I've received feedback from those platforms saying, we don't see a problem with this. You've got sex educators trying to get information out on those platforms in ways that are accessible and engaging to younger people. And they're being forced to spell sex like it's been produced by a chicken. S-E-W-G-S. Yes. Sex and stuff like. So they're performing all these like pretzel like yogic moves trying to squidge and squeeze their

Starting point is 00:32:38 language into forms that will not get flagged as offensive by that platform. And at the same time, you've also got algorithms that reward engagement no matter of whether it is positive or negative. I've recently seen videos on the front page of my own Instagram where people are deliberately saying something that they know to be wrong because people flood to the comments, either pointing out that it's incorrect or panicking about something that they didn't know before because it's bullshit, bollocks and bunkum. And because all the algorithm sees is, oh, a lot of people are commenting on this, it must be interesting. It puts it to the fucking front page. And this is what's being thrust in people's face. They're getting

Starting point is 00:33:23 fuckery rather than facts about fucking and about intimacy and it's causing more problems. Can you tell I've got a bee in my bonnet about this? I love it. So many of our thoughts about about SEIs are shaped by the news media, but also by TV and films. You are a script consultant for Netflix's show Sex Education, and the show has tackled... Tackled being the operative word in some scenes, yeah. The show has literally tackled topics such as HIV, chlamydia, SDIs in general. How do you go about ensuring that those issues are handled accurately? My job involves being sent portions of the script,

Starting point is 00:34:07 don't see all of it, so it's still exciting when I get to see the whole thing at the end. And I need to firstly analyze whether the stuff that's been written is factually correct and logistically possible. I look at the language and make sure things are being discussed in the most constructive and progressive ways. And I also try and suggest things that might be comedic, that could potentially be funny, because as much as sex education educates, it also has to entertain. Part of my job it's kind of like putting vegetables in the Bolognaise in that you want

Starting point is 00:34:40 to sneak facts in there and education and useful stuff but you don't want that to be the dominant flavour or people won't want to eat it. If they feel like you are force feeding them, that kind of stuff, they're going to feel patronised and they're going to feel bored. But you know what I love about that analogy? Bolognaise

Starting point is 00:34:56 doesn't taste nearly as good as it could without a proper saffrito. You know the celery carrot, onion. That is the secret of true flavor. Well, I talk a lot about rooting, so I'm going to make myself responsible for those root vegetables and getting them into the mix. I was very proud to be involved in the scene with Anwar when he's talking to a sexual health nurse about HIV and saying that he has frightened because a lot of the films that he's seen

Starting point is 00:35:25 depicting gay people have resulted in them dying of AIDS, and it's all been doom and gloom and terror and sadness. I saw it not only as a responsibility for us to talk about stuff like PEP and PEP and U equals U and undetectable equals untransmitable, but also an opportunity. If you get it right, it can be such a heart-soaringly, soul-elevatingly wonderful moment for people to see themselves reflected on TV like that, for them to have a revelatory moment and realize that their life might not be as bad for them as they thought it could be or that something that they're frightened about doesn't pose that sort of threat. The flip side is when

Starting point is 00:36:13 you don't talk to the right people, you can do grave harm. There was a show on Netflix a little while ago called 13 Reasons Why. Yeah, I have more than 13 questions as to why the hell they didn't do their due diligence. Not only did I have problems the way that it glamorized suicide, but there was a young character who died of AIDS now in America. That is so irresponsible. That is so unlikely to happen. It's sensationalist in a way that it just does not credit its viewers with any grey matter whatsoever and does not serve them in terms of teaching them the truth about HIV now. There are so many things that they could have done with that character that still would have pulled on the heartstrings and removed him from the show if that's what they wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:37:03 But they chose to make him die of AIDS. I'm going to need a lot of Santa sacks to hold the weight of my disapproval for that little move. And what sex education shows as a production is that it can be done. I think growing up, sex scenes as a general rule didn't include that logistical preamble discussion about contraception. Also, no foreplay. what the fuck it's just like through the door and in the vagina this didn't help me very much you know when I was early on in my days but but now we do have shows that give a lot more time to realistic sexual discussion conversation relationship development normal people

Starting point is 00:37:44 I may destroy you it's a sin it's just getting better it's getting better Micha Cole is incredible I feel very inspired by her my internal kernels are popping by being Michaela Cole fired, I think. You mentioned it's a sin as well. Absolutely fantastic. That had such a real world impact. Terrence Higgins Trust, who are an HIV charity that often work with,

Starting point is 00:38:08 they saw 8,200 HIV testing kits ordered in a single day when their previous highest total was 2,800. Wow. That just shows you the responsibility as well that TV and film has on sexual health. Time now to take a look at recent headlines and what's happening in the world of reporting.

Starting point is 00:38:29 STIs have come back into mainstream news due to the rise of monkeypox, but even Googling monkeypox brings up a lot of conflicting information. For example, these three headlines come up next to each other. The telegraph, monkey pox could be classified as an STI

Starting point is 00:38:47 under new WHO guidelines. USA Today, Monkeypox is spreading through sex but it's not an STI, why calling it one is a problem. CNBC, stressed out STD clinics, struggle to handle surge in monkeypox patients as US outbreak grows. So here's three headlines, written around the same time with completely conflicting information. Alex, help us out. What's going on? Is Monkeypox an STI? It really depends on what approach you want to take. So Monkeypox is primarily spread through close contact. You don't

Starting point is 00:39:25 have to have penetrative sex or actually any kind of sex at all in order to acquire it. However, this particular outbreak is overwhelmingly being seen in men who sleep with men, so gay or bisexual men or otherwise men who are having sex with other guys. A lot of those are acquiring in sex party settings, if you look at the research. And so there are some people who say, look, We need to be honest about the fact that the primary route of transmission right now are gay sexual events. In order to protect those people, we need to just be frank and put that front and centre. Then there are other people who say, but the stigma associated with STIs is so great that if we label monkeypox and STI, people aren't going to come forward when they have potential symptoms.

Starting point is 00:40:15 They're not going to get tested because of that shame associated with it being a sexual thing. We've seen this happen with other STIs. So whether we label it an STI or not really depends on what you think the best outcome will be of that particular linguistic choice. That says so much about the culture and perception we have around sexual transmission that we won't even use the words

Starting point is 00:40:37 if it may be the case. And it feels like a very short-term solution might be right, let's just avoid calling a spade-a-spade. But actually, the much-needed long-term solution is to tackle stigma and tackle shame and make sure people can look at a sexual transmission and see it as a very normal thing that exists in this world and affects all sorts of people

Starting point is 00:41:00 and doesn't have any bearing on their moral choices. Alex, thank you so much for joining us in the studio. Where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug? You can find me in all of the most interesting corners of the internet at Alex Fox, A-L-I-X, one I like that. cyclops and then fox like the animal who rifles through your bins at night. I do not make the same sounds when I'm having sex personally, I always say. A lot of the stuff I'm working on at the moment is under the radar.

Starting point is 00:41:33 I'll be very excited when I can lift the lid on that. I can say that I'm writing a book called The Missing Kink, and that will be out hopefully in the next couple of years. Can't wait to read it. Is The Missing Kink being sexually educated? That's my kink. No, it's a book full of complete misinformation. Bollocks and bullshit.

Starting point is 00:41:56 Can't wait. I'd also love to signpost to Brooke, a young people's sexual health charity. No matter what age you are, they have really clear information about sex and sexual health, including STIs. So if you're looking for facts in a way that's accessible and that considers cultural aspects that might be affecting you,

Starting point is 00:42:17 then Brooke is a really good place to start whoever you Listeners, before you check out, we need to explain to you that after next week's bonus episode, we are taking a mid-series break for a couple of weeks. The reason being that in that time, we will be recording our first ever live show at King's Place on Sunday the 18th of September at 7pm. The link for tickets is in the show description and we would love to see as many of you there as possible. Meet you and get your hot takes, so please do come down and join us. Then we'll be back as usual on Thursday the 29th with an episode about gypsies, travellers and the PR conspiracy against them.

Starting point is 00:42:57 Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. You can also follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod.

Starting point is 00:43:20 And get in touch and let us know what you'd like us to cover or who you'd like us to speak to. MediaStorm, an award-winning podcast from the House of the Guilty Feminist is part of the ACAS creator network. It is produced by Tom Silinski and Deborah Francis White. The music is by Sam Fire.

Media Storm - S2E6 STIs: We need to talk about men and HPV - with Alix Fox

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