The Psychology of your 20s - 379. I got an STD in my 20s, now what?

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Dating and sex can feel like they come with a hidden rulebook. You’re meant to be adventurous but not too adventurous, confident but not reckless, and always somehow immune to consequences. So the potential of catching an STI – whether it’s a scare, a diagnosis, or a message from a clinic – can feel not only a health impact, but also a judgement on our character. In this episode, we’re unpacking the psychology of STIs in our 20s why they carry so much shame, how stigma shapes the stories we tell ourselves, and what it looks like to navigate disclosure with self-respect. We explore:•        How common STIs really are•        The most common infections in our 20s•        The difference between treatable and manageable•        The role of sexual shame and purity culture•        How shame drives secrecy and avoidance•        When and how to tell a partner, and what to do if you face rejection If you’ve ever felt panicked, embarrassed, or stuck in your head about sexual health, this episode is for you. Watch on Netflix  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'd love to see you over there. But without further ado, let's get into the episode. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we break down the psychology. of our 20s. Just a heads up, today's episode will be naturally covering topics like sex, sexual assault and other mature themes, but also difficult themes. So if this is something you may find

hard to hear, please consider your own headspace and well-being. And whether or not now is the time to listen to this episode, it will still be here in a month, a year for you to come back to. So just remember to take care of yourselves. So guys, today's episode is hopefully going to be like the big sister slash best friend version of the sex education class you never had in school. We cover so many obviously, I think important topics on this podcast, like breakups and work and specific mental health issues, all things that, you know, have to do with our 20s. But sex is a part of our 20s. I don't often talk about and STIs, STDs are a part of that as well, not just a physical part of it, not just a risk part of it, but a psychological part of

our 20s for so many of us. SDIs are so common. They are also treatable or at the very least manageable when you have access to healthcare. But socially and emotionally speaking, they have such an impact still to this day on how we date, how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we see our future. Even if you are the most sex positive therapy literate person on the planet, I still think there is a huge taboo around sexually transmitted infections or diseases. And finding out you have one is always going to be shocking. It's always going to be or feel life altering or scary and it brings a lot of shame. And that's why I want to talk about how to approach this situation if it is the one that you found yourself in, from when you're diagnosed to bringing it up with a person you're seeing

to dealing with the shame or emotional toll that it may be taking on you. I just want to say it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. SDIs have been a part of human history since human history began and the medical advances we have had recently as a society means that you're going to be taking good care of and, you know, you're probably. probably don't even realize how many people you talk to, walk by, admire or are friends with, have this experience as well. You know, how many people as well still get their love story and still have a relationship and have sex and get to know themselves and trust themselves and get their health back again.

So that's exactly what I want to focus on today. Quick note, this episode is more educational. It's not medical advice. So for personal guidance or if you feel like you might be experiencing any of these things we talk about on the show today, please go talk to a sexual health clinic or healthcare professional who can give you a bit more informed medical information. But without further ado, let's get into it. So before we dive further in, just a little clarity on the difference between SDIs and SDDs because I used to use these interchangeably. like I think a lot of people do, even medical professionals, and then one of my friends called me out on it,

and I really appreciated her doing so, because STI's sexually transmitted infection, this is the broader term to describe infection caused by viruses, bacteria, or parasites that are passed through sexual contact. Someone might have an STI without having any symptoms at all, meaning it can be passed on without people knowing that they even have it. You usually catch them at the stage if you go for routine checks. STDs, sexually transmitted diseases, is when the initial infection has advanced to a point of significantly noticeable symptoms or disease. So basically if an SDI is left untreated, it can, but not always develop into an STD. A lot of professionals now actually advocate for the term SDI to be used more generally than the term disease because I think just diseases just feels like a stigmatizing term.

But I think that very simple language lesson, language shift is one that we can all integrate. Yeah, just for the better. I think if you grew up with the sex education that a lot of us had, SDIs you would think that they are the worst thing that could ever happen to you, number one, that your life would be over because of all those fear-based stories we were told. you might also have absorbed this idea that SDIs are really, really rare. Something that happens to, you know, that happen to reckless people or people who are careless. But oh my God, you would be so wrong.

Globally, SDIs are way more common than you think. And this, I think, is the first step to feeling less isolated in this experience. Because if we don't talk about this openly, you truly think, like, like you were the only one to have ever had this experience. But get this, the World Health Organization estimates, I think that it's more than like a million curable STIs acquired every single day. Day, daily. And in 2020, it was estimated, I think, 374 million new infections

of the four most curable STIs, so chlamydia gonorrhea, syphilis, and I can't remember the third one, were diagnosed during the, that year. Here's another very important scientific fact that I want to bring up as early as I possibly can in this episode, chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV, HPV, herpes. Every single SDI has either a preventative intervention, a cure or a highly effective treatment that manages symptoms, every single one. And with early detection, the chances of seeing no symptoms, no changes, or very minimal symptoms or getting to a full recovery is so much higher. Here are some positive things to know about recent treatment developments. If you're, you know, scared in the wake of

your own diagnosis or you're scared to find out or to go get tested. For starters, Chlamydia gonorrhea syphilis, some of the most common SDIs that you get in your 20s, are all curable with antibiotics. That is some good news. Some more good news in 2025, researchers in Melbourne got one step closer to developing a cure for HIV. I think that is the SDD we are most fearful of. Right now, though, people on medication for HIV have the same life expectancy as people without HIV. Some of them may never experience any symptoms. Let's keep going with the good news. 2025 again, Australia announced it was on track to eliminate cervical cancer, which is basically completely caused due to HBV. Last year as well, a new treatment for herpes that dropped the viral

load by 94% moved to phase two trials. The first ever gonorrhea vaccine is being rolled out in the UK as we speak. Like, the reason I emphasize all this is because when you get that call from your doctor or the sexual health clinic or get a text from a partner that's like, hey, you have this or you're at risk, it can feel like the floor has dropped out from beneath you and that this is the end. It can be physically painful as well. It can be disruptive in many ways to our lives. Sometimes all that emotion can overwhelm us and can prompt avoidance.

It's easier to look away from the situation. than to face it head on. And I don't want that to mean that you don't pursue treatment immediately or get the help you need because you assume there isn't any. You assume that your life is now over. You believe a lot of the narratives that I think we were told when we were kids that were very scary and very harmful. I know I speak about this all the time.

I hate when people try and put a positive spin on everything and try to make you think you have to be almost like optimistic about you know, about your circumstances and what you're going through. But with how much fear mongering and shame surrounds STIs, I feel like it's necessary to just balance that with some truth. You are going to be okay. The fact that we're not emphasizing this more in society, the way, you know, we always talk so positively.

You always see in the news when cancer trials have been successful or dementia trials have been successful. We never do the same for like STIs. And I think that also proves how prejudiced our collective attitudes towards SDIs are, that medical wins never get the attention, but also how much people still think that fear and shame is going to somehow make SDIs go away by scaring people into not having sex because we just emphasize the worst case scenario. People who still believe that, like, at this stage, are so, like, they're idiots.

Like, it doesn't stop, shame doesn't stop people. It's almost like this weird reverse psychology. thinking of like if we talk about how common and treatable this is then people will be careless because there's this assumption that only carelessness is what makes someone get an STI that is not true but what that means is that when we do we're terrified and we think our life is over we don't get tested because we're scared to know the outcome and you don't get the help you need because you think everybody's going to judge you and then the problem gets worse symptoms get worse perhaps the the infection, the virus, the bacteria gets passed on, nobody is better off.

Getting an STI is a shock physically and it is a health concern that needs treatment and medical care, but emotionally I think the toll is also quite high because of the stigma and that's really what we're talking about here. Some psychological researchers even labeled getting an STI as a traumatic event. It may trigger a similar emotional reaction to the experience of grief, you know, denial, anger at the person who gave it to you, anger at the world, bargaining, but also social withdrawal and isolation. You know, I had a friend of mine get an SDI from a guy. She'd been seeing for like six months.

It was the first person she'd ever slept with, whether he'd cheated on her or had it before, we may never know, but I remember she didn't tell us for like almost a year because of fear and the fear of judgment. and I think I remember her being like I just felt like it said something about me as a person like it's a literal verdict on my character and psychology sociology explains what that feeling is it's called the spoiled identity effect it's when people start to see themselves defined by a condition that supposedly says something about their character or who they are at some stage someone put this insidious idea on our head that SDIs are what happened to careless people,

immoral people, undisciplined people, impure people. And so I must be all those things. That judgment is a human judgment. It's a moral judgment that is man-made. And it really comes down to how we treat sex and how most of us are raised in a culture where sex is already very taboo, something you're meant to be very discreet about, not admit that you want to. and definitely not make so-called mistakes around. So when you throw into it an infection caught through sex, suddenly it's like, what did you expect? Like, this was a choice you had. We can hold you accountable.

And that's ludicrous. There's a really striking piece of social psychology research that shows how powerful that moral contamination narrative is in stopping people from getting help and actually making SDI's worse. Across five separate experiments published in the personality and social psychology bulletin, researchers found that simply adding unprotected sex to a list of possible ways a disease could be transmitted, made people judge an infected person more, and made participants believe that if they got the disease, others would see them as less moral too. So the infections of diseases that conditions on this list stayed the same. Some of them were like neurological decline, cancer,

hair loss. But once sex was associated in any way with these diseases, these studies showed that people just saw them differently immediately, even though nothing had changed except for that label. It's so funny to me because if we eat out at a restaurant and the food gives us food poisoning, you would not turn that on yourself and be like, oh my goodness, I'm so immoral and disgusting because I chose to eat there. And other people wouldn't think that of you either. You're just someone who fulfilled a human need to eat. And you got unlucky with what you ate.

So if we engage in another human need and we have sex and we get unlucky and we catch an SDI, why is that different? It's a leading question. We all know why. Because of the way, again, society has tried to control sex for generations upon generations using shame as their number one tool to do so. To understand the stigma further, let's get a little bit historical for a second. SDIs, I don't think, would be so stigmatized if sex wasn't so stigmatized

because it wasn't used to control men and women, but mainly women. And it wasn't used to control women to get them to behave in a way that suited the needs of others. A huge part of why STIs are seen as, and I hate using this word, but as dirty, is because sex, particularly casual sex, is seen as impure. And that contrast to a lot of the purity language that religion likes to use both as a spiritual category, that you're pure of mind, pure of heart, and also as a social mechanism of control. Framing women's bodies is something that can be virtuous, can be clean, can be controlled, or conversely can be sinful and tainted and dangerous.

there are so many ways that religion idolizes the pure woman, idolizes virginity, literally to the point of biological impossibility, like Virgin Mary being a virgin but being pregnant. And in contrast, this also shames sex and it shames impurity, uses it as another way to judge the morality of someone. Historically, we have to ask this question, why would women need to be shamed for having sex? Why would they have to be shamed for having casual sex? because in many ways I think they were treated like property. They were meant to be solely bound to one man so that he could know the children she bore were his so that his wealth, his inheritance would go to something, his kin that belonged to him, not some other man, and a woman that could give him that almost like security

because she was a virgin when she met him, because she stayed controlled when she was with him, she was an asset. If we want, and if they wanted more women to act like that, the easiest way to make them do so is to find ways to humiliate those who wouldn't and to basically change behaviour through social learning and vicarious learning of us witnessing the experiences of people who acted out of line. Anything to do with sex that's not done in quote unquote traditional, the traditional way, therefore becomes shameful, but especially SDIs.

And not just for women, but for anyone who is like acting out of the traditional way, not just for women, but for anyone who is like acting out of line with how people should be having sex. Queer sex is another area where we see that. You know, we can't talk about the shame around STIs and not talk about the AIDS epidemic and how HIV and AIDS wasn't treated as the medical crisis that it was in the early days. It was framed as a moral crisis. There was all this language of like innocent victims versus guilty victims and entire groups,

especially gay men, were blamed dehumanized. left to suffer as if illness was a deserved consequence of deviant sex, again, because of religion and how it determined right and wrong and good and bad. In this way, this is where we are now. SDI's act as kind of a moral barometer that you've crossed a line or you've made a bad choice contrary to how people think you should behave. If you think about it, like the only other kind of biological impact to unprotected sex is like unplanned pregnancy, which also has its own moral connotations. But again, predominantly affects

women. Now, I can hear like people's brains ticking and being like, you know, you could make the argument that back in the day as well, shame was the only public safety mechanism people had against SDIs. Like SDIs back then were deadly. They were very serious. They would kill you. The only option they maybe had was preventative and was to, you know, use emotional, levers to promote abstinence or monogamy to stop the spread. There is an argument for that, but nowadays that's not the case anymore, as we've spoken about, there's a lot more medical care. The shame primarily lingers because of this moral shadow that's cast by history and religion and perceptions of good and bad, right and wrong, pure and dirty it amongst other things.

And the reason, the reason I'm lingering on the history of this is because psychologically it's important. This is what creates attitudes and cultural memory that mean that you are carrying shame and that mean that there is this mental shortcut that SDI equals irresponsible, sex equals risky, diagnosis equals humiliation equals life over. If you have an SDI and you're managing internalized or even outside stigma, I think getting treatment is obviously step number one. step number two is knowing you're not alone but step number three is being able to interrogate why exactly people want you to feel bad why they want you to self-police and internalize your shame why they want you to not talk about it sex isn't bad casual sex isn't

bad getting an sDI doesn't make you dirty or damaged goods i hate that word quite literally like anyone could get one anyone simply from being born with it from drug needle use, blood transfusions to unconsensual sex. And guess what? Even if you got it because, yeah, you just didn't use a condom or you didn't know the person that well. It still doesn't make you deserving or immoral or whatever others want to convince you. There are no innocent and non-innocent people in this because no one's done anything wrong. Let's talk about the fourth thing that you may feel is weighing pretty heavy on you right now, which is your beliefs about the future. A big concern for people who get an SDI in their 20s, especially one that maybe doesn't go away immediately or ever,

is about relationships and how an SDI will impact how they'll meet people, bond with people, whether they'll be accepted. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange, modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong.

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Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Learn the Hardway, and listen now. Stigma often gives us a much more negative view on how conversations about SDIs with potential partners are going to go. We often anticipate, I think, harsher judgment, disgust and maybe rejection. Even though medically, socially, relationally, like a lot of people

build very healthy, loving lives with these diagnoses. Because as we've seen, there are still steps you can take to minimize or eradicate risk. The painful part is when you have that one negative experience or that one moment where you do come up against stigma. Also, the painful part is thinking about that moment and the potential of it. And that can really start to shape how you act and you might avoid dating, avoid intimacy, stay in relationships that aren't right because you feel disqualified from wanting more or you kind of you wonder if anybody's going to want you you know i had a friend of mine she got herpes a couple years ago now yeah a couple of years ago and she was like i remember her having this moment of being like is this the dating pool for me now is it just going

to be smaller is it just going to be people with herpes is that the only people i can date are those my options and you know there's not exactly a filter on hinge that's like people with herpes yes or no or like a filter to like figure it out or a prompt that makes that's hard that's hard and the easiest thing is again to avoid dating altogether because avoidance temporarily reduces anxiety so it can become the default coping strategy even though it goes against your hopes for the future and I know I know it can be really difficult to believe that you'll find someone who will understand this and who won't pass judgment, but there are so many accounts of this happening. I would highly recommend, and I know this is going to be weird, but going to Reddit pages and support pages and looking up

like dating with herpes, dating with HIV, dating with hepby, because the stories are so honest and beautiful and just kind of matter of fact. Like they're matter of fact, which is what I like. Basically, they're like relationships are hard. Dating is hard. This is hard. But there are always success stories regardless of circumstances. You don't even have to look that far. You will find genuinely very romantic stories of people who are probably in a similar situation to what you are in now. Let's talk about when you should tell someone you have an SDI because I feel like this is kind of controversial. It's like up for debate. People have different opinions about it. I got a lot of info on this from the SDI project and also from this amazing article from the website.

them.com, but also from friends who have been in this situation and how they've dealt with it in a couple of ways. Obviously, the only constraint is that you want to tell somebody before you have sex or before like transmission is possible. It's then your call from there when you want to do it. I have a friend who tells someone on the first date. I have another friend who tells them on the fourth or fifth date, like when, you know, things are kind of going to like sexually speed up. The other constraint is that it's probably wise to not tell them in the minutes or moments before you're about to have sex, mainly because let's be honest, you're in a vulnerable position if they get angry or frustrated, but also sometimes nobody is thinking clearly and you want to both

have a clear risk assessment. Over text or over a call is often really wise or a nice way to do it, or in a nice, quiet, public spot where you feel safe and feel like emotions are going to be manageable, I think on the whole, a good structure for this would go something like, number one, like signal to them you want to talk about health and sexual health, make that clear, put it in the subject line, share the diagnosis with their matter of factly, share what you do to manage the risk and how much of a risk there is, and kind of invite any questions and, like, give them time. I think brushing up on your own knowledge and research and education,

is also great. They'll probably have a lot of questions and you will be a great person to answer them. Give them stats, you know, almost two-thirds of the population. Either has the herpes simplex virus one or two. Treatment has lowered my viral load. I'm not having an outbreak. My doctor has given me this specific advice or that specific advice. I know that there are the preventative rates of vaccines, whatever it is. A lot of the time, your ability to share this with the other person is going to be appreciated because that's trust, that's honesty, that's maturity. That's a beautiful way to handle a situation. And I think even at times it deepens the connection to have this thing that you've shared with them. Also, this was advice from my friend actually. She was like, you can tell

a lot about someone from their reaction. You can tell a lot about their character, about how they'll handle surprising news, how open they are to learning from their reaction. Listen, there is that chance that you might share it with somebody and they might reject you. Rejection of any kindness upsetting. But when it's something as sensitive as this, it's going to feel really personal. And I'm really sorry. I'm sorry, especially if you saw it going somewhere or you like really clicked with them. I know especially it can be hard to believe the age old like, well, they just weren't right for you because, you know,

it's not something about your personality, it's not something about the situation, it's just unfortunate biology, and that can feel really brutal that if things were different, it could be different. If you feel that real sting of shame or embarrassment, you didn't do anything wrong. You haven't done anything wrong. In fact, it's the complete opposite. You disclose so that the other person could make an informed decision. You exhibited honesty and kindness, and a lot of people don't do that. Maybe the reason you got an STI is because somebody else didn't do that. Even if the outcome hurts, you did the emotionally mature, ethically solid thing and you will always have that knowledge about your own character. The thing is, they are allowed to have a boundary

about risk. People's risk tolerance varies. Some people might be more cautious. Some people might have health anxiety. They might be immunocompromise. Some people have past trauma. Some people just aren't ready for a situation that requires extra care from them, extra communication, extra, extra thought. Their decision is simply a preference and a boundary they have. It's not a verdict. It's not a verdict on you as a person. Even if it does hurt a little, I think a good response is a simple grounded one, something like, thanks for being honest, I understand you have to do what feels right for you.

That's enough. a lot of people's immediate reactions as well comes from outdated narratives on sexual health rather than medical understanding. Even very smart, kind people can have massive gaps in sexual health knowledge because sex is taught pretty poorly, still not talked about.

Literally, I got my sex ed from like my 45-year-old gym teacher and he couldn't tell me how lesbians had sex. Like, he couldn't tell us anything. So that is the knowledge that a lot of us are coming into this. with. People often react to the idea, not the actual risk. You know, they're humans. We operate on very easy mental shortcuts and this is like a prime example of one of them. That being said, as well, if they do react with extreme judgment, pointed insults, character insults, they've

gone past the point of just showing respect in a boundary. They're using stigma to position themselves as superior, that's not a person who is safe for vulnerability. If it's via text and they're getting very harsh, you don't own them a debate. You can simply stop responding. It might sound controversial. It's not your job to educate everybody. Your mental health is worth more than proving you're not gross or tainted or whatever they're saying. I hate those words, but like it's, you don't, you don't have to be the one who changes their mind. Send them some resources. Send them the stats and then leave the situation. Okay, as we wrap up, let's quickly do some, let's do five rapid fire tips I got from friends, sex therapists, articles, sexual health clinics on how to

date and live with an SDI. Number one, this is one I heard from a lot of friends, have a pre-written out script of info. If you're actively dating and you're trying to find your person, that barrier of having to tell somebody like we just said can be really overwhelming and honestly, exhausting when you're, you know, maybe seeing a few people, maybe getting rejected, having success in other ways. Save yourself the effort every time and save yourself the mental load or the emotional load of this discussion by just having a pre-typed message. I really like you, so I want to be honest. I have this. If you want to say I got it X amount of years ago, whatever, if you don't have to. It impacts me in this way. It impacts my life in this way, or not at all.

The risk to you is this. If you want to keep seeing each other, this is maybe what is necessary. Number two on our rapid fire list, tell your friends if you haven't already. I'm going to be real. Your friends don't care, except to the extent that this is emotionally or physically hurting you. And if they do care beyond that, in a judgmental way, they are not your friends. Friendships like marriages, I think, should be through sickness and health, good times and bad times. This is included. This is one of those times. In general, like I just want to say, say every time a friend has told me, I have never thought anything other than what do you need from me? It's never been a moral judgment flowed across my mind. It just isn't a big deal for me.

And I think the more educated we get, the more most people realize it's not a big deal. To the extent that they care about you and it's a big deal for you, but they still love you. you will also connect with so many other people that maybe are mutual friends or even your friends who have a similar experience and you will find so much kinship in just being like i'm not alone tip number three keep up with the latest science i'm going to quote dr ali carter here the meaning of safe sex changes every decade so you have to keep up every year they develop new strategies new methods new science new drugs you can live a full life now undoubtedly but I think there is so much more optimism coming out in this space I

actually saw this article that said sexual health research and medical research and sexual the sexual health space is one of the most optimistic places for research right now that's that's great news we're not trying to be like toxicly positive we're just trying to be informed and just yeah see the future for what it is with the most information tip number four obviously continue to practice safe sex always. Book tests every time you have a new partner or every three months. No matter what, even if you haven't had a new sexual partner, even if you have no symptoms, many SDIs never display symptoms until it's progressed. Chlamydia, for example,

especially in women, HPV is another one, same with herpes. You might not know until you have a flare-up. Consider it, like, if you are having regular sex, consider it like getting your haircut or your nails done, like integrate it into your routine as part of your hygiene and your health care. And finally, remember that the shame isn't yours to carry. People have been getting SDIs since human history began. It is as normal as childbirth, as heartbreak, as any illness. Society has mixed it up with morality in a way that is very, very painful, but so many people have been in your position and made it through the physical and emotional aspects of it.

A diagnosis doesn't mean, again, this word doesn't mean you're dirty, makes you informed about your health and well-being, which lets you do the most adult thing, the most caring thing possible, which is to get treated, protect others, protect your health, and communicate it honestly. So I have a lot of love for the situation you're in right now. I hope the stories of people that I know who have been through this is comforting. if you don't have people in your life who are open to talking about it, I hope that you can take those stories and feel like those are your friends and you can be having those same chats with them

and feel completely safe with that and know that you are completely supported and never judged and that it's all going to be okay. I promise. Thank you to Libby Colbert for her research contributions to this episode. As always, she is amazing and she was a great help with this episode. Until next time, be safe, be kind, especially be gentle with yourself if this episode resonated with you at all. You have all my love and we will talk very, very soon. Hey, what's good, y'all?

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