Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD)

More than twenty different microbes can be transmitted by sexual contact. These include bacteria, viruses (including the HIV viruses that cause the autoimmune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), parasites, lice, and scabies. Several of these microbes can infect more than one anatomical site and many invade the blood stream, where they can spread to all organs and tissues of the body. It is also common for more than one STD microbe to infect the same anatomical site simultaneously, especially the urethra, the opening of the cervix, and the rectum.

See specific sexually transmitted diseases, e.g.:

* AIDS
* Chancroid
* Crabs and Scabies
* Genital Warts
* Gonorrhea and Chlamydia
* Hepatitis
* Herpes
* Syphilis
* Vaginitis
* Yeast Vaginitis

In any community there are persons whose sexual orientation or life-style puts them at high risk of acquiring an STD. Successful treatment and control of STDs, therefore, requires treatment of not only those who seek medical care because of their symptoms, but also their sexual partners, whether or not they have symptoms of infection. Treatment must be given simultaneously to sexual partners to avoid one or the other being re-exposed and infected.

Author Info:
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, college professor, to being "Dr. Ruth," radio host, in 1980. I enrolled in the Human Sexuality program at New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical School, which was led by one of our foremost experts on the subject, Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan, and I became a psychosexual therapist. Now I've had my own private practice for nearly two decades and I've taught human sexuality at several colleges, for more visit http://www.sexuality-encyclopedia.com



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