“Humans are germ factories!” says Erika as she tiptoes around a variety of floating bacteria and viruses.

"We are constantly picking up and giving each other all kinds of diseases." Erika hands someone a gift box with little germs floating off of it. The person leans away, looking a little grossed out as they accept the gift. “Thanks,” they say. “You, uh, shouldn't have."

Erika continues talking. “We spread them through the air we exhale, through touch, and (the juiciest of all the ways) through swapping fluids.”

Illustrations of a cough, hands high-fiving each other, and fluids splashing together are shown with this statement.

“Getting sick is just a part of life…”

A panel shows a person sneezing, saying, "Achoo! I have a cold." A concerned friend asks them, "Aw buddy, can I bring you anything?"

“ ... But there's still a real stigma to picking up a sexually transmitted bug.”

The next panel shows the same person saying, "I have herpes." to their friend. The friend, looking horrified, rushes to back away, yelling, "What?! AUGH! You're DIRTY.”

Erika shrugs her shoulders. "Despite the fact that HALF of us sexually active people will catch something once in our lives. But the thing is, most STIs just aren't a big deal!"

Looking surprised, the person stammers and asks, “W-wait, what?”

"How can you say that?" they ask. They watch Erika stomp down on cartoony, blob-like STIs, one of which says, “Yipe!” as it gets squished.

“Easy!” replies Erika.

“Lots of STIs are curable and those that aren't still have medication to help reduce their impact on you and your partners.”

An illustration of a happy pill bottle stands proudly among a few displeased STI blobs. One arches its back and hisses at the bottle like a cat.

“And that's only if you know you have something, most folks have no clue they're infected because they show no symptoms in the first place!”

An illustration shows two stick people shrugging their shoulders. One raises their eyebrow at the other, asking, "Do I have HPV or do you?” The other responds, “I can’t tell!”

The person now looks a little freaked out, glancing down at their crotch. "Wait, you mean... I could have something right now and not know it?”

“You bet your booties!” says Erika. “Heck, I’ve had HPV and I have herpes. It’s… actually really normal. Let’s take a minute to get acquainted with some -”

Common STIs People Pick Up!

(Research collected from Planned Parenthood. Only use this list as a first step guide before getting checked out by a real medical practitioner!)

Chlamydia

• Bacterial


• Super common! 3 million Americans get it every year.


• Passed through most forms of sex, anything that exchanges sexual fluids.


• Can infect any of your soft, damp and delicate zones, like genitals, anus, eyes, and throats!


• Can lead to major health trubs and infertility if left untreated.


• Treated with antibiotics.

Sneaky and almost symptomless, but you might have:

• Pain when peeing


• Painful sex


• Tummy pain


• Abnormal vaginal or penial or anus discharge


• Bleeding between periods


• Painful testicles


• Sore or bloody butthole

Difficulty Level: No big deal as long as it’s treated!

Gonorrhea (AKA: The Clap or Drip)

• Bacterial


• Super common! 1 to 2 million Americans get it every year!


• Transferred by sexual fluids, so most forms of sex.


• Can infect any of your soft, damp and delicate zones, including genitals, anus, eyes, and throat.


• Can lead to major health problems and infertility if left untreated.


• Treated with antibiotics.

Most of the time it's symptomless, but you might get

• Pain when peeing


• Painful sex


• Abnormal vaginal or penial or anus discharge


• Bleeding between periods


• Painful testicles


• Pain when you poop


• An itchy butthole

Difficulty Level: Easy-peasy, just get treated.

Hepatitis B

• Virus


• Not that common nowadays thanks to child vaccinations! Only about a million Americans are carriers.


• You pick it up through genital fluids, urine, and blood.


• Infects your liver.


• Can lead to liver disease.


• There ARE other kinds of Hepatitis, but B is the most commonly associated with sexual transfer.


• NO CURE, but 9/10 people fight it off after 4-8 weeks, like a really bad cold. Plus you can be vaccinated against it!

You probably won't get any symptoms, but if you do, here's a list:

• Feeling flu-ish


• Tired


• Painful tummy zone


• Loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting


• Painful joints


• Headaches


• Fever


• Hives


• Dark coloured pee


• Weird looking poop


• Yellowing skin

Difficulty Level: Sucks, but chances are you’ll crush it.

Scabies

• TINY burrowing parasites.


• Infects your skin.


• About 200,000 cases a year.


• You pick it up through skin-to-skin contact, like when you're canoodling with your infected boo.


• Just some crazy itchy red bumps on your skin that sometimes follows a line.


• You'll need to get prescribed meds to get rid of these nasties, and you'll have to sanitize your bedding, clothes, and towels! Blarf!

Difficulty Level: One of our old roommates got this from a long and sketchy Greyhound bus trip. He didn't much like it, but, I mean, it went away with a bit of time and medication, no biggie.

The person looks up at the list above, looking a little surprised. "Hoo boy…” they say. “This is... A LOT of information."

Erika shrugs in commiseration. “RIGHT?” she says. “But hang in there, we’re about halfway through.”

Herpes (AKA HSV-1 & 2)

• Virus


• ULTRA common! More than half of Americans have it.


• You pick it up through skin-to-skin contact with an infected zone, especially during an outbreak, but you're low-key infectious to others all the time. To debunk a myth: it won't live long outside the body so you CAN’T get it from holding hands, coughing, sneezing, or sitting on a toilet.


• Can infect any of the soft, damp and delicate zones, including genitals, anus, eyes, and throats.


• Isn't apparent until you experience an outbreak, when the virus shows up as big sores that heal after a week.




• Rarely gets worse than that.




• No cure, but there are prescriptions that help reduce outbreak times.

Difficulty Level: Uncomfortable AF during outbreaks, but the rest of the time? You can’t even tell you have anything (Read up on our comic about Herpes: OhJoySexToy.com/herpes).

HIV and AIDS

• HIV is a virus that infects and attacks your immune system and can cause AIDS, the point when your immune system is so busted that you're in the danger zone.


• Rare, about 1 million total Americans have HIV.


• Transferred by sexual fluids, blood, and breast milk. To debunk a myth, you CAN’T get it from kissing or holding hands or anything like that.


• HIV is symptomless (although you may feel like you have a cold the first few weeks after infection) until your white blood cell count gets too low (maybe years and years after infection) and you start suffering from AIDS, which has just about every symptom under the sun.


• Can lead to major health issues and death.


• No cure, but with medication it's not the death sentence it was 40 years ago.

Difficulty Level: Hard, but survivable. Caught early, HIV can be kept in check with antivirals and even reduced to the point where it's undetectable and untransmittable in a person. There are also great pre-exposure meds out there called PrEP that drastically help in reducing the chance of catching it; they are worth exploring if you are having sexy fun in a higher-risk community (Read up about it on Silver’s comic here: OhJoySexToy.com/aids-hiv-prep-silver).

HPV (AKA: Human Papillomavirus)

• Virus


• The most common sexually transmitted virus out there, most who engage in sex will get it.


• Transmits through our soft moist zones contacting each other such as vulvas, vaginas, penises, anuses, and mouths.


• Pretty much symptomless, but you might get some warts (that can be removed).


• Some of the more aggressive HPVs can cause cancer and people with cervixes are especially vulnerable.


• No cure, but our bodies usually fight it off after a little while or there are medical treatments for resulting symptoms. Regular pap smears are key and there are vaccines for children that can immunize them from some of the worst strains.

Difficulty Level: Stressful, but usually harmless. The bad results can typically be treated with medical procedures (Read up about it on our comic here: OhJoySexToy.com/hpv).

Molluscum Contagiosum

• Skin virus.


• About 200,000 cases a year.


• You pick it up through contact, usually during some good-time sexytimes rubbin’.


• Just some hard itchy little bumps on your skin.


• NO CURE but it'll go away on its own within 6 to 12 months. Some prescription topical treatments can help, and there are options if bumps don't go away with time.

Difficulty Level: You'll want to avoid having sexy times with others while your body clears it out, which is a bummer, but it's temporary.

Pubic Lice (AKA: Crabs)

• Parasites.


• Infect your coarse hair.


• You pick it up through contact, they'll clamber from pubes to pubes!


• Really common, millions and millions get them every year.


• Visually obvious little critters, you can see them and their eggs!


• Tons of cures out there: gels, shampoos, liquids, foams. Most of it is available over the counter too, but there's strong stuff available via prescription as well. They’ll hang out in your clothes too, so you're going to have to wash them on the hottest setting.

While they are there you might suffer:

• Some real bad itching


• Agitated skin


• Feverish and feeling run down

Difficulty Level: Nobody likes the idea of lice. But, whatevs, you can handle this with some treatment.

Syphilis

• Bacterial


• About 200,000 cases a year


• Picked up through sexual contact, when soft moist zones meet a syphilis sore, such as all sets of genitals, anusess, and sometimes mouths.


• Can lead to a lot of issues if it's left alone long enough. Can even kill you if it gets super bad, but we're talking like 10 to 20 years after infection.


• Easily treated early on with antibiotics, but left untreated it gets harder and harder to deal with.

Stages:

• Usually starts with a sore lump that's highly contagious and easy to mistake for a pimple or ingrown hair, which lasts for 3 to 6 weeks.


• Then it might develop into a rash that will show up on your body, that'll last 2 to 6 weeks and might come and go for up to 2 years.


• Finally it chills out and enters its late stage, where it’s pretty symptomless, but potentially dangerous.

Difficulty Level: Look for a weird lump and then GET THEE TO THE DOCTOR and they’ll sort this shit right out.

Trichomoniasis

• Microscopic parasites


• The most common STI out there


• Transferred by sexual fluids meeting your genitals


• Pretty darn symptomless for all genitals, but can lead to vaginitis for vagina-having folks, which can SUPER suck (bad vaginal discharge, itchy vagina, genital swelling, pain during sex).


• Super easy to diagnose and treat. Antibiotics destroy these little villains.

Difficulty: Nothing to sweat about once you take your meds!

The person looks back nervously at Erika and sweats a little. “Uh, no offense, but those all look like they suck?” they say.

Erika shrugs. “Oh yeah, they do. They’re just, like, not the end of the world, OR the end of your sex life. Seriously, STIs aren't as scary as they used to be. We live in the future and science has given us tools to help deal with even the incurable ones.”

An illustration of a smug pill bottle is shown holding back a growling microbe on a leash.

Erika continues talking. “If you get an STI (which you probably will), just follow your doctor's advice and reach out to your recent and previous partners, so they can go get tested too. That being said, friends remember to play safe and use precautions. Medicine isn't an excuse to be irresponsible with your health. While getting sick is just a part of being alive, it's still something you want to avoid! Use condoms, dental dams, and gloves! Whether you pick up a cold or chlamydia, you're still a whole human being who is worthy of love and respect.”

Brought to you by our lovely patrons at Patreon.com/erikamoen.

To repost or license this comic, visit Ohjoysextoy.com/license.

This comic was posted on April 20, 2019 and transcribed July 24, 2022, by Dennie Park, who can be found at linktr.ee/DeepBeeps