Do young people fear pregnancy more than STDs?

[grumpytubwumper]

Do young people not get taught about Sexually Transmitted Diseases anymore?

I have a much younger friend (early-mid 20s) at work who thinks the worst result of sex is pregnancy. She isn’t careful when it comes to protection and says her biggest fear is having children not STDs. She’s young so I understand not wanting children but when I was early 20s we were more scared of getting chlamydia or HIV than an abortion.

I just wondered if young people thought the threats of STDs no longer exist or were greatly exaggerated or something

I work in sexual health and I don't think that's the case in the sense that young people are not aware about STIs, but I do think pregnancy is still a much bigger threat for most women. I mean, I'm in my 40s and though we learned about STIs in school, it wasn't really a thing we worried about or talked about in our 20s. The reality is that most of the STIs that are circulating in young heterosexual people are the easily treatable ones, so think, and probably quite accurately, they are less likely to have a long-term impact (assuming they are treated in a timely manner) that an unplanned pregnancy - which leads to either being a parent or needing a termination (which can be pretty traumatic for some women). Getting rid of the most common STIs is a course of antibiotics. As much as there is a lot of worry about PID, it's still not common and most people do get diagnosed in time.

I do think young people are more aware of STIs now than when I was younger because there has been a real push for testing amongst under 25s in the UK and at home testing is very accessible for everyone now. In my day, it was still quite taboo to get an STI test. I remember asking my GP how to be tested in my 20s and she was very reluctant to test me (and asked 'what have you been up to to need that?!'). It's definitely more open today, not the least because of the internet.

But I do think that most women are more worried about pregnancy that STIs. I think you see that very clearly on mumsnet too - people asking about an unplanned pregnancy they are worried about, testing, asking people to look at their tests, but have not been for an STI test (when they have clearly very recently had sex without a condom) potentially with a totally random guy.