Sexual Health Without Shame: A Deep Dive with Shameless Care

Transcript

Speaker1: You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, This is your sign. Start free at rss.com. Welcome to Hot Couple Chronicles, a podcast exploring the singing lifestyle. Our discussions may contain explicit content and adult themes intended for mature audiences. While we strive to offer valuable insights and entertainment, please be aware that the views expressed are based on personal experiences and opinions. We encourage listeners to approach the content with an open mind and to prioritize communication, consent, and respect in their relationships. Remember, everyone's journey is unique, so take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't. Thank you for joining us on our adventure. I'm Russ. And I'm Ashley. And this is Hot Couple Chronicles. Today we're talking about something that every one of us in a non-traditional relationship wants to hear about. It's about sexual health without shame. We're super excited to be joined by Robert Johnson. He is the founder of Shameless Care, which is an online service that does SDI testing, prep, ED meds, telehealth, and it makes it easy and is designed for the community. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So if you've ever felt judged or if you've ever felt awkward or you're just frustrated with the healthcare system, because we all know how that is, this will be the episode for you. So. Yeah, we've all been in that awkward conversation with our. Yeah. To do it. Primary physician. We all have to. We need to do that. All right. So, Robert, welcome to the show. We are so glad that you are here. First of all, we want to ask you, why did you start Shameless Care? What is your story? Tell us all the things. Well, I started Shameless Care because I had a partner text me one time and told me that I had given her gonorrhea. And I was really surprised by that for a couple of different reasons, one of which was I felt absolutely fine. But more so than that, I had just been STI tested by an STI testing company that still on their website to this day claims to be the most thorough, you know, testing available. And, you know, I'm looking at the results and it says gonorrhea. OK, you look over to the right negatives. Well, there you go. It's not me. You know, that sort of thing. Of course, I was nice to her. But I sent that to her and she said, well, have you ever been throat swab tested? And I must admit that up until that point in my life, I had never even heard of that before. Yeah. Now, I'd like to think more people have heard of about it. Now, thanks to the work that we've done at Shameless Care, but at the time, it was a complete new phrase to me. I had no idea that was even a thing. And I had been STI tested every six months. I was the most confident person in the world that my STI testing was nailing it, perfect, that sort of thing. And so it was a surprise to me. And then I had to go to three different doctors until I finally found one who also knew what a throat swab test was and would throat swab test me. And sure enough, I had a completely asymptomatic case not the end of the world you get a shot and it's cured but it just absolutely blew my mind when you think about the way not just swingers but everybody has sex i mean raise your hand if you've ever seen a dental dam like next to the condoms of walgreens right like just yeah people do not have unprotected sex people do not have protected sex and then they go to their doctor or they go to an online clinic or whatever it is to get tested and the very part of their body the most susceptible to these things, the very part of their body that they have unprotected sex with, and the one part of their body where it's most likely to be asymptomatic and they're just going to be a silent carrier, is not tested. And that just blew my mind. I spent the next couple of years off and on trying to get that original company to change their ways, if you will. I still have those emails. At the time, I had no intention of starting a company like this, but it was just in the back of my mind. I couldn't let it go, not from a business perspective, but just from a right versus wrong perspective. I just could not let this continue. And so we created Shameless Care. Love it. And so what does shameless mean to you when it comes to health care and sexuality? I think just owning it, you know, and it's, yeah, I think just owning it. And it's a little bit, I like the name, I still do. But the problem that we have is, and see, we do at-home STI testing simply because that was the lab that allowed us to have the most thorough panel. So for example, Quest and LabCorp, which a lot of your listeners are probably familiar with, their phlebotomists will not do throat swabs. I don't know why it's not technically difficult, but they have told me on the phone, you know, corporate that they don't even do strep test, strep throat testing, and it's the same, you know, test, and it's just not something they do. And so we couldn't really send people to a local lab, it just wasn't an option. And so that's why we do the at home where people collect the samples and the privacy of their own home. But that at home portion and the name Shameless Care, people think what we're selling is discretion. And in a small way, we are. But what we're mostly selling is thoroughness. So many of our listeners are ethically non-monogamous, kinky or somewhere outside the box. And health care can be super judgmental. So how is Shameless Care actually different? Yeah, well, it's online. thing. For another thing, we have a team of about 20 physicians or so, all of whom know exactly what a shameless care customer is. Now, we're not exclusively lifestyle. I would say that at this point, probably half of our customers are men who have sex with men. It's everybody out there who's sex positive, but our doctors are not surprised by anything people write in their medical intake form. For example, if someone says, and these are all asynchronous visits, for the most part, there are a couple of states that require a telephone call, but in probably 48 of the 50 states, you fill out a form, and that's your communication with the doctor unless you text back and forth later. But point is, you can write in there, you know, look, doc, I'm hard as a rock at home, but when I'm in the orgy room at the local swinger club, I have some stage fright. I'd like to try sildenafil. Okay, well, that's fine. Are you healthy enough for sildenafil is the question, and then, you know, that's where the rest of the medical intake questions come in. but yeah absolutely no judgment it's nice to deal with a company that just nothing is going to surprise them whatsoever and then can you just let our listeners know what exactly what are the services that you provide you should go over that too oh sure well the the sti testing which you know we're we're proud to offer that it's also expensive because it's 13 different assays yeah you know and i'd like to talk more about what those assays are later but you know one of the I'm really proud of is on our website. If people go to shamelesscare.com and then resources, click on knowledge, we have a webpage there where people can get shameless care quality testing, hopefully from their doctor. So there's a video people can watch. You kind of empower them before they go. There's a screenshot of assays that you can screenshot. There's even a video in there, and this is really cool, I think, where if your doctor's like mine and looking back at you and going throat swab, I'd love to help you, but I don't know what that is. There's a 60-second video from a doctor to a doctor that you can show your doctor in the exam room where the doctor actually says, throat swabs, no big deal. It's the orange aptamus swab. You already have it in your exam room. It's the same one used for blah. So the STI testing is one of those things. Another one is erectile dysfunction medication. So sildenafil and tadalafil, which a lot of your listeners are familiar with. The big difference between us and like a Roman or Forehams or a Blue Chew that we're less expensive and we do not do subscriptions at all we just feel like it's a consent issue i think we've all had the experience of like something refills or something renews and you look at your credit card bill and you're like i meant to cancel that that's not how we want to make money we want to make money by people purposely sending it to us in exchange for a product because i know i use shameless care for all my ed uh for years my insurance so to speak yeah and Yeah, like when it gets to that point where if I have been using it, you know, consistently, I get that email a couple weeks before it goes out. It's like, hey, do you need a refill? If we haven't been really active in the lifestyle like that, I might have half of my prescription left. So it's like, I'll wait. Yeah, it's nice like that. I know so many people that have just stockpiles of blue chew. for hams and stuff like that that just because they don't they're prescribing use like you take it every day when we only use it maybe once or twice a month yeah it's a revenue model for them and and that's fine but we just do things we just do things differently and on top of that we're less expensive to begin with so i'm not sure how that works out but we feel like it's good for the consumers doxypep is another product and a lot of people aren't familiar with that i'm not sure if you two are or not but i'll just most people probably aren't. Doxypep is the antibiotic doxycycline, which has been around for about 50 years or so. And people take a single 200 milligram dose of doxycycline within 72 hours after sex. And it pretty dramatically lessens the likelihood of contracting gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis. And all three of those, by the way, spread quite easily from oral sex. For chlamydia and syphilis, it's about 90%, like 80%. 87% to 90%. It's been extremely effective. For gonorrhea, a little less so, depending upon the clinical trial, but about like 55% to 60%. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at rss.com. There seems to be a few different strains of gonorrhea, and some of it is more resistant to doxycycline than others. But nonetheless, it's been really effective across the country. Everywhere that this is being distributed, it is showing that STI rates are absolutely plummeting. There was a bit of an unfortunate incident early on with some misinformation about DOXYPEP and women that I'll just go ahead and address because I'm sure some of your listeners have heard that. There have only been two clinical trials involving women so far with DOXYPEP. And the first one was the one that got all the media attention. And unfortunately, it was the only one that had been released before the CDC guidelines came out. And that involved women in Kenya. in STIs, but it wasn't enough to meet the statistical significance. And I'm not a researcher, but there's this whole, I used to work at a university in the science lab and even the PhDs had to send things out to the stats department to actually like make hay out of what their study showed. So I'm not going to pretend I'm that guy when I'm not. But what's really interesting is that when the researchers took hair samples from the women in the study to see have they actually taken doxycycline, most of the women who said they were taking doxypep. Had never taken doxycycline. That would have been the greatest scientific achievement of all time if just thinking about taking doxypep reduced STIs. But no, you have to actually take it. But unfortunately, and the CDC guidelines say that they talk about the hair samples and stuff like that. But the media ran with the story that it doesn't work in cisgender women, which is just almost assuredly not true. There was another study out of Japan where female sex workers were taking doxycycline. huge success there. It reduced the rates of STIs at the same rate that it did men. It cut their syphilis to zero where they have had problems with syphilis in the past. And most importantly, it did not influence vaginal health at all. There was no increase in BV. There was no increase in yeast infections. So people are often worried about antibiotics and vaginal health and rightfully so. But for doxycycline anyway, it doesn't really seem to impact women, you know, in that way. so that's doxypep it's really exciting it's certainly something that i use and i think it's becoming more and more popular you know in the lifestyle yeah yeah this is also the media that will highlight a study that shows you that coffee once a day will extend your life 10 years yeah and chocolate is the best antibiotic and you know it's the same type of stories is just the hot topic things and yeah yeah i've heard good things about it are shamelessly aroused cream, which is a lot of people have heard about it in terms of like OMG cream or scream cream, but it's Viagra topical cream for women. We didn't release that until now. We're releasing on April 23rd because up until now, there was really no research that showed that it worked or was safe. And we don't do things kind of haphazardly. I'm not suggesting anybody who released it previously was, but we just need a little bit more than that. And so ours is coming out on April 23rd. It has 2%. Silbenifil, which is a generic Viagra, as opposed to like WISP has 1%. And it also has twice as many doses because quite frankly, I feel like our customers just have more sex. But it's been shown to increase orgasms in women, to increase arousal. Lubrication seems to be the thing that I hear time and time and time again. Is it like, you know, a lot of women lubricate early on, but, you know, sex extends for a period of time that eventually goes away, of course. And this seems to extend that. So it's been a really popular product for years now. And we'd like to think we're bringing it to the market, but just a little bit better with the 2% sildenafil. And then probably next week or so, we're going to start offering emergency UTI treatment. And that's where people can go online. It's a lot of form and have a prescription for UTI sent to their pharmacy. So those are really the products that we have right now. More and more are coming on. It sounds like early on in your model, it was STI testing. And then you really focus towards the men and ED. Now you're starting to include women, which is pretty exciting. Yeah, absolutely. And we always follow the science. And so until there's science there, we're just not going to do something. And as soon as I saw that study released, I read it very carefully and I went right to our medical director and I was like, let's, let's do this. do this. That's exciting. Exciting. We've been with Shameless Care for three, four years now. We've been affiliates and it's been exciting to watch it from the very beginning. I've been a customer since the beginning. And just watching all the stuff being offered now is exciting. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. And yeah, they're, they've been great. Oh yeah. We've had nothing but good, good experience. Let's bust some myths now. Let's talk about some myths about all of this. What is one common misconception? about STIs that just make you cringe, that you hate more than anything. Oh, sure. Well, people use the phrase STI tested or STI panel as if it has a definition and it doesn't. You could go to 10 different doctors, you could go to 50 different doctors and you would get 50 different STI tests. But people constantly do this thing of like, you got to get tested. You got to get tested. If you don't get tested, you're a bad person. If you don't get tested, you're a bad person. But they don't really think through what is that test. And, you know, I met someone in Hedo just a few weeks ago and she told me, you know, I love your company. I don't use it because I get free testing in my city. It's like, great. And of course, I didn't argue with her anything like that. And I had no idea what that test even was. But I got back home and I looked it up and she's tested for HIV and syphilis, which is great. But in her mind, that's all you need, right? Because this place is offering testing. So I really feel like people need to dive into this and figure out. and really stop talking about it in those terms. And instead, let's talk about the individual infections because that's really what this is. For example, mycoplasma genitalium. Somebody may say, I've read about mycoplasma genitalium. I don't care if I have it. I don't care if I spread it to other people. Well, in that case, don't get tested for it. But don't not get tested for it just because the company you use or your doctor doesn't do it or whatever. Like, be involved in that situation. Because those details are really the only thing that truly matters. Yeah. Well, I think that really starts with the medical industry standardizing what your standard panel is, which they don't have yet. No one near there. Which I feel would be your chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV. Yeah. Your big, you know, seven, I feel like should be your standard. And then anything beyond that. Why do you think it is so hard for people to talk about this stuff? And especially when it's something that should be so routine that we're all doing as just humans, not just in the lifestyle? That's a really good question. I don't know that it's difficult for people to talk about. Perhaps it is. In my friend group, it's not. And like if I go to a resort, you know, of course, you know, You never know. There's the people you see at a place like hedonism, and they've obviously at some point thought about STIs and just gotten over the fear factor. But there's all the people who aren't going that maybe they would if they knew more about STIs. But anyway, the people that I know really have no problem talking about it. I would say, if anything, they're overly competent, just like I was. I would have told you my knowledge level of STIs was 100 over 100. I would have not went to anybody's STI presentation. at a swinger event. I would have thought I knew more than them. And guess what? That's exactly how most people are that we talk to today. And that's normal and that's okay. And no one wants to feel like they haven't been doing the right thing when it comes to STIs. So I think we're just getting people to kind of get re-engaged in the conversation. And the way that I had to, because of the diagnosis, I had to come down off of my high horse. And again, really start to think, oh, okay. What should I be tested for? Let's not base that upon what I have been tested for in the past. But let's really base that upon, you know, what makes sense to me in my lifestyle. Yeah, I think it just comes with also just the stigma of STIs and just all I think the more that we just educate ourselves just on the STIs. And we just had this conversation because we before we went to secrets this last weekend, we got tested. And it really starts a conversation like, why do I I always feel so dirty like where does that come from and it really it comes from like our middle school what we decided and it could be different for everybody but it's that middle school like sex ed like those slide shows you know you're gonna die you're gonna die exactly and it's like the blue waffle if anybody that gets these are dirty people a fear and it's like wait a minute yeah I think the more education just will hopefully get rid of that the more we talk openly about it because we're all having sex we're all doing it i don't know why yeah well think think about this for a second imagine that you know two people go to hito they don't know each other they're just two people going to hito and one gets strep throat and the other one gets gonorrhea they're both bacterial affections that they got from physical contact with somebody else but who's going to feel worse about themselves in that situation yeah there's no reason for the gonorrhea is easier to cure than stroke throw. I mean, you know, it's a shot and you're done basically. So yes, I could not agree more. There is a lot of stigma and it doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. But, you know, we still live in a society where people use phrases like body count and stuff like that. You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, Starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at rss.com. So if someone does happen to, they get your test, they test positive. do to help with the situation there? Where do you guys step in then? Oh, sure. Well, our physicians step in right from the beginning. So when somebody orders an STI test from shamelesscare.com, they're assigned a board certified physician that's licensed in their state. So if someone lives in the state of Arkansas, then a physician who's licensed in the state of Arkansas reviews their medical information, nothing is automated, and will either order the test for that patient or not. So people often ask, well, why wouldn't they? The person's paying for it if they want it. Well, a lot of people are already having symptoms, believe it or not, and if somebody's having symptoms, then any sort of at-home test is just not appropriate for them. They instead need to go to, like, urgent care, because by the time that test even gets there in a couple of days, they might be in a world of hurt. But the doctor orders the test for them, the patient sends the samples back in, and then once the results are ready, that same doctor reviews the results. And if they have something that is treatable, trichomonas, a mycoplasma genitalium, a chlamydia, something like that, then that doctor immediately sends a prescription to that patient's local pharmacy. They chose that local pharmacy when they first ordered their test. That is far different. I mean, most companies don't have a doctor involved in this process at all. We might have went above and beyond, but this is the way that it's actually supposed to be done. Any STI testing out of states is supposed to be supervised and to us, that means a real doctor actually reviewing the patient's information before they're tested and reviewing it again when the results come in and then closing the loop on that infection. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but a lot of STIs in the United States have mandatory reporting to local public health officials. So if somebody has a gonorrhea, a chlamydia, HIV, obviously it varies a little bit, you know, syphilis have B, it varies a little bit by jurisdiction, but in those mandatory reporting forms. And of course, all your information is protected by HIPAA and the professionals at your local county health department, stuff like that. But nonetheless, in every one of those mandatory reporting forms, they ask the doctor how they treat the patient because that's really what they're concerned about. They don't want someone with chlamydia being like, oh, there's a guy with chlamydia, but he never came back. We don't know where he is. That's really what they're concerned about. So that's how we do things at Shameless Kid. Love that. You want to go over a little bit more about the process of getting tested and how you guys work that by doing it online? Sure. Sure. Yeah. Well, somebody orders a test and it's really no different than like ordering a pair of socks on the internet. Up until that point, you have a checkout process. But then you're, you're sent a, you're seamlessly transitioned in your web browser to a HIPAA compliant medical intake form where you fill out your medical history and things like that. And this is where we get some pushback. We've had just a handful over the years. But one guy in particular I remember said, you don't need all this information for just a stupid STI test. And it's like, well, you do because it's a real doctor-patient relationship. I mean, it's what it is. It's a real medical test. And so you fill out this medical intake form and then the tests show up at your house or your office or wherever you want to do this. The HIV test is something called the ORAQIC now, which is an at-home test where it's really cool. It's the only FDA-approved at-home collection device for HIV, but you find out your results in about 20 minutes, which is actually really neat. And so that's the HIV portion of it. And then the rest of the blood test, you use a dried blood spot card and a lancet. And for the urine, for the genital test, it's a urine test. And then a throat swab test, it's like a Q-tip. It's like the COVID test, everybody. somebody's familiar with except down the back of your throat and uh you know you have to do it for 10 seconds but if you can only do it for two seconds at a time like me without without gagging then you know you you put it back in go a little bit longer um and then we also have an anal swab as well um and not everybody has anal sex but we had a choice to make which was do we upcharge for people who have anal sex that didn't seem fair to us it felt discriminatory so we include it in all of our testing panels so if somebody is like, I never have any anal sexual contact whatsoever. Then you can just toss that portion in the trash. Your test results will say, you know, specimen not submitted and that's it. But you send it off in the mail. And then once it reaches the lab, people get the results in about four business days. They're reviewed by the physician. And most of the time people get the all clear, but if not, then some sort of treatment is provided unless it's something very serious, like a hepatitis or something like that, that you really can't treat by telemedicine, in which case they're referred to, you know, a local physician, of course. Is your service covered by insurance or can they use their HSA? We don't accept insurance at Shameless Care, but I would say probably about half of our patients submit this for reimbursement. They either use their FSA or HSA card at checkout or they submit it for reimbursement. In some states, you could submit this directly to insurance for reimbursement. We take a hands-off approach to that. So if your insurance company denies it or something like that, I mean, we, I'm making no promise of that. I'm just telling you what a lot of patients do. The reason why we don't accept insurance is people don't really realize this, but healthcare is always rationed in some way. I mean, if you go to a free STI clinic where tax dollars or maybe donations or what have you is paying for the STI testing, you can rest assured that's been rationed in somehow, somehow. They're not going to test you for mycoplasma genitalium. That's a relatively expensive assay. Instead, they'd rather test more people for what they feel like is more important, like HIV, for example. And that makes total sense to me. But healthcare is always rationed. Insurance companies also ration healthcare. That's really their whole purpose. And so if you're a 40-year-old woman and every month you want to go in and get tested for a pretty expensive assay that's an infection that's not going to kill you like mycoplasma genitalia or trichomonas. Eventually, there's going to be some pushback on that. And so we have just sidestepped that all together, realizing, of course, it's not people can't afford it, which is exactly why we have that resource that we told you about earlier. So if people feel like their choice is getting shitty testing from their doctor or using shameless care, quite frankly, it probably is. I hope that resource helps them get better testing from their doctor. Of course, we'd love to have them at Shameless Care, but at the same time, I don't want $300 to be the reason why somebody doesn't get tested. Right. We've talked to people where they'll get tested, like they'll go to their local health department and then they'll go back in, say, three months later and get tested again. And then they're like, you were just here three months ago. You usually only do this once a year for a married couple. And then they always, they got pushback. They're like, we're gonna have to start charging you. If we're gonna get charged, then we'll go somewhere else. But unfortunately, money is usually a factor. Yeah. Well, let's, let's talk for a minute. I always find this interesting. Maybe your listeners too will too. Let's talk for a minute about where recommendations come from. Because like, you know, a clinic like that probably follows CDC guidelines. People often Google, does CDC recommend, you know, X, Y, Z. And, but I think this is critically important for people to understand. Those recommendations come from the United States Preventative Task Force, which is this scientific panel that reviews basically everything and makes recommendations based upon the population as a whole. So the problem with using those recommendations to decide is this right for a swinger or not is, for example, the only men that they think should get tested for syphilis are African-American men or men who have been in prison. makes absolutely no sense. They're looking at this as a population wide. Okay. What group is most likely to have syphilis? Blah. You know, is a straight 40. Yeah. Yeah. Is a straight 45 year old man like myself, who's been married for 20 years, is he likely enough to have syphilis that we should proactively asymptomatically test him every year? Of course not. For me. Yeah. I probably should be right. They don't recommend gonorrhea screening for men at all, for men who have sex with women at all. Well, clearly, those recommendations don't make sense for people in the lifestyle. And so I just like to tell people that because you just, you have to stop Googling, you know, does CDC recommend because until Google gets into, does CDC recommend for people whose hobby is putting other people's genitals in their mouth? I love it. God bless you. And all my friends. Right. But like until they get into that, then this just isn't applicable at all. So yeah, I just feel like people need to know those recommendations are for the population as a whole. Yeah. Cause before we use shameless care, we would same thing. We went to the health department. Cause it was the least expensive. And we felt like it was comprehensive testing. Right. I thought we, they're doing this before we knew about everything, you know, what we know now and all the questions they asked were basically what they were going to test us for. It was like, do you have sex with men? And so, me, I'm just kind of shameless at this point. I was like, yep. I just said yes to every question so I could get the most testing possible. Just give me all of the things. Yeah. Yeah, they're making population. My wife's next. Yeah, they're making population-wide, you know, decisions. It's just like Doxipep. The CDC only recommends Doxipep for many. who have sex with men. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is there's this obsession with men who have sex with men at STIs. Like their rates are oftentimes not even higher depending upon the STI. But that seems to be where all the energy is, you know, at the moment. But it also just doesn't take into account, you know, did that cisgendered woman just spend a week at keto or whatever? Like it's, it just doesn't make any sense. And there's a lot of us who are and do. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Again, it goes back to, I think the obsession with men having sex with men goes back to the AIDS epidemic in the 80s and early 90s. The fear. The fear. And it was ingrained into our brains that, because, I mean, back then it was a desance. And it was just, and it's not the case anymore. But that's why I think everybody still has this fear about bi men or gay men. And it's kind of, it's kind of, it's interesting to think about. Yeah, it is. Well, I have something else for you guys that I find fascinating since we're talking about HIV here. If you look at the CDC statistics on how likely it is to transmit HIV. So if one person has, you know, an HIV and they're not on antiviral medication, like they're, they're just HIV positive and able to spread it. and the other person doesn't. For penis and vagina sex, so like I'm a cisgendered man, I would be the penetrator. Let's say that the female had HIV, my risk would be four in 10,000 exposures. So theoretically, I could have sex with HIV positive women for the rest of my life. And it would still be more probable than not that I wouldn't contract HIV. For women, it's about double that. It's eight out of 10,000, you know, if those roles were reversed. And of course, anal sex is much higher because the anal tissue is more fragile, bleeds easier, stuff like that. There's a point to all of this, which is that the statistics also show that if someone has a bacterial STI, so let's say somebody does have a mycoplasma genitalium, which is not uncommon in the lifestyle and rarely tested for, or somebody has an asymptomatic chlamydia case and chlamydia is asymptomatic at 70% of women. If they have something like that, the risk of HIV transmission more than doubles and, in fact, almost triples because it makes that vaginal tissue behave more like anal tissue, where it's just more fragile and et cetera. And so I just find that absolutely, absolutely fascinating. And that's why I feel like people's obsession with HIV, while I totally get it, I have somebody in my immediate family with HIV, who, by the way, drifts in and out of homelessness. and I'm sure got tested at a free STI clinic. Thank God for them. I was not disparaging them earlier. But I'm just making the point of like people's obsession with HIV has made them go get tested with this understanding. I'm going to get tested for HIV and then whatever else they want to test me for is fine. I don't care. Whatever the fill in the blank is like Mad Libs. But it's like, in my opinion, this just needs to be a more holistic, a more holistic approach, which again, and I think step one is, Figuring out what you want to be tested for and what you don't. And your listeners may be interested in this. The things that people test positive for the most often, excluding HSV, which is a whole other subject, but the things that people test positive for the most often are oral gonorrhea, mycoplasma genitalia, and trichomonas. And trichomonas is the single most common curable STI in the United States. Again, rarely tested for. I have no idea why. Yeah. We were at Secrets one time. Yeah. And friends of ours tested positive for the trichinoma. Yeah. And he's like, I have three more days of antibiotics. Yeah. That's exactly how you should think about it. It's not, you know, who cares? I didn't really know anything about it at that time. It was a few years ago. And I actually, he, yeah, he told me, well, I'm like, what is it? I started asking questions. It was like a spanish acquisition because I just didn't know about it. Very early. And I was like, I didn't even know what that was yet. Yeah. Yeah. For so many things to learn all the time. Yeah. We actually, I have a friend who was completely banished, if you will, by a couple because she had mycoplasma genitalia, which she only knew from the shameless care test. And so she told them cause she had had sex with them recently and they never wanted to have sex with her again. And it just blew my mind because I just wanted to say to them, You've had sex with dozens, maybe a hundred people. Who knows? None of them have ever even been tested for mycoplasma, which you would tell you like, what the hell are you doing? So people are so funny about these things. Absolutely. Yeah. And so many of the STIs are asymptomatic. It's like people have them for years and don't even know about it unless they get tested. Yeah. Most of them are. And that's why we just did an STI education course for the lifestyle. And it's, it's on our website. If anybody wants access. they can go to your guys landing page and get access there but we didn't spend a lot of time talking about symptoms of these STIs because I almost feel like that hurts people more than helps them because you know people often think oh mycoplasma gentile what are the symptoms of that do I have that well the biggest symptom is no symptom same thing with chlamydia same thing with trichomonas right it's like if you tell people the symptoms are ABCD they're going to look for ABCD rather than just including them on their testing panel. And some of their, you know, symptoms overlap quite a bit, like mycoplasma, genitalia. A lot of women in the lifestyle who feel like they have recurrent UTIs get tested. And guess what? It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Those things. I know I've heard people thinking they had a UTI and BB just reoccurring. And turns out it was chlamydia this whole time. And they had no idea at all. It was nothing out of the ordinary. You know, just. And then, yeah, they take, what, two pills? So here's a question that people often ask. People often ask, do swingers have higher or lower STI rates than the average population? And I do not know the sexual proclivities of everyone who is our customer, but we do advertise a lot for like keto trips and podcasts such as yours. And I would say that's a big part of our advertising because that's the family that I came from, right? I'm part of the pineapple group. That's who I know. I was already friends with all of these promoters and stuff like that. And then we also have a lot of clearly two people from the same address buying testing at the same time. You could kind of put two together. But our tests overall, our positivity rate is much lower than the national average. If you just look at what the national statistics are for a mycoplasma genitalia or a trichomonas or even a gonorrhea, even though we test for gonorrhea in three places, our positivity rate is still not terribly high. And so I dare say that swingers have a lower rate of STIs than the general population. But you have to look at it like this. You know, STIs, like basically every other negative health outcome, it disproportionately affects people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, if you will. And so the people who are going to like ketonism or a club that costs a hundred dollars a night or, you know, are driving three states over to a hotel. take over. They're not in that bottom rung where some of these infections are dramatically high. They also have better access to healthcare, whether that's our healthcare or their physician. And so it's really hard to say, but I would say overall, gun to my head, we've tested a few thousand people now at Shameless Care. The STI rates are much lower than what we see that Google and things like that present to us through the centers for disease control and some of those infections that are mandatory reported yeah a lot of those statistics are coming from like health departments and health care providers and not a lot of people not especially in this economy have the disposable income to go to all these trips or spend three hundred dollars on a sti test even if it is reimbursed it's the initial three hundred dollars that really puts a hold on people Hey there, listeners, are you looking to prioritize your sexual health and wellness? We've got just a thing for you. Shameless Care offers at-home testing kits, telehealth consultations, and even treatment for ED and performance anxiety for when you want to play but your body says otherwise. It's convenient, discreet, and all about keeping you at your best. And guess what? We've teamed up with them to give you an exclusive discount. Use code HOT, that's code H-O-T, at checkout to get $30 off your first order. Don't walk, run. It's time to Take charge of your sexual health today with shameless care because your health is nothing to be ashamed of. All this to say, don't be scared. Don't be scared. There are ways. It doesn't have to be scary. Go get the ED medication that you want. Go live your best life. Go get tested. Be educated and do it the way it should be done. Do it safely. It doesn't have to be scary. You can do it at home and comfortable. in your own space we love shameless care it's been a favorite of ours for many years we love them we love you guys we love your message everything we appreciate you being here so much thanks for listening to hot couple chronicles we will talk to you guys soon thank you robert for being here and we appreciate you and we will talk to you guys soon it's not that serious don't make it weird we love you guys bye You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say, too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode, and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from a podcast. from ads like this, even with just 10 listeners a month. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start free at rss.com.