Safe Sex in Sobriety
Written By: Anjelica G
Hey, remember those safe sex presentations they give in school and in women’s treatment centers? Yes, of course you do, it was also known as naptime. But do you remember what they said in those presentations? No, me neither. They were boring as hell and extremely unrealistic. Who stops in the heat of the moment and says, “Hey Bobby, I can see we are about to start bumpin uglies but first I need you to answer a few questions; “So, how many sexual partners have you had? Do you have any STD’s? Do you like STD’s? When was the last time you were tested? Ever use needles, share needles? Butt-sex? I just want to be safe.”
Are women in recovery practicing safe sex?
No one’s using condoms
Let’s be honest here, no ones asking those questions, no one cares, no one’s using condoms and certainly no one’s using a dental dam or whatever the hell that thing is. Asking a guy to put a condom on is enough of a boner kill, imagine what would happen if you whipped your dental dam out of your pocket. Yup, you’ll never see him again, might as well just hop up and take a nice cold shower, honey.
Who the f*ck has safe sex anymore? But more importantly, why don’t we? Listen I’m a woman in recovery with a past that makes Anna Nicole Smith look like a saint and even I just sat here for a good 20 minutes trying to think of a reason why we don’t practice safe sex, and there’s really no reason.
Is it laziness? Do we truly believe that we are forever exempt from STD’s and HIV? Hey Magic Johnson is still kicking it. Maybe we just don’t care? I have no idea why not! I’m not going to write out all the dangers of having unprotected sex because everyone knows them and if you don’t you’re just dumb. So if we all know it’s bad then why do we still do it so god damn much?
IF ANYONE SHOULD BE HAVING SAFE SEX, IT’S DRUG ADDICTS!
I see a common pattern with women in recovery. Broken, insecure women go into treatment, fall in love with some day-one-dingbat who equally doesn’t understand how to put their life together. For some reason these young women in recovery always say the same thing…“Bobby understands me.” No he doesn’t! Bobby only understands one thing that you have a zipper on your pants and it goes down! Once Bobby and Whitney get out of treatment they think the rehab romance is going to last forever and then they drive the good ‘ol skin bus into tuna town. No one stopped to think of the huge risks involved with not using protection, or the even bigger risks of having unprotected sex with an IV drug user that is just short of 30 days clean off his 3 year meth and heroin bender. Sounds real safe ladies.
You can’t fix it later
See, as addicts, we are stubborn, we don’t learn ‘til we crash. However, an STD and HIV are, in most cases, not something we can just fix later. You never know if the “man” you have been sleeping with has been sneaking out of his halfway house to meet up with some of those classy chicks from backpage.com. You never know if this “man” you showed your tata’s to behind the dumpster of your local AA or NA clubhouse has been sharing needles with BooBoo, the HEP-C infested homeless cowboy. So saddle up there sweetheart you’re in for a ride, to and from the hospital several times a month to treat your brand new STD.
There’s no women’s treatment center you can check into to get rid of HIV, there’s no 12 steps that help you recover from Hepatitis, and no, The Doctor’s Opinion isn’t about how to cure an STD. Being a woman in early sobriety, you’re already emotionally vulnerable, don’t make your bodies vulnerable too.