Dear Duana,
While I am way past having any Secrets (after 18 years of marriage I’m pretty sure the jig is up), I still have to wonder if there are any guidelines for the telling process. What kind of opening do you look for? By phone, by email, in person? And what if the newly acquired knowledge induces a screaming hairy cat fit in the other person?
Greystoke’s Mom
Dear Greystoke’s Mom,
Fantastic question; how wonderful of you to bring it up even though you yourself are well past needing the answer.
First, confession really is good for the soul—or at least for one’s sexual self-esteem. Scientists who’ve compared those who told about their STI found that the tellers felt much more positively about their ‘sexual self-concept’ than those who’d kept the Secret.
(That said, these are correlational data; maybe those who already had a good sexual self-concept felt ready and able to reveal their condition, whereas those who didn’t feel so great about themselves hid their truth as a result. Or perhaps a third factor is responsible for both the self-concept and the telling…)
Anyway, back to your query. As it happens, the array of acceptable telling options may surprise you:
1. Say It Yourself
This is probably the option most of us consider when thinking about The Revelation. Certainly, it’s the only option any of our Wise Respondents seemed to consider, and the only one I thought of as well.
Yet there are shockingly few guidelines regarding *how* to tell your Secret on your own; and all the info I found dealt with revealing an STD/STI, although I think you could apply it to other Secrets as well.
To wit, I found just one scientist-backed recommendation (from Robert Crooks’ and Karla Baur’s text, “Our Sexuality”, 11th edition, p. 442): “Be honest about which STI you have and what risks go with it, but present the information clearly and factually (not dramatically or ashamedly). Listen to your partner’s reaction, even if it’s negative, and try not to behave or respond defensively.”
They go on to suggest that the partner may need a while to digest the news, which could be Crooks’ and Baur’s way of saying, “If your partner has a screaming hairy cat fit, give them some time; they might chill out later.”
Actually, a Wise Respondent put it better than the pros—so much so, I saved out her survey response just in case your question arose. Here’s her advice:
—Woman, age 25-34: ….just talk to him about it “i wanted to talk to you about a few things about myself. I’m telling you this since someone didn’t give me the same consideration and i would never do that to another person. A long time ago i contracted ____ (insert std) and it’s not life threatening and is more of an inconvenience and nuisance than anything else, and there are tons of things that can be done so you don’t contract it from me, i still felt like you deserved to be told before we ever got intimate”. Then she needs to ask if he has questions, answer them, and then leave and give him time to process it, maybe if there are common misconceptions about the particular std that there’s good info on it on webmd, or another specific site that will give the facts (he’s gonna look it up anyways, but her saying this gives an air of openness and not hiding anything). then she has to cross her fingers that he’s understanding….
2. Say It With Pros
(healthcare professionals)
Know what I love about books? They teach me stuff. And one of the things I learned this time ‘round was that people need not reveal their STI alone. Many health care providers will help you reveal your condition to your partner (who’d a thunkit?). And there’s even an entire specialization in the healthcare field that does this: DIS’s, or disease intervention specialists.
Why might you want to use a DIS to disclose an STD? At least two reasons. First, having professional help acts as a buffer between you and your partner. Second, scientists have found that having a healthcare specialist discuss/reveal a partner’s STD with the couple results in a much lower chance that the STD-carrying partner will pass the disease on to the partner who doesn’t have the condition.
Because if you want to avoid a hairy cat fit, not transmitting the disease to one’s partner seems like a truly great idea.
3. Say It With Prose
(email)
Email?! Yep. There’s at least one website that allows you to anonymously tell a partner/partners about your STI: www.inspot.org.
A recent, large survey by Mimiaga and others found that 81% of gay men said they were fine with an emailed disclosure. It’s possible many folks would not mind getting the bad news via electronics, particularly since so many other aspects of dating and mating are now conducted in online.
Obviously, we should reveal our condition to a current partner—although between 17-42% don’t, depending on the disease and the demographics of the would-be revealer. But whereas most folks do eventually tell a current mate, it happens that not-telling is the *norm* when it comes to disclosing an STD to past lovers. That’s not just an ethical problem, it’s a problem for public health.
Upshot? Emailing provides a Bonus: a convenient, simple, anonymous and hence face-saving way to tell *all* partners, past and present. To the extent email makes it a lot easier to say what needs saying—so much the better for everyone.
So, Greystoke’s Mom, those are the three main ways to tell a partner about an STI/STD/possibly other Scary Things. I hope they help someone out there—perhaps many someones. And thanks again for a question that may assist others even when you didn’t need the answer.
Cheers,
Duana
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Do you have a question for Duana? Contact her at Duana@lovesciencemedia.com.
Related Love Science articles:
Kiss-N-Tell? How to time the telling of your (sexual & other) Secrets. This article includes the results of the survey dealing with that topic:
Cleo’s letter regarding when to reveal her STI:
Why not to be easy, ladies:
How women respond to casual sex:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/sex-the-happily-single-girl-1.html
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-from-sex-the-happily-single-girl.html
How men respond to casual sex:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/when-men-wait-for-sex-dumb-like-a-fox.html
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/comments-from-when-men-wait-for-sex.html
What if a woman already had sex too soon?
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/waiting-for-sex-for-how-long.html
How to become high-status as a woman if you’ve already lost it:
http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-from-becoming-the-high-status-woman.html
The author wishes to thank the following scientists and sources:
— Robert Crooks and Karla Baur, for Our Sexuality. Also Janet Shibley Hyde and John D. Delamater, for Understanding Human Sexuality. Everyone with a body needs a human sexuality textbook; these are my favorites, and provided the foundation for this article’s research.
—Paul Joannides’ The Guide to Getting It On! It’s the most fun you can have with a layman’s how-to.
All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D. and Love Science Media, 2011.