How can we know our sexual partner and in what ways can we be sure of his sexual health?
Marzieh Nowrozi: Any sexual contact in which a person is not aware of his or his sexual partner’s health is called unsafe sex. According to a social medical expert, whenever a person is not sure enough about the medical records of his sexual partner, he exposes himself to infections.
Dr. Mohammad Reza Hedayati Moghaddam, a specialist in social medicine, said: “Unfortunately, knowing about people’s health is not easily possible, and as it has been said many times before, HIV positive people in most cases do not know that they are infected with this disease. On the other hand, a negative blood test cannot be the reason that a person is healthy because the results of these tests are usually negative at the beginning of HIV infection.
He further added: “In order to determine whether a certain person may be infected with HIV or not, one should pay attention to his behavior. “Having a history of certain behaviors increases the possibility of HIV and other communicable infections, which are called high-risk behaviors.”
A member of the academic staff of Jihad University of Mashhad, pointing out that high-risk sexual behaviors are behaviors that expose people to more likely to acquire sexually transmitted infections, especially HIV, said: “Having multiple sexual partners, consuming alcohol, drugs, or psychotropic substances before Establishing sexual contact, resorting to violence during sexual contact, unusual sexual contact such as anal contact, as well as sexual contact without a protective cover (condom) are among high-risk sexual behaviors.
According to this social medicine specialist, the more the number of sexual partners a person has, the more he exposes himself to diseases, and the more the sexual partner has sex with more people besides him, the more the person will be at risk. In addition, after consuming alcohol and drugs or psychotropic substances, due to the fact that a person’s control and decision-making during sexual contact decreases, the level of risk acceptance in people also increases.
Hedayati Moghadam emphasized that the positive prevention method is much more effective in preventing the spread of HIV infection than the usual methods. and provide them with the necessary information and tools so that HIV positive people themselves can take the lead in preventing the transmission of infection to others. This is called “Positive Prevention Strategy”. The meaning of this strategy is that HIV-positive people become so aware and empowered that they themselves become sensitive to the transmission of this infection to their spouses, family, sexual partners, and finally to the society, and take the necessary care not to transmit the virus to others. The method of positive prevention is much more effective than the usual methods, because in this method, the transmission of the virus from its source is prevented. In addition, it reduces the isolation and withdrawal of HIV and AIDS patients, which helps control the disease.”
