Stock photo, used in WaPo article, no other photo credit found

 

Ok I was going to write about poor toilet hygiene causing the spread of e-coli, But this cropped up in my feed.

Ok, what the actual fuck? Is it the 1900’s and we are looking for a hymen? Are we trying to emulate Arab countries? Nope, its good old Utah to rescue us from evidenced-based forward-thinking medicine. The scary part is an organization that considers themselves a leader in evidence-based healthcare (ask, they will tell you how great and progressive they think they are) promoted it on their website until September when a blogger broke the story, and major news outlets picked up on it.

So WaPo picked this up, and that article can is here:

Jennifer Gunter said she nearly fell off her chair when she saw the headline on the University of Utah’s medical center website.

Getting ready for your wedding night with a premarital exam.

Gunter, an OB/GYN and the author of “The Vagina Bible,” says she had never heard of a premarital exam. And, she said, some of the medical advice it seemed to offer was concerning.

In a Sept. 9 blog post, Gunter described what she saw on the University of Utah Health website: the suggestion that a woman schedule a premarital exam “to confirm that her body is ready for sex” and explore using a vaginal dilator, as first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune. The health-care system also suggested a link between condoms and urinary tract infections, and it recommended that women consider getting antibiotics in case they develop a UTI on their honeymoon.

Ok, so University Health Care, the self-proclaimed super healthcare system, had that crap on their website? I am shocked; I thought that they would be a little more evidenced-based.  Forget, for a moment, the turn of the century misogynistic crap, the line:

The health-care system also suggested a link between condoms and urinary tract infections, and it recommended that women consider getting antibiotics in case they develop a UTI on their honeymoon.

You said that? We are fighting more and more diseases that are drug-resistant and you are PROMOTING unnecessary use of antibiotics? Is this what you teach new medical professionals in your self-proclaimed cutting-edge school? Yeah, I am throwing this shit in your face because quite frankly, this line alone promotes some bass-ackwards thinking on freaking poor antibiotic stewardship. Ok, deep breath as we delve into why we need something called a premarital exam.

The concept of a premarital exam is largely unique to Utah, where public school teachers are required to promote abstinence. They are allowed to teach about contraception and preventing sexually transmitted diseases but cannot encourage the use of contraception or teach the intricacies of intercourse. The demand for premarital exams, experts say, indicates a hunger in the state for earlier and more comprehensive sex education.

Exactly, women have no clue about their bodies the same way that young men in this state are at the same level of naivete.  We wouldn’t want to have a frank discussion about sex and mechanics in this state because, as the LDS church put it through their legislative mouthpieces, “we don’t want them to get the wrong idea or the suggestion that sex is ok.”

Although Hodson (Kristin Hodson, founder of the Utah based Healing Group) said she supports the exams’ goal of connecting women with sexual health care, she said she is concerned that some of the commonly used language frames sex as a medical issue, rather than as a normal human activity. Hodson said promoting the use of a dilator, which is unnecessary for most people, is an example of how premarital exams can make sexual intimacy sound like a problem to be solved.

What we are missing here, and Hodson does talk about is the fact sexual health care begins long before the days before you are married.  I agree wholeheartedly.  You aren’t doing yourself any favor if you are naïve to the intricacies of intimacy, in other words, if you don’t know how to get busy (in a healthy way)

The LDS church, of course, thinks there is nothing wrong with ignorance of the subject; in truth, this ignorance hurts young women and men, who are stampeding towards their “first” sexual encounter. We all know there is sex that happens before marriage, but we don’t say anything. Either way, it would seem that we still treat sex as a bad thing.  Last time I had sex it was pretty good…thanks love muffin

The University of Utah Health has revised its main website page about premarital exams since Gunter published her blog post. The page now calls the consultations “sexual health visits” and states that the health-care system does not recommend that women take antibiotics before sexual activity if they do not have an infection. The information about dilators has been removed.

Thank dog! I am still miffed that they would promote a lack of antibiotic stewardship like that. Sorry, but if you call yourself the premier healthcare system in the state, ya might want actually to grow a pair and act like it.

Their response/excuse:

“Our objective in serving the segment of our patient population that requests ’premarital visits’ is to inform and educate — and in so doing build lifelong relationships as their trusted health care partner,” Kathy Wilets, a spokeswoman for the health-care system, said in the statement.

Hmm, pretty good whitewash, this is even better, from an OB/GYN:

The patients only need physical exams if they have particular worries or symptoms (Tiffany) Weber told the (Salt Lake) Tribune. She said the health-care system’s website previously mentioned dilators and getting prescriptions for antibiotics in case of UTIs even though they are “actually not evidence-based procedures” because patients frequently wanted to talk about them.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. If you can’t stand the swearing about all of this, I must have lost my reading comprehension, folks. Look, education is the key, and your provider is an essential alliance in your well-person care (both men and women). Your knowledge should start from the moment you begin to notice your body (parents, time to step up) and should continue from both the parents and from medically correct sex ed in the schools. Won’t happen in Utah though, we like it just like it was 1847.

Be the kind of person your mom and your dog hope you are. Both still love me, even though I swear.