Itchy & Scratchy: A Guide to Sexual Health Clinics
Serial shagger Eddie Nisbet recounts the first of his many, many visits to the GUM clinic. You'd do well to follow his example (though not his questionable lifestyle choices)
Since most students have an infinitesimal respect for chastity (or, at least the ones that you know - Ed.), it's likely that the first time it occurs to you to visit a GUM clinic is the ill-omened day you find some discharge escaping from your genitals, or that time you got too drunk and bedded the campus sex pest who has given more clap than a performing seal in a live studio audience. Some believe, due to ribald canteen conjecture, that only pain and humiliation awaits you at the clinic. If you happen to believe this, then man up.
Plucking up the courage to go in the first place is half the battle. After the mild embarrassment of having to complete a form riddled with brutally up-front questions regarding your lasciviousness, you are invited to endure a lengthy, clammy-palmed wait to be 'seen to'. During this period, calm yourself by scoffing inwardly at the cabaret show of 16 year old bra-less Britneys and guilt-ridden couples hoping that they haven’t inadvertently converged their ill-gotten genes into a soon-to-be giro-siphoning serial killer. That this scene will almost certainly await you at your nearest clinic is reason enough to get tested, because if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you.
The check-up itself is significantly less painful and degrading than you might fear: a blood and urine sample combined with a brief, physical once-over is sufficient for the boys, whereas the provision of a smear sample is as horrendous as it gets for girls. Now, walk out through the waiting room and put on a composed and stern “I don’t have AIDS” face.
The wait for your results is admittedly nervy, but nothing is as painful as the deliberately inserted dramatic pause the automated results service taunts you with. It’s OK when Chris Tarrant does it, but when you’re waiting to find out whether you have Hepatitis C it’s a bit irresponsible.
So, what did I learn? It’s better to have a stranger coldly and unaffectionately prod at your genitals for five minutes (because it’s doubtless happened before) than to endure the indignity of informing every single person you have come into sexual contact with that you are a dirty, rotten disease bag and that it is solely because of you that it burns like hell every time they urinate.