A few weeks ago, I wrote about a recent effort by AIDS Services in Asian Communities (ASIAC) — a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization — to raise HIV/AIDS awareness by offering free movie tickets on Locust Walk. While I congratulated the efforts of organizations like ASIAC, I concluded that it was disturbing that based on student behavior, organizations thought that students now needed material incentives to get themselves checked.

One story in the news this week highlighted another distressing social trend in the context of sexual health.

CNN.com (you know, that reputable news organization that sells T-shirts of its headlines?) recently reported on an initiative by inSpot.org, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco. According to the article published on October 24, 2008, you can now inform your sexual partners past and present (future?) via an e-card to get themselves screened for an STD with a message like this:

“Who? What? When? Where? It doesn’t matter. I got an STD; you might have it too. Please get checked out.”

Or this:

“Got laid. Was happy. Got tested. Wasn’t healthy. Better get your own STD checkup soon.”

Or this:

“It’s not what you brought to the party, it’s what you left with. I left with an STD. You might have, too.”

Again, just to clarify, I thoroughly praise the work of organizations like ASIAC and inSpot for their important and continued efforts to raise sexual health awareness in the United States, where, according to inSpot, 15 million new cases of STDs are reported per year.

However, I believe it speaks a lot about the general population’s behavior when organizations feel the need to launch digital initiatives to offer incentives for people to have the common decency to notify their sexual partners of their potentially dangerous health condition.

I have been fortunate enough not to be put in this kind of situation, but I do realize these types of conversations can be incredibly difficult emotionally and psychologically. But come on, notifying someone they might have a STD through e-cards? Really? Have we become so impersonal in our interactions in today’s digital era that it has come to this?

If you have engaged in irresponsible behavior that could harm someone in your life, the least you could is to accept what you have done, grow a pair, and somewhat redeem yourself by personally telling the potential victim.

Tags: ASIAC, E-Cards, HIV/AIDS, inSpot, STD

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.