Doctor's Advice - She broke a vow made to her mother

• She broke a vow made to her mother
  

Q: Doc, I am a science student (female) aged 17. Last Monday night, I
broke a vow I had made to my mother, and let a boy take my virginity.
He said it was 'great' but I did not enjoy it very much. I found it
rather messy. I most certainly got nowhere near to having an orgasm!
By the way, he hasn't called me since then, and I am beginning to wonder
if I will ever see him again. I didn't know him very well. The main
thing I want to know is, what is the exact mathematical risk that I have
caught a sexually transmitted infection (STI)?

A: I expect
you have learned some valuable lessons from this encounter. Among the
points to which I would draw your attention are these:

• For females, first-time sex is often NOT very enjoyable
• When a woman is very young, reaching an orgasm is generally NOT easy
• Once a young man has got a girl to give him sex, he may not bother to contact her again - since he has achieved his objective
• When a girl gives up her virginity, for the first time in her life she becomes at risk of an STI

Now,
regarding your question about the precise mathematical risks of
catching an STI, I am afraid that it is quite impossible to give you an
exact statistical answer. Many factors affect the risk. They include:

• Whether the boy wore a condom throughout
• Whether he is a guy who sleeps around
• How high the levels of infection are in your area of the country

But
I feel it would be a fair guesstimate to say that there must be at
least a one-in-20 chance that you have now been exposed to the real
common sex 'bug' called chlamydia. The second most likely infection
would be gonorrhoea ('the clap').

Unfortunately, both these two
STIs will very often produce no symptoms at all in women. So you might
have caught either of them, yet notice nothing wrong with the private
parts.

Therefore, my advice to you is to make an appointment with a
doctor, tell her you have had sex for the first time, and ask her to
examine you and do tests for sexual infection. Finally, I don't
want to be pessimistic but please bear in mind that unless you used a
real safe method of contraception, you may possibly have got pregnant.
So you just have to wait and see if the menses arrive. I wish you well.

• Seduced by an older woman

Q: I am a guy of 19, and last month I was working at a rich family's house. The lady was real kind to me, and gave me food and drinks. I think she was around twice my age. She talked to me about how her husband had been unable to give her children. Late in the afternoon, I found myself being led into the bedroom by her. We did not have full sex, doctor. But she gave me manual stimulation till I orgasmed. Then she made me leave. Afterwards, I got to thinking. Was this her way of getting hold of some of my sperm, so that she could become pregnant by me? One of my friends thinks this is likely.

A: Well, I feel it is most UNLIKELY. Presumably she didn't get you to climax into some sort of container or glass jar, because you would surely have noticed that.

I suspect that if the lady had wanted you to be a father, she would just have got you to have intercourse with her. Why would she bother to give you a 'hand job' instead? I have heard of very occasional cases where a woman has acquired a guy's seminal fluid and tried to inseminate it into herself. But such happenings are very, very rare.

• Time is not a factor

Q: Doctor, I am a 19-year-old male university student. Don't think too badly of me, but around three months ago my best friend and I went to a party. There were a lot of drinks, and some dope. Around 10 o'clock, I had sex with a girl I had met that evening. And about midnight, my pal had sex with her too. OK, I appreciate this was not a good idea. Now the girl is pregnant. And she is saying that I am the father. I am inclined to think that she is taking this attitude because I come from a much more affluent family than my friend! How can I find out if I am really the one responsible? Does the time of the evening at which I had sex with her make any difference?

A:The time of the evening is immaterial. Either you or your pal could be the father. Also, you should remember that this young lady may have had sex with other people around that date.

It is pretty well impossible to find out who the father of the baby is until the child has been born. It would then be possible to do DNA paternity testing on the child, and on its mother, and on you and your friend. I do not want to be censorious, but I must stress that it is NOT a good idea to have sex with someone you have only just met, particularly if you are under the influence of alcohol or weed, both of which will cloud your judgement.

• Going on the Pill

Q: I want to go on the Pill, Doc. But how do I start taking it?

A: See a doctor right away, and she will make sure that it is safe for you to take the Pill. For most young women, it is.

Generally, the best thing is to start taking the tablets on day one of your next period. There are usually 21 pills in a pack, so if you take one every day, the packet will last you for three weeks. Then you have a week's break. During the break, you will have your period. It is stopping the Pill at the end of the pack that brings on the menses.

After the week's break, you start on the second packet. And so you continue, three weeks on and one week off, for as long as you want to. If you have any side effects, check with your doctor.

• Will Postinor affect her in the future?

Q: Doc, my girlfriend recently took that Postinor thing. We have heard that it might affect her future fertility. Is this true? We want to have children one day.

A: As you know, Postinor is a brand of the famous post-coital pill, often mistakenly called the morning-after pill. If a woman takes it within 120 hours of sex, it is most unlikely that she will get pregnant.

Contrary to what you have heard, at present, there is no convincing medical evidence to suggest that Postinor can affect a girl's future fertility. However, as with all these hormonal things, it is always possible that some, as yet unknown side effect might emerge one day in the future. However, at the present time I feel that you and your girlfriend have nothing to fret about.

Email questions to Doc at saturdaylife@gleanerjm.com and read more in the Outlook Magazine tomorrow.