The Newsroom’s resident sex and relationships guru Blair Cowen offers unconventional advice on your thorniest personal problems.
Dear Blair
I hooked up with a new guy last week – a boy I’ve known for a while and had my eye on but didn’t know if he was interested. Suddenly he tells me he fancies me and, although he’s totally inexperienced, and doesn’t have much experience in being with other males, he wants me to be his first. Amazing guy, sweet, cute, shy – and damn good looking.
So we get together, he comes to my place and we mess around. Not all the way because he was so nervous but everything else.
And then my regular fuckbuddy calls in a panic because he thinks he’s got a discharge. He’s going to get tested and I’ll have to go have tests but…
How the hell do I tell a sweet virginal guy I’ve just got together with that I’ve probably given him an STI?
Dear Discharge,
Congratulations on what could be a new relationship and it sounds like you can teach this new boy a thing or two, in and out of the bedroom.
Well buddy it sounds like you have had an interaction with gonorrhoea, it’s messy and it hurts. You may want to familiarise yourself with “The Drama Down under” website where you are able to message sexual partners anonymously and inform them of the interaction with what infection you have come across. It is super user-friendly, so make sure anyone else you may have fooled around with knows that they may be experiencing discharge from places discharge is not meant to flow out of constantly.
First of all if you can’t bring yourself to sit down with the new boy and explain the situation, chances are he’s been horny within the last 30 days and could possibly have caught this STI from someone else, so you could always play the “I don’t have it card” and go get yourself sorted quickly.
Now if you want to be honest, it’s easy: call him up, cook him dinner and let him know that your previous fuckbuddy has informed you that he has an STI. Don’t make it a whole sit-down talk as if you are coming out to your parents, or you need to inform someone that you just ran over and killed their beloved cat. This isn’t as scary as it seems and can often be made into a good situation, because once you are both clean, well there is no risk of any infections being caught, and no worrying will take place … if you get what I mean. Things could get naughty.
It is amazing to always know your stats before sleeping with someone new, even if you’re not going all the way, everything is still catchable through oral sex. Gonorrhoea is only a needle in the bum to get rid of but can take from two to 30 days to develop. Keep your dick to yourself for the next week or so. Make an appointment for the both of you to go get tested ASAP and make sure you inform the nurse the interaction you have both had. Once treated, make sure you both take a rapid HIV test and ask to get these results together. When you have completed your STI check and both come back ok… well, if you are going to be exclusive, it’s possible you will be exploring many different activities and having a lot of fun in the bedroom. Stay safe, have fun and be responsible for your health.
Dear Blair:
How can I eat healthy when I’m poor?
Dear Health Freak,
First of all don’t be afraid of frozen vegetables, meat sales and tuna.
Don’t fool yourself and think the cheaper supermarkets are the way to go because most supermarket prices are very competitive. Shop around. Tuna is known as brain food and in most supermarkets you can pick up a generic can of tuna for less then $1 so mix that up with some cheap Singapore noodles or even mix it with the two-minute noodles in the cupboard, a handful of frozen veggies and your choice of flavouring. Think soy sauce, sweet chili sauce. You’ve pretty much made a treat of a tuna noodle stir fry. Chuck some peanut butter and water in it and boom, you’ve served up some satay realness.
When I was finding it hard to get one meal on the table a day, I used to stay awake until my local Woollies was just about to close and go on a finding frenzy. Any can that looked damaged or any fresh food produce would be marked down; you can score some crazy savings on these. Adam Sandler shows some pretty cool examples in his movie Big Daddy. I’m not advising you to start damaging products but work out what time discounted fresh produce is put on the shelf. Sometimes you can pick up a full hot chook for $5.
An other little trick that normally gets forgotten about is EGGS!!! Eggs give you everything you need in a meal. and they are available for breakfast lunch and dinner. Soft boiled egg with toast or even scrambled eggs for breakfast is always a healthy and tasty meal. For Lunch you can look at spinach fritter and dinner you cook a quiche. Do not take the eggs for granted.
Also familiarise yourself with some “community gardens” around the Sydney area. My understanding of these gardens are that they work on an honesty program, so when you take some tomatoes for the spag bol you’re going to cook on the weekend (oh yes, pasta is kinda healthy and filling), you must replant something for someone else.
Stay healthy x – Blair
Confused? Worried? Struggling? Ask Blair how he’d deal with it!
Email your questions to Blair at ccowen@mymacleay.edu.au
Top illustration and above by Melissah Dierickx-Bosmans of The Newsroom.
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