Breaking the Silence: Conflict Avoidance and Nondisclosure in Sexual Health Conversations
Conflict avoidance is a large piece of nondisclosure.
Nondisclosure is a way to avoid what people perceive to be the “problem” or potential problem. Society presents STIs and those who have them as problematic. Despite how common STIs are, they’re seen as the outliers.
Navigating any relationship, but especially sexual relationships, are deemed as problematic. Thus, where conflict avoidance makes its debut.
We’ve habituated nondisclosure. We weren’t trained to ask about STI screenings or safer sex with partners who have STIs; instead, we’re just taught avoidance. And what better way to avoid them than to avoid the conversations an disruptions in which they’re likely to arise?
Confronting STI screening results or positive statuses in partners is less about the reality of a situation, and more about how we perceive it. Confronting a person is one thing, but confronting inadequacies and fallacies in ourselves and our belief systems is another level entirely.