Ending STI Comparisons in Politics: A Call for Creative Critique
Anytime a presidential election nears, I always notice an increase in labeling candidates as STIs and/or STDs.
Regardless of how terrible a political candidate is, please stop comparing them to STIs.
Labeling someone as a sexually transmitted disease or infection as a means to discredit them enforces STI stigma. If you are framing this person and their platform as “bad” and are using a specific STI/STD to reinforce this idea, what you’re really saying is that STIs and people who have them are also “bad.”
People ≠ STIs. STIs are actually more common than most people realize. Globally, there are an estimated 1 million new STIs each day (per @who), many of these being asymptomatic. Between the lack of symptoms and poor sex education, people aren’t talking about their sexual health, which increases the likelihood of transmission.
If you want to critique a candidate and/or their platform, please explore a more creative vocabulary!