Dr Sherene Kalloo

Car­ni­val is one of the most vi­brant, joy­ful and cul­tur­al­ly rich cel­e­bra­tions in our na­tion. It is a time of mu­sic, free­dom, ex­pres­sion and uni­ty. As mas­quer­aders pre­pare to take to the road, I of­fer this mes­sage not to damp­en the spir­it of the sea­son, but to pro­tect the health and fu­ture of the women who cel­e­brate.

Sim­ply put: if you are go­ing to have sex, con­doms must rule the par­ty.

In my years of prac­tice as an ob­ste­tri­cian and gy­nae­col­o­gist, I have con­sis­tent­ly ob­served an in­crease in sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions (STIs) fol­low­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. I have seen ris­es of up to 20 per cent in cas­es of gen­i­tal warts and her­pes among women pre­sent­ing short­ly af­ter fes­tiv­i­ties. Many re­port symp­toms be­gin­ning weeks af­ter Car­ni­val events. Some ac­knowl­edge un­planned sex­u­al en­coun­ters. Oth­ers say their part­ners had symp­toms that were dis­missed as in­signif­i­cant.

Car­ni­val is syn­ony­mous with high en­er­gy and, of­ten, al­co­hol con­sump­tion. Al­co­hol low­ers in­hi­bi­tions and im­pairs judg­ment. De­ci­sions made in a mo­ment of ex­cite­ment can have con­se­quences that last far longer than a long week­end.

Un­pro­tect­ed sex car­ries risks be­yond tem­po­rary dis­com­fort.

In­fec­tions such as:

Bac­te­r­i­al STDs

• Chlamy­dia

• Gon­or­rhea

• Syphilis

• Chan­croid

Vi­ral STDs

• ↓HIV (Hu­man Im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy Virus)

• ↓Her­pes (HSV-1 and HSV-2)

• ↓HPV (Hu­man Pa­pil­lo­mavirus)

• ↓He­pati­tis B

• ↓He­pati­tis C (can al­so be sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted)

Par­a­sitic STDs

• Tri­chomo­ni­a­sis

• Pu­bic lice (crabs)

• Sca­bies

may ini­tial­ly be mild or silent. Left un­treat­ed, some can lead to pelvic in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease, chron­ic pelvic pain, ec­topic preg­nan­cy, liv­er can­cer and in­fer­til­i­ty. HPV re­mains strong­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with cer­vi­cal can­cer. The vac­cine does pro­tect against both gen­i­tal warts and cer­vi­cal can­cer in 90 per cent of cas­es.

Virus­es and bac­te­ria do not dis­crim­i­nate. A sin­gle un­pro­tect­ed en­counter can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact your health.

Prepa­ra­tion should be as im­por­tant as your cos­tume. Car­ry con­doms. Do not as­sume some­one else will. Women must feel em­pow­ered to take con­trol of their pro­tec­tion. If a part­ner re­fus­es to use a con­dom, that is a red flag — not ro­mance. Your health should nev­er be com­pro­mised for a fleet­ing mo­ment. Re­mem­ber, con­doms pro­tect against preg­nan­cy as well as most STDs, not all. Her­pes and HPV are not 100 per cent pre­ventable with con­doms, but they def­i­nite­ly help.

Test­ing is equal­ly im­por­tant. Many STIs re­main asymp­to­matic for weeks or months. If you have en­gaged in un­pro­tect­ed sex, sched­ule a check-up. Ear­ly de­tec­tion al­lows ear­ly treat­ment and re­duces long-term com­pli­ca­tions. Rou­tine Pap smears and HPV screen­ing re­main es­sen­tial for every woman.

‘Sex toys won’t in­crease promis­cu­ity but...’

Re­cent­ly, pub­lic dis­cus­sion has emerged about the in­clu­sion of sex toys (ros­es) in Car­ni­val good­ie bags. As a gy­nae­col­o­gist, I can state clear­ly: there is no strong sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence that dis­trib­ut­ing a sex toy in­creas­es promis­cu­ity. Sex­u­al be­hav­iour is in­flu­enced by com­plex fac­tors such as per­son­al val­ues, al­co­hol use, peer in­flu­ence and ed­u­ca­tion — not by a prod­uct alone.

How­ev­er, sym­bol­ism mat­ters. In a fes­ti­val al­ready as­so­ci­at­ed with sen­su­al­i­ty, such items may re­in­force per­cep­tions of Car­ni­val as high­ly sex­u­alised. For some, this rais­es le­git­i­mate cul­tur­al con­cerns.

On the oth­er hand, prod­ucts mar­ket­ed for in­di­vid­ual use can pro­mote sex­u­al au­ton­o­my and self-aware­ness. They may en­cour­age women to pri­ori­tise per­son­al plea­sure and bound­aries rather than feel­ing pres­sured in­to part­ner-dri­ven en­coun­ters. Most im­por­tant­ly, the con­tro­ver­sy cre­ates an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss con­sent, pro­tec­tion and sex­u­al health more open­ly.

The ob­ject it­self is nei­ther in­her­ent­ly harm­ful nor pro­tec­tive. What de­ter­mines out­comes is ed­u­ca­tion, mes­sag­ing and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

If cul­tur­al at­ti­tudes to­ward sex­u­al­i­ty are be­com­ing more open, then sex­u­al ed­u­ca­tion must be­come loud­er, not qui­eter. Con­sent must be clear­ly un­der­stood. Pro­tec­tion must be nor­malised. Em­pow­er­ment must be sep­a­rat­ed from ex­ploita­tion.

Event or­gan­is­ers and stake­hold­ers al­so have a role to play. Vis­i­ble pub­lic health mes­sag­ing, con­dom dis­tri­b­u­tion ini­tia­tives and clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion around con­sent can make a mea­sur­able dif­fer­ence.

Car­ni­val is a cel­e­bra­tion of life. It should not be­come a source of pre­ventable ill­ness or re­gret.

Free­dom with­out ed­u­ca­tion can in­crease risk. Free­dom ac­com­pa­nied by knowl­edge and prepa­ra­tion is em­pow­er­ing.

En­joy the mu­sic. Em­brace the free­dom. Cel­e­brate re­spon­si­bly.

But when the cos­tume comes off, and the mu­sic fades, your health re­mains with you. Your body, your fu­ture and your well-be­ing are worth pro­tect­ing.

Dr Sherene Kalloo

MDW, MBBS, DGO, DM, FACOG.

Spe­cial­ist Ob­ste­tri­cian & Gy­nae­col­o­gist