Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced newly drafted guidelines regarding the use of an antibiotic , doxycycline, as a post-exposure preventive treatment for bacterial sexually transmitted infections, including chlamydia, syphilis, and gonorrhea.

The CDC will finalize its recommendations after a 45-day public comment period for physicians and public health officials. STIs have been steadily rising in the United States, something the CDC referred to as an "epidemic" in its proposal, and it seeks to improve the health of gay and bisexual men and transgender women who are at an increased risk of these STIs.

Public health interventions can be both powerful and effective, but let’s not forget the amount of relevance and sway that cultural messaging also holds. The proposal mentions the importance of discussing risk reduction strategies, but I question, in today’s day and age, how many healthcare practitioners would feel comfortable advising their patients to have sex with fewer people.

In the realm of sexuality, it has become frowned upon to suggest that anyone should curtail promiscuity, particularly if he or she belongs to a minority group. But all sexual activity is associated with some degree of risk to one’s health, regardless of whether a person is a minority or not. Becoming involved with one partner translates to being exposed to all of his or her previous partners and all of their previous partners, and on it goes. Indiscriminate sex shouldn’t be considered a default behavior for which negative outcomes are inevitable.

Since some STIs, such as syphilis, can be spread through skin-to-skin contact, including the mouth, the risk of transmission is particularly high. Other factors that increase the riskiness of sex include having multiple partners, including those who use drugs intravenously or are involved in prostitution, as well as drug and alcohol use, which hampers good decision-making around safer sex practices, such as using a condom and knowing a partner’s previous sexual history and sexual health status.

These decisions have implications for women’s health, too, considering that many men who have sex with men also have sex with women — and may or may not tell their female partner about this, even in the context of a long-term relationship. Women are at a higher risk of contracting an STI during unprotected sex due to the anatomy of their bodies. We must also consider the long-term effects of antibiotic use, including antibiotic resistance, should application in STI prevention become widespread and readily available.