No one likes to talk about this stuff, so I guess that means I have to be the one.

This may be the scariest post on this blog, so if you prefer to be an ostrich, skip ahead.

All of you paranoid schizophrenic, hypochondriacs who don’t want to spend the rest of your life suffering from some plague-like disease, should also skip this post and don’t even consider dating. You may want to go for the inflatable doll, and even then, use protection unless you’re sure it’s made from virgin vinyl.

I feel sorry for all of us in the dating world. It's a scary and dangerous place. And it's especially difficult for the hypochondriacs out there. I knew this one hypochondriac guy who was dating just a mere six months when he died of hypochondria. Yes, I am trying to make light of this dilemma, but disease is very real and presents a very real risk.

We’re not talking about getting a common cold from a good night kiss. The diseases you have to avoid include all the old stuff that did in the likes of Al Capone – syphilis, gonorrhea and crabs. Those are the easy ones, because today they can usually be cured.

We live in a new world filled with diseases that can make you suffer for the rest of your life, and there are those that will kill you. Basically we are talking about real serious infections, many of which didn’t even exist several years ago in the age of innocence.

We shall explore each one of these diseases and see how likely we are to get them.

Some of the diseases we have to contend with today didn’t exist years ago. These new diseases are related to the sexual practices of modern, free-spirited lovers. These diseases started as unexpected effects of the free-love phenomenon of the sixties.

So in some odd way, I tend to blame the Beatles for the current problems encountered in dating.

Before the sixties, sex was taboo. It really was! Girls weren’t screwing ever guy they met, and guys, who would have liked to have sex with every girl they met, didn’t, because those girls "weren't screwing every guy they met." Those girls were the norm. They were called nice girls.

Back in the fifties, I couldn’t discuss sex, condoms, STDs or anything related to sexuality at the family dinner table, yet today they are showing kids in elementary school how to put condoms on bananas which will probably account for some real serious sexual practices among the next generation.

When I was a kid, sex was taboo; today sex is expected behavior in the youngest of our children. This free love mentality produced a world in which both boys and girls (as young as ten years old) have multiple sexual partners who perform acts of sex that they used to have laws against.

Oral sex, anal sex, and anal/oral sex among multiple partners breed and spread disease, especially the new diseases we encounter.

Sadly, the medical establishment hasn’t let the masses know or understand how all this happens. Yes, everyone heard of the various diseases we all fear, but they don’t fully appreciate how their behavior contributes to the plagues currently devastating many populations.

Very bright people, both men and women, don’t practice safe sex because they don’t understand the dangers, or they let caution fall victim to passion.

If you think this section on STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) is just for the poor underclass, guess again. It is true that serious STDs are more prevalent in the inner city as a result of the higher levels of promiscuity, but if you think there’s no way you’ll fall victim to the modern plagues, think again.

I knew this guy, who when he first started to date, found out that two lovely women he was seeing had Hepatitis C and genital herpes respectively. Could a guy be anymore unlucky?  I guess he could have dated a leper with intractable TB, but someone was watching over him – not perfectly, but watching over him none-the-less. He was spared and moved on with a much more cautious view of dating. As a matter of record, he is now in the monastery practicing his vows of celibacy while soaking his penis in warm salt water.

And now for a treatise on STDs. The envelope please: You'll find the secrets to safe sex in the next post. Stay tuned.