Seductive Delusions: How Everyday People Catch STDs

Anyone can catch a sexually transmitted disease. STDs are widespread in all walks of life, regardless of gender, race, social status, or education. Seduced into complacency by the notion that "it can’t happen to me," many sexually active teens and young adults are stunned when they are diagnosed with an STD.

To drive home the risks and realities of unprotected sex, Dr. Jill Grimes narrates real-life stories of young people infected with STDs. The accounts of these young men and women, and their exam-room conversations with their doctors, evoke both the physical symptoms and the emotional reactions that can accompany infection.

Dr. Grimes introduces each disease with a pair of stories that capture the distinct experiences of a man and a woman, in the process allowing readers to identify and empathize with such patients. The stories are followed by an information section that provides medical facts and answers to frequently asked questions about symptoms, treatment, and prevention.

Whether reading the book from cover to cover or jumping directly to a specific disease, readers will relate to the dramatic stories while learning medically reliable information to help them make decisions about life and love.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that one in four teenage girls in the United States has a sexually transmitted disease. Seductive Delusions reveals what physicians across America see every day. Anyone who is sexually active is at risk and needs to read this book.

Jill Grimes, M.D., is a practicing physician at West Lake Family Practice who has worked at the University of Texas Health Services in Austin, Texas. She is also a clinical faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.