Taking charge of our own healthcare can be a daunting task, especially if you don't know how to navigate healthcare systems or work with providers. We're demystifying some of that for you, providing a toolbox to help you make sound decisions and get the best care possible.

I realized that I was uncomfortable associating myself with genital herpes. Will people think I have it? Why else would someone write about genital herpes and risk that association if they didn’t have it, right? So I pressed on, putting myself at the center of an itty-bitty social experiment that resulted in some pretty big stuff.

Hepatitis is is an inflammation of the liver almost always caused by different hepatitis viruses. Hepatitis B is the type most often sexually transmitted. Worldwide, more than 350 million people have Hepatitis B.

Maybe you know what safer sex is. But do you also know what it isn't? Take a minute and fact-check your ideas about what can protect you from STIs and what cannot.

The problem with asking how someone else how to do something that's just for and about yourself is that you know better than anyone else. But we can certainly fill you in on some basics. Includes the skinny on masturbation and UTIs, bleeding during mastrubation and on finding masturbation just isn't doing the trick.

What do you really know about HIV and AIDS? How sure are you that what you know is correct or complete, and how much do you think it matters that you know about HIV and AIDS at all?

Trichomoniasis is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, mainly affecting 16-to-35-year old females.

This disease has bothered humans for thousands of years, but it seems to come and go in unexplainable cycles. Scabies used to be very rare in America, but now it is coming back again.

"Pelvic inflammatory disease" is shorthand for any serious bacterial infection of the reproductive organs that are housed in the pelvis: the uterus, uterine lining, fallopian tubes, and/or ovaries. These infections usually start in the vagina and, when left untreated, can progressively infect other reproductive organs. 20% of PID cases are found in teens, who often are afraid or unable to get reproductive health care. PID can result in permanent infertility and chronic pain.

About one in five people in the United States over age 12 -- approximately 45 million individuals -- are infected with HSV-II, the virus that causes genital herpes. Around 50 - 80% of the adult population has oral herpes, which most people contract through nonsexual contact in childhood.

One member of a group of herpes-type viruses, CMV is transmitted through body fluids, sexually and nonsexually, and from mother to infant during birth. CMV is also incredibly dangerous for people who are immunocompromised or people with HIV.