How serious are venereal diseases? What is a venereal disease anyhow? And why are they called STD or STI these days? What diseases are there? The more sex you have, the more likely you'll be interested in these questions. Here are a few answers:

Venereal diseases are diseases you can catch through sex. Sexually transmitted diseases, in other words, or STD for short. Actually, you can catch (or become infected with) the agents that cause venereal diseases (pathogens) without showing immediate signs of illness. That's why people also use the term "sexually transmitted infections" or STI. The difference between an infection and an illness is quite important.

As with other infectious diseases, some time can elapse between the point of infection and the appearance of signs of the illness (symptoms). During this time, people don't see or feel anything of the infection. Nevertheless, you can be infected by your sex partners during this period.
Or – if it's you that's infected – you can pass the infection on to others.

What exactly causes a venereal disease? Or, more precisely, a sexually transmitted infection? It's quite straightforward: every venereal disease has its own causative agent or pathogen. And there's a whole range of them: minute bacteria, dangerous viruses, tiny parasites. But don't worry. They're not simply floating about in the air. Neither can you catch them through everyday forms of contact like shaking hands. No, the pathogens that cause venereal diseases require special living conditions. Outside the human body most of them can usually survive only for a very short time. But during sex people come close, very close, together. And that makes it easy for these pathogens to pass from one body to another.

The trouble is, you need to be a very well trained doctor and have a good laboratory at your disposal to be able to trace and recognize the various pathogens. It's very rare that you yourself will be able to tell, when you're having sex, whether an infection is present or not. So in certain situations it's best to be careful – namely when you come in contact with body fluids. On this site, we've listed just what things you've got to watch out for. Click on the various body fluids in the navigation bar.