 This video is a special, and I mean real special, collaboration video with American Sexual Health Association for their yes means test campaign. And when they reached out to me to collab, I was like, yo, we have to do something special, something big because less than 12% of young people get tested for sexually transmitted infections and diseases every single year, even though we account for majority of the reported cases. So I was like, Hey, how do we get young people talking and excited about their sexual health? And nothing says excitement like a party. So I wanted to throw one, but the thing is my friends are sick and tired of me talking about this to them. So I thought what better thing to do than to reach out to you guys and to find one of my lovers out there who is that friend in their group, the friend that all the homies go to talk about their relationships and their sex lives with. Let me find that friend in LA and have her throw a party for eight of her closest friends and Brittany reached out and she was perfect. Hi, Shannon. Good to see you. You look incredible. Thanks. Okay, come sit. Let's talk and plan. Okay, so when I put the call out there, I was like, who is that friend in their group? Why did you say me? Because it is like it is me. I always invite people over to my house and like, it was just like a random Friday night and I'll sit down like a group text and people will come over and then we'll just put questions in the box and everyone in there gets to like write questions and we'll have a discussion. So it's just natural for me to like bring them now but to have a topic, I could talk about a specific topic. What kind of questions are in the box? It really just depends on the group. So like we make different questions each time, but some of the questions have been like what's the most embarrassing moment you've had or like who do you want to kiss in the room? All right, so we're about to throw a sexual health party. Does that sound crazy to you? It's crazy fun. Okay, good. Okay, open. Wow. Oh my gosh. You like it? Yes. It's intimate. It's cute. I like it. I like the balloon. I love the glutes too. Everything is fine. I love cute little game over there in the corner. Yes. I want you to still put some finishing touches on it because it's your friends. I want you to really feel like you're a party. Okay. But first and foremost, let's put together their loot bags. All right. They're going to enjoy this. All right. So we're going to go to yesmeantest.org. Okay. And so here they have a bunch of stats, information on how to get tested, but more importantly, they let you put in your zip code so you can find out where you can get tested. Oh, that's pretty good. Oh, did your friends text you back? They did. All right. So we're going to get together a list for each of them to put in their loot bag at the end of a different place they can get tested. So let's get to work. This is what I wanted to have you on here and how to get tested. I want you to really feel like you're a party. I want you to really feel like you're a party. I want you to really feel like you're a party. I want you to really feel like you're a party. That's why I wanted to have you on here and how this party is because I want to encourage you all to go get tested and then to go out and talk to your friends as well and encourage other people to get tested too. We reported STD in the U.S. 15 to 24-year-olds making up almost two-thirds of all cases. Nope. It's chlamydia. Playing a question game, just like we do normally at my house, but instead it's going to be on sexual health. Do you ask about your partner's sexual health records? You know? I'm sad to admit that I don't and I probably should more often. It's not that I've never had the conversation, but I don't bring it up as often as I should. Does anybody ask? I ask one time. Well, not one time in my life, but I ask one time. And I think I talk to you about it after because you never talk to me again. I think it could be startling because just because I think like people when they ask about it, it's because it's something wrong. But that's the problem. It's a normal conversation. We've changed the conversation to be something like a positive thing. We're trying to uplift each other's health and maintain that, not accuse anybody of anything. And that's where we show that we have something we don't want. Exactly. That's why it's shocking because we don't talk about it until it's too late. Exactly. It's like, hey, we're going to continuously be doing this. I just want to make sure I'm good. I mean, at this place in my life where now I'm like turning 25. I mean, before I didn't, I would just kind of do it. And it was just a feeling until I had a really crazy scare. I started having really crazy symptoms. After that, I was like, yeah, I maybe if I did start a new relationship, I should, I should for sure go get tested with him just to make sure it's good for her. If you were to tell somebody, you know, what does it like to get tested? What would you tell them? Do it sooner than later. Yeah. And like to just think about all the positives that come out of that before thinking about anything negative. Yeah. And you always feel so great afterwards. Yeah. You don't feel like you're thinking too much about like, oh, I wonder if I have something and like you have all this anxiety about like not knowing, you know, it's better to just do it. To me, the anxiety or like the possibility of having like the symptoms, the sores, the all of that. Yeah. It's nice. That's way more painful than a little pick on my finger or something. Yeah. Definitely. 1.5 million cases of Chlamydia are reported each year for people 18 and 25. Have you ever had Chlamydia or known somebody who has? Yes, I've had Chlamydia. If you haven't. Oh yeah, I want to. Shout out. Shout out. Hey. Hey. This has never happened before that I've done this. Every time I go to speak somewhere, I'm like, who here loves orgasms? Like, hey, I'm like, who here loves great sex? I'm like, hey, who's that Chlamydia? And everyone's like. And then afterwards someone's like, my finger went up. You didn't see it, but like my toe. But yeah, and if it wasn't for getting tested, I wouldn't have known. If you don't get treated for Chlamydia, you're at risk for infertility, for pelvic inflammatory disease. And I had no symptoms. Like there was nothing. And then I learned that like half of women have zero symptoms at all, close to 80%. So I think testing was probably saved my life or my unborn child's life. So yeah. Snaps for testing. Yes. It was pretty much the same for me, not my partner, but it was somebody I was seeing. I kind of knew he was promiscuous. He told me when I got into a new relationship, and thankfully we hadn't had sex yet. So I didn't pass it or anything. That was in my real time. What's your clinic story? She had it in her mouth. I gave it to your penis. Because that's even where people don't realize that. Did your parents talk to you about sexual health? Absolutely not. Not one word. Not really. Nothing, not health, not sex, not anything. Nothing. Yeah, no. No, my parents. No. My mom's idea of talking about sex was don't do it. She was just like, no. So how are people supposed to know where to get tested if no one talks about sexual health? Good question. There's HIV testing commercials, and then sometimes you see big boards. Big boards everywhere now. There's that now. But the stat is that less than 12% of young people get tested every single year. So what is not being done enough of? Why are people not getting tested? From my experience, it's like you only really go when there's a problem. Like when you've got some funny discharge or whatever, whatever for guys as well. But I personally feel like anybody having sex should be getting tested. The fact that there's a possibility that you might have something, that should be scary. So if you, I don't know, it's kind of like, okay, well if you have something, you can cure it. And that's the upside too, is that there's no such thing as a failed test because even if you have a positive, now you can get treatment. You can share with other partners who's like, I would hate to be the partner who transmitted to somebody else. There's no such thing as a fail. You're always going to come out of there stronger, healthier, and just able to make better choices for yourself and for other people. One in two people will get an STD by 25. Does that surprise you? No. That doesn't surprise me at all, for sure, because I mean if people were afraid to go get tested, I feel like it's kind of a thing of like, damn, I probably have a lot of unprotected sex. I probably shouldn't go get tested, and that's just a thought, but that's an action, and that ends up being the reason why people are passing it to each other because they're not getting tested and nobody's asking. African-American women are five times more likely to get chlamydia. How can we reverse this step just by getting tested, I think? Because they're bringing up the fact that it's African-American women. It also brings up the fact of how much power and how much openness happens in African-American relationships as well. Right. You know, being able to have that type of conversation, like I said, when I had that conversation with somebody, he was white, and that was fine. I brought up that conversation with black guys plenty of times, and I get the anger, the aggression, and it's like, why are you so mad? You know what really opened my eyes from even today? It's like, hearing how people's parents never talk to them about sexual health. So I think letting someone know, younger than you or in your community, hear the clinics that are close to you because you may have no idea because saying getting tested is one thing, but where does one go to get that done? Yeah, that's true. Me and Brittany actually did some printouts for you guys and all of our loot bags at the end of different clinics that are close to you. So you can pass it on or keep it for yourself, but I think everyone should definitely know where to go. That's a big part of the problem because you can have an idea what it's supposed to be, but if you have no idea where to go or who to talk to or where to get that done or what happens when you go to get it done, it can feel like too far away or too inaccessible. If you're like going out on the weekend, like there's a dope party and there's like, oh, you know you're single and you know you're probably going to meet somebody. It's like, on Friday after work, just go get tested just to make sure you're good and then you can go to that party knowing you're free. It's on the way to the party actually. Yeah, it's on the way. And a lot of women don't carry condoms and actually don't have to. I'm going to start doing that. It's crazy because I have some of my, I'm in a relationship, but I have some of my purists if you want to, but I got it for my HIV testing and I've been thinking about it and I'm like, anybody that I see at a party, I actually went up to this girl and this guy and she was really drunk and he was really drunk and you could tell they just met and they were kind of, you know, and I was like, you know, I just kind of gave it to him and I was like, you might want this. He's like, oh, thank you. I wasn't about to use it. She was like me there. So I was like, wow. You came through? Yeah. Well, thank you all so much for being here and sharing your experiences. You are all more than ready to go out into the world and have a sexual health and let people know where to go get tested. Well, thank you for having this open forum for all of us to see. Yay! Great, yeah, good thanks. I want to thank Brittany and Shamboody for this. It was beautiful. I really loved having the conversation and one thing I would take away is how much we exoticize sex and we don't talk about getting tested and we don't talk about the risks or we don't talk about preventative measures. So I would throw this for my little cousins to talk about it, let them know that sex is okay, but there are ways that you can protect yourself because there are risks and I learned all these new stats and ways of contracting that I had never known before. I learned today that one in two people will get an STD by the age of 25. Each year there are 3.7 million new cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea. I really hope people leave here today more confident to have talks about sexual health. Whether it be testing or disclosing information or asking information, asking for information, I just want them to all be confident enough to have that conversation. Well, I really hope that everybody goes to YesMeansTest.org to find out where their local clinic is to get stats and information that gets an amazing entry point for a conversation. And speaking of which, if you could have a conversation like this with your group of friends that you know would be down, go in the info box below. I'll put all the party planning tips so you can throw the identical party that Brittany threw. Probably not identical, but you know. Ours was pretty good. Ours was pretty good. So go in the info box below and of course you can still find information on Brittany and all of her friends and more on YesMeansTest. I get it, girl. Yeah, I get it, girl. Yeah, I get it, girl. You don't know, I get it, girl.