Alie Ward

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Thanks, of course, to everyone who leaves reviews for the show.

So many lovely ones.

They help so much.

Each week, I prove that I read them.

I pick a new one, such as Atran R., who wrote, I've listened to this podcast for like six years and I feel bad that I'm only now writing a review.

This podcast is amazing, and if she reads this review in an episode, I hope it's for something cool like lasers or pirates or something.

HNR, it's about syphilis and stigmas and buttholes, so I hope you like that.

Worth the wait.

Also, Angie14, long-time listener, first-time reviewer, I see you.

Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible for us to donate to causes each week.

Okay, on to this week's guest.

They are the author of the wonderfully informative, hilarious, boldly authentic science book, Strange Bedfellows, Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs, a book, the cover of which features like crisp, rumpled white sheets and a stuffed crab in it.

And one review for this book puts it very elegantly, whether you have an STI or not, whether you have sex or not, whether you're queer or not,

This is a must-read book for 2020s America.

So this guest got their bachelor's in molecular and cell biology at Cal Berkeley, then did a master's in clinical research at the University of Minnesota, got a fellowship at the University of San Francisco in obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences, and sexually transmitted infections, and is now an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF and is a medical consultant with the CDC Division of STD Prevention.

I was aware of their work.

I fell in love with their sense of humor within a few lines of their bio, which reads, "...being a first-generation Asian kid in the U.S., the extent of my sex education for my parents was, don't have sex before you get married or we will kick you out of the house."

In case you were wondering, they write, I was already sexually active by the time I received this advice.

And they say that their time on earth would be best spent making people feel better about their sex lives, reducing stigmas around STIs and conducting good science and sharing it with the world as best they can.