This is the question of the night at the safe-sex forum sponsored by members of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., the Student Association, the Illinois Department of Public Health Response Center and the DeKalb County Health Department. The STD and Safer Sex forum was held on Sept. 18, in the Stevenson South A/B room.

Jamie Lowe, a senior community health major and an employee of the DeKalb County Health Department, explained the department’s unconventional method for STD testing.

“We don’t take blood. We take a serum test,” Lowe said. “This means that we go inside your mouth with a sticky pad and we hold it inside your jaw and the lining of your cheek. That’s going to get enough of your mucus membrane and enough secretions so that we can send it to a lab.”

Responses come in about two weeks. Lowe recommends that those waiting for results refrain from having unprotected sex.

Melissa Brown, the information coordinator for the teen counseling program in Skokie, believes the teen pregnancy and STD epidemic is still going strong.

In a study conducted by National Statistics performed by CDC, young adults between the ages of 13 and 25 have one of the fastest rising rates of the HIV infection.

Brown hammered that point by addressing the cause and effects of various STDs. She is currently counseling people between the ages of 12 and 22.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, 314 STD cases were reported in DeKalb County.

One hundred seventy-four cases were reported on the NIU campus alone. There were 157 chlamydia cases, 17 gonorrhea cases and zero syphilis cases.

It is estimated that .5 percent of all of DeKalb County residents — including NIU — are infected with HIV. This works out to at least 250 cumulative cases since the AIDS epidemic began 11 years ago.

STDs such as herpes and HPV (Human Papilloma Virus — “genital warts”) are not directly reported to local health departments. However both local incidences of both herpes and HPV are rising drastically.

“DeKalb County provides free clinical tests,” Lowe said. “They are completely anonymous, so any information you provide is confidential. We give you the results at the counseling session. We also address behavior modification, so that means it is our job to come up with ways for you to effectively use protection.”

Deitra Tate, president of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, stressed the importance of the forum.

“I hope that through this presentation we can get the message out to NIU students and the DeKalb community about safer sex,” Tate said.

Zeta Phi Beta also will sponsor the 4th annual AIDS Walk-A-Thon Sept. 23. The five-mile walk will begin at 10 a.m at the Center for Black Studies and will continue around the outskirts of DeKalb. All proceeds will go to Chicago and surrounding areas for AIDS research.