My grandmother used to say that you learn something new every day, and boy, she wasn’t kidding. Today I learned that rectal chlamydia is a thing.

Male performer Lucas Frost (@LucasxFrost) recently tweeted his test results with the message that he was glad he got swabbed, and you should too. But what is he talking about? Well, that’s what this post is about today because there is a major issue in the adult industry right now, and we want to try and get the word out.

Lucus Frost and many like him say that swabs need to be the standard for all adult production. But why?

Because as it turns out, without a swab, he wouldn’t have known that he was, in fact, positive for an STI.

First, a quick visit to the CDC to find out what this is and why it’s so important.

Chlamydia can infect the rectum in men and women. This can happen either directly (through receptive anal sex), or via spread from the cervix and vagina in a woman. While these infections often have no symptoms, they can cause symptoms of proctitis (e.g., rectal pain, discharge, and/or bleeding).

The initial damage that chlamydia causes is often unnoticed. However, infections can lead to serious health problems with both short- and long-term effects.

If a woman does not receive treatment, chlamydia can spread into the uterus or fallopian tubes, causing PID. Symptomatic PID occurs in about 10-15% of women who do not receive treatment. However, chlamydia can also cause subclinical inflammation of the upper genital tract (“subclinical PID”). Both acute and subclinical PID can cause long-term damage to the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues. The damage can lead to chronic pelvic pain, tubal factor infertility, and potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy.

Untreated chlamydia may increase a person’s chances of getting or transmitting HIV.

Chlamydia is easily treated with antibiotics, but if you don’t know you have it, then you can easily give it to someone else, who can then give it to someone else, who can then give it to someone else.

That’s why testing in the adult industry is so important. But the type of test we currently use isn’t picking up rectal chlamydia. That requires a swab test, and that isn’t part of the standard adult industry panel of tests.

The Gold Standard Panel (GSP) from Talent Testing includes the following tests for $155:

• HIV-1 NAT
• HIV Ag/Ab
• HBsAg
• Anti-HCV
• Chlamydia (Urine)
• Gonorrhea (Urine)
• Trichomonas Vaginalis
• Syphilis (RPR)
• TREP-SURE EIA

For an additional $60, you can request the rectal swab.

Here is the problem, not every location offers the test. Here is a tweet by Nicole Aniston that perfectly explains the issue she is having just trying to get a swab.

Adult performers and content creators alike get tested every two weeks. That’s $155 per test, and they have to pay for that themselves. Now you have to add in another $60 per test on top of that for the rectal chlamydia swab because it went undetected for so long, the number of people popping positive is astronomical.

Is this a big deal? YES!

Beyond all the other very serious problems it causes, untreated chlamydia may increase a person’s chances of getting or transmitting HIV.

This is absolutely not okay.