What’s your deepest, darkest secret? In the video above, Shan Boodram shares her story of how she found out her boyfriend was cheating on her.
While it may be seen as taboo to talk about sexually transmitted diseases and infections, Boodram partners up with Trojan Condoms and MTV to encourage women to take control of their reproductive and sexual health. In the video, she reveals that she is a “survivor” of chlamydia – a fact that she hasn’t even told the closest people in her life. “I said survivor not because it is a life-threatening illness,” Boodram starts. “But I am surviving the stigma and shame and I’m going to live on to tell this and not die of embarrassment.”
She tells all her fellow “survivors” that “there is truth in the numbers,” especially because it can often feel like “they were just pulled out of a random hat.” Chlamydia, for example, has over 200,000 cases each year, and only 50 percent of women show symptoms.
So, she encourages all women to carry a condom, get tested and keep track of their own health because it just takes “one condom that could potentially save your life.”
