STD database Qpid.me shows potential partner's sexual health
Students worried about a potential partner's sexual health have a new tool at their disposal.
Qpid.me is an online database created to verify whether a potential partner might be carrying a sexually transmitted disease.
“The reality is that college students, and even high school seniors, take a trip during spring break," said the website's creator, Ramin Bastani. "We are just trying to help them make safer choices and realize it’s essential to protect yourself if you choose to engage in sexual activity with someone you don’t know well."
This site allows anyone 13 years old and older to send an online report of his or her sexually transmitted diseases, and that information is then made available to the public.
Safer Sex Patrol Student Coordinator Jacob Saren says the website is useful for college students.
“This will allow people to be more safe and make better decisions when it comes to having relations, because they will know their status at all times and will hopefully want to prevent catching or spreading an STI," the Clinton senior said. "If it is in the heat of the moment and someone does ask their partner if they have been tested, they then can show them on their cell phone, which I think will put someone's mind at ease.”
Redford sophomore Taylor Butler cannot wrap her head around the idea of a website being allowed to disclose such personal matters and finds the idea of the website invasive.
“I have never heard of this site, and I don’t think that I will be using it," Butler said. "It is a private manner with information that should not be put online."
This free database may encourage users to practice safer sex, but Butler does not think students necessarily will.
“If you are trying to hook up with someone, it is an in-the-moment kind of thing, not a let-me-pull-out-my-phone-and-check-if-you-have-an-STD-first," Butler said. "Once you are attracted to someone, you don’t automatically think to look them up, and, over break, most people won’t be thinking that much at all.”
