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Sexual Health – Guy Style
Preparing Your Son for His First Exam
By Tamekia Reece
Despite knowing exactly what can be expected at the exam, your son will probably still be nervous about certain things. Here's a look at those things and how he can beat those fears:
Will the swab test hurt? Mark, 17, says he heard about the swab test, and it freaked him out. "I couldn't imagine anything going up there, so it kind of turned me off to the whole idea of going," he says. For many guys, hearing about the penile swab is enough to make them stay far away from the doctor. But as Mark learned when he finally went for his exam, "it's not really painful, more like a slight pinch." And according to Dr. Wibbelsman, not all clinics use the penile swab, because urine and blood samples are sufficient enough to screen for STDs.
Is the doctor a man or a woman? Just as some girls prefer a same-sex physician, guys sometimes have a preference as to which gender they want conducting the exam. For some, they couldn't imagine allowing another man to examine their genital region. For others, having a woman perform the exam and talking to him about sexual health is too embarrassing. If your son frets about his doctor being one sex or the other, let him know he can breathe easy. "I think that it's very common for someone to want to see a doctor or nurse practitioner of one sex or the other," says Dr. Adler. At Temple Children's, like many other offices, they have both a male and female who conducts exams, and Dr. Adler says, "If someone prefers one over the other, they can just make the appointment with whichever one they want."
