You're listening to the micro version of the Savage Lovecast at savage.love.

If you're stuck in a relationship quandary, or if you're looking for sexual harmony,

well, there's nothing you can't ask on the Savage Lovecast. The first headline I saw about the Monkeypox outbreak. I didn't think I needed to read it. I thought,

oh my God, I am plagued out at the moment and nothing in this headline makes me think I need to read past the headline, which most people don't

do whatever the story is. We scan the headlines, we skip most of the actual news stories.

All of us do that. Even news junkies like me do that. You can't read everything.

But I started reading. It's a viral infection related to smallpox. Sounds kind of unpleasant,

rarely deadly. First seen in monkeys, hence the name, but you don't get it from monkeys.

Last time anyone got it in the United States was in 2003 and it was from a prairie dog.

And it's almost always seen in people who have visited western central Africa or been in

close contact with an infected person

who has recently visited those parts of Africa. It's also really hard to catch. It's not as

infectious as COVID. It's not airborne, sometimes mistaken for the flu at first. Akes and pains

and a fever, swollen lymph nodes, but then a rash and pus-filled blisters follow, and there were pictures,

and ick.

Anyway, I kept reading, even though I didn't feel like monkey pox was something I personally

needed to be worried about.

And the headline certainly didn't make it seem like it was something I needed to worry about,

but I like to be

informed, even about things that don't have anything to do with me. I'm also Catholic and a bit of

a hypochondriac, and I like to worry about things that shouldn't worry me. A man needs a hobby. So I

kept reading. And then 15 paragraphs into this story, I learned that almost all of the cases in this outbreak

...