Oh, hey, it's your top used emoji, which I just checked.

And today mine is the sparkly heart rather than the usual wailing, crying one. So that's good. It's Alley Ward. This is The Ologies podcast today. We are tickling your heart by talking about testing. It's sexually transmitted infections. Let's practice some erotic medicine with an expert you're going to fall in love with mentally. But first, thank you for the patrons of Ologies at patreon.com slash Ologies, who support the show for as low as a dollar a month and who submit questions before we record. Thank you to everyone wearing OlogiesMurch from OlogiesMurch.com and finding each other in the wild. You can tag us on Instagram or you can DM us pictures that we can

share. Thanks, of course, to everyone who leaves reviews for the show. So many lovely ones.

They help so much. Each week, I prove that I read them. I pick a new one, such as Atran R, who wrote,

I've listened to this podcast for like six years and I feel bad that I'm only now writing a review.

This podcast is

amazing. And if she reads this review in an episode, I hope it's for something cool like lasers

or pirates or something. A-Tran R. It's about syphilis and stigmas and buttholes. So I hope

you like that. Worth the wait. Also, Angie 14, long-time listener

for some reviewer, I see you. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show who make it possible for us

to donate two causes each week. Okay, on to this week's guest. They are the author of the

wonderfully informative, hilarious, boldly authentic science book, Strange Bedfellows, Adventures in the Science History

and Surprising Secrets of STDs, a book, the cover of which features like crisp, rumpled,

white sheets, and a stuffed crab in it. And one review for this book puts it very elegantly,

whether you have an STI or not, whether

you have sex or not, whether you're queer or not.

This is a must-read book for 2020s America.

So this guest got their bachelor's in molecular and cell biology at Cal Berkeley, then did a

master's in clinical research at the University of Minnesota, got a fellowship at the University

at San Francisco in

obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences, and sexually transmitted infections,

and is now an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine

...