Sexual diseases subject of book

Adina Nack knows what it's like to be told at age 20 that you have a sexually transmitted disease.

She remembers the fear she felt when her doctor rather coldly gave her the diagnosis, and the stigma that she associated with it.

That's why she wrote "Damaged Goods? Women Living with Incurable Sexually Transmitted Diseases," which was released July 31.

"For me, this research has been a very personal journey," said Nack, 35, a sociology professor at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. "I had this personal insight. I saw this as a way to turn this personal tragedy into a way of addressing this social problem."

The book, which focuses on the human papilloma virus and genital herpes, takes women through the six stages they can expect to experience after their diagnosis.

Those stages begin with the invincibility that many women initially feel, then go through anxiety and healing, and end with "reintegration of the sexual self," a melding of their sense of self before and after their diagnoses.

For the book, Nack interviewed 43 women. They ranged from 19 to 56 years old and came from various religious, economic and ethnic backgrounds.

In each interview, Nack disclosed her own diagnosis, a step that she believes helped make the women more comfortable talking about their own experiences.

The resulting book has a definite academic bent, but Nack hopes that it will reach a wider audience than colleagues and college students. She's considering reworking it into a more accessible self-help book.

She hopes that recently diagnosed women can "read about other women who went on to live a healthy and happy life and, if they desired, to get married and have a child," she said.

"I didn't have any illusions this would be a happy story. I wanted it to be an accurate story."

Before becoming a professor at CLU, Nack worked for years as a sexual health educator.

She also is active with the HIV Coalition of Ventura County and has helped organize local World AIDS Day events.

"Her convictions are backed up by social activism," said Jonathan Cordero, chairman of CLU's sociology department.

"It's kind of a no-holds-barred social activism. She's one of those people who lives it rather than just talk about it."

Now Nack is considering her next research project about women's experiences with childbirth.

"I'd like to explore what women are led to believe, and what it's actually like," she said.