HIV rates may be up in Minnesota, but Gonorrhea and Syphilis cases dropped between 2008 and 2009, and Chlamydia cases stayed constant. So let’s cut to the chase: are you more likely to catch one of these STDs? And are we, as a community, being smarter or dumber about the ways we get each other off?

The Minnesota Department of Health didn’t publish any LGBT-specific statistics for Gonorrhea or Chlamydia infections in Minnesota, but generally speaking, not much has changed since last year. Cases of Chlamydia – the lovely anally/orally/vaginally-transmitted bacterium that can cause lots of pain when urinating, “anal discomfort,” increased susceptibility to HIV, and either milky discharge from your penis or abnormal vaginal bleeding – went from around 14,300 to around 14,100. After that, the 2,300 cases of Gonorrhea make it the next-most-prevalent sexually transmitted infection – down 24% from 2008 – followed by Syphilis, at 163 cases of early Syphilis in 2008 and 117 cases in 2009.

Overall, the rate of about 16,700 cases of Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, or Syphilis for the estimated 5.22 million Minnesotans hasn’t changed much since last year, and the concentration of cases among young Minnesotans ages 15-24 isn’t new either, although Chlamydia cases among young adults in the state have doubled in the last 12 years, according to Peter Carr, head of the STD and HIV Section at MDH. Carr said MDH didn’t have a firm idea what was causing the increase or the concentration of cases, but it reflected national trends, and probably wasn’t related to controversy over the way sex ed is taught in Minnesota schools.

But does the overall decrease – from 17,649 in 2008 to 16,702 in 2009 – mean we’re having safer sex? The jury’s still out, Carr says.

“It’s too indirect, and there are too many unknowns” in trying to link this data to changes in sexual behaviors, Carr told TheColu.mn. As a consequence, he said, “we don’t ever attempt to make the connection between STD data and specific behaviors.”