If like most women, you have lived with the notion that Aids happens only to "other" people, namely, foreigners, drug-users, homosexuals and prostitutes, your blissful ignorance could endanger you life.
You might take chances on having unprotected sex with men you presume to be too square or too decent to have ever been exposed to the Aids virus.
But it takes just unsafe sexual encounter, with a HIV-carrier, to risk getting Aids.
Let's say you are a professional, from an educated family. You are well-travelled, well-read, culture, refined. You are no disco bunny, prefering instead to have quiet conversations over dinner.
You are what society would call a Nice Girl.
You are engaged recently to a marvellous, dependable man. He asks if you would have unprotected sex, since you both love each other, are going to be married and it feels better without a condom.
You are an educated woman, so you ask if he has ever taken risks before: unprotected sex with prostitutes or other women, how many partners has he had, has he taken an Aids test?
He assures you it is "no" for all the questions, that his previous partners were two other respectable women who are now married.
But if that man has been somewhere he should not, merely asking will not get you the truth. He could lie or omit significant facts easily.
As Newsweek magazine says of O. J. Simpson, alleged to have murdered his wife: We think we can tell when someone is believable. But we can't.
Having unprotected sex is like playing Russian Roulette -- the Aids virus makes no concessions for Nice Girls, or those who are engaged, or married, or have a matriculation card.
Nice Girls can get Aids.
In a recent report, it was revealed that the number of women infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is increasing.
In most of the cases, the women were infected after having sex with their husbands who were HIV-carriers.
Women, doctors say, have a larger surface exposed than men during sexual intercourse and semen carries a far higher concentration of HIV than vaginal fluid.
Women also tend to marry or have sex with older men, who might have had more sexual partners, and so are more likely to become infected.
Three close women friends and I were talking last week, when one of them, Anne, confided she had gone for an anonymous Aids test the week before.
She was still waiting for her results and was terrified that it might be positive.
To my surprise, the other two confided they had also been thinking of getting tested but were terrified of going.
They are not the type you would consider high-risk: they are heterosexual, monogamous, do not take drugs, and are professional women. Two are architects, and the third, a teacher.
These are Nice Girls. But even Nice Girls can have momentary lapses of good judgment.
Anne was in New York to do her architectural degree and had been a naive 20-year-old virgin when she fell in love with a Chinese American there.
He proposed, they had unprotected sex, they broke up when she discovered he cheated on her with a dozen differnt women.
She had no reason to mistrust him, she was not the cynical sort. But her naivete has put her at risk.
June is a teacher, a cautious women who, at 29, met a respectable man, an accountant.
She felt mature enough to handle a physical relationship; they had unprotected sex during heated moments.
One day, sharing past secrets, he told her he lost his virginity to a prostitute while he was a teenager.
It was unsafe sex, yet he never tested for Aids; he denies the possibility that he could be at risk, apparently a typical male reaction. June worries if she has been infected.
Aids is now the No. 1 cause of death among women in nine American major cities.
In Singapore, the majority of those infected are heterosexual men and women.
There are 258 people with Aids in Singapore; 58 have since died.
Women need to understand that Aids is there if they risk unsafe sex -- even once can be enough.
Says a volunteer from Action for Aids, a group dedicated to raising awareness and helping Aids patients: "No one who found himself infected thought he was going to get Aids."
Take no chances. Have safe sex. Get both your partner and yourself tested before you ignore the condom.
The risks are there -- even Nice Girls are not immune.