WHEN have HIV tests ever seemed sexy? Last week we came very close to destigmatising these necessary evils and I for one welcome this. Scarlett Johansson, one of the sexiest women in Hollywood, revealed that she has two HIV tests a year. To admit that you have been tested should be regarded as exemplary behaviour but, for some reason, HIV testing is still considered dirty.

It's as if to do so means you have been engaging in orgies or some sort of sexual Olympics about town. I remember'Far too many of my contemporaries are lax about getting tested'

getting tested for everything under the sun in St James's hospital.

Originally I was going in for a routine smear test and I decided to get tested for the works whilst I was in there. It made sense. The procedure was free and extremely private. It didn't feel dirty or weird; it just felt as if I was going for a regular check-up at the dentist's.

It's better to be safe than sorry, look after your sexual health just as you would you're teeth and your hair.

Far too many of my contemporaries are lax about getting tested. When I mentioned to a friend that I got the routine tests done, she was shocked and said: "But why bother, aren't those tests really only beneficial if you're shooting up heroin or if you're gay?"

This was a couple of years ago and I was just being precautionary but it seemed normal for me to go for the whole hog. I wasn't embarrassed or worried but clearly at the time, people were unaware of the importance and such testing was taboo.

So it was refreshing last week, when Scarlett Johansson disclosed such personal information about her regular tests. Hopefully she can make people cop on to the fact that getting tested doesn't mean you're dirty. Even if you are practising safe sex and being monogamous, no matter how careful you are in a relationship you never know where your man or woman has been before you.

Johansson said, "One has to be socially aware. It's part of being a decent human being to be tested for STDs. It's just disgusting behaviour when people don't. It's so irresponsible."

Scarlett is renowned for her open attitude to social issues. One of the few starlets who doesn't bother watching her Ps and Qs it comes as no surprise that she should be so forthcoming. But this comes at a price in Hollywood. Her open attitude about getting tested was welcomed by sexual-health campaigners in Britain and Ireland, commenting that Scarlett was the ideal person to "reduce the stigma", surrounding STDs.

A spokesman for the Family Planning Association in Britain said it was admirable for an actress of her stature to talk about HIV tests, adding, "In the past decade, cases of gonorrhoea and HIV have more than doubled, cases of syphilis are up by 1,500 per cent and the number of sexually-active people under 25 with chlamydia is thought to be around half a million."

The actress recently hit back at reports she was promiscuous, before finding love with Josh Hartnett on the set of The Black Dahlia last year.

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not promiscuous. There does seem to be a mistaken belief out there that I am sexually available somehow - which is not to say that I'm not open-minded about sex."

The media seem to think that if, like Scarlett, you ooze sexuality you are automatically the type of person who sleeps around.

It didn't help when Woody Allen described the actress as "sexually overwhelming".

In fact because Scarlett is so open, every little thing she does that is remotely provocative is magnified, turned on its side and hailed as some lewd sexual act.

On one occasion we heard reports that Scarlett was ordered to keep her clothes on during a movie scene after she asked to strip off. The story goes that Johansson was furious when director Michael Bay asked her to wear a frumpy bra in a scene for The Island . According to Bay, Scarlett roared, "I'm not wearing this f**king bra, I'm going naked." To which he replied, "Scarlett you can't go naked - this film is PG13."

Bay then went on to say that Scarlett swore at him profusely when she didn't get her way but, according to the starlet, the story has been twisted and turned, they wanted her to wear a bra when she woke up and her argument was - why couldn't they just put a sheet over her?

It just proves that being honest in Hollywood can get you in trouble. This monthJohansson was voted "the sexiest woman alive", by Esquire magazine. Although she is happy in her relationship with Josh Hartnett she said monogamy might not be natural but it's worth working on for the sake of a relationship.

"I do think on some basic level we are animals and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly, but as much as I believe that, I work really hard when I'm in a relationship to make it work in a monogamous way. Yet I wouldn't say I'm a serial monogamist, either. I mean, I went through periods of time when I was, ah, single. But when I'm in a relationship, I'm in a relationship."

Just because monogamy is standard practice in today's society doesn't mean it's the natural way of life for humans. Certainly in the animal kingdom only a certain percentage of animals practice monogamy and it's because of practicality rather than fidelity that they do so.

The prevalence of adultery proves that leading a monogamous existence may not be the 'natural order' of things. People are very quick to get up on their moral high horse and condemn those who don't follow the one-man, one-woman societal norm.

But morality is a very subjective thing and if you haven't slept around in actuality, the likelihood is that you've done it in your head.

Let's take a leaf out of Scarlett's book, open our minds, save our lives, and whether you're spreading the love or loving one person exclusively be a decent human being and take a HIV test.

- Siobhan O'Connor