Women are far more prone than men to getting UTIs, says the Mayo Clinic (which my gyno also reminds me, reassuringly, during our annual visit), as the female urethra is shorter. This allows “easy access” for bacteria to enter the bladder. That’s why you’ve probably heard your Ob/Gyn or mom tell you to pee immediately after having sex. Peeing after sex ensures that any potential bacteria that has entered the urinary tract during sex is flushed out. Or, as my gyno instructs often, “Think of the difference between a flowing river and a stagnant pond.”After my first time having sex and getting over my first UTI, I was all clear — until the second time I slept with someone, a few months later. Five more days of nitrofurantoin. I then had sex a few more times my freshman year, and almost always got a UTI. Looking back, I am able to recognize that many of the times I had sex that year occurred when I had alcohol in my system and was very dehydrated. They also tended to be with people with whom I wasn’t super comfortable, meaning that I often didn’t feel readily inclined to say that I had a history of UTIs, and that I needed to make sure to drink water and pee immediately after sex so as to avoid getting sick. I hate to say it, but I suspect that many women can relate to my experience of just not wanting to talk about it — thinking it would be gross, embarrassing, not the guy’s problem.Luckily, all was okay for a year following the freshman frenzy (celibacy helps with UTI prevention — how fun), until I began dating my then-boyfriend in the middle of my junior year. From the first time we had sex, I got recurrent UTIs. Taking nitrofurantoin became almost as regular a thing as taking my daily antidepressant — because it basically was.In fact, when I went to see a urologist, he prescribed me an ongoing dose of prophylactic nitrofurantoin, to take every time I had sex in order to avoid infection. Note: This is a fairly common practice for people prone to UTIs, though I don’t think it’s a great plan. According to the Human Microbiome Project , an initiative of the NIH Roadmap for Biomedical Research, antibiotic use may harm the balance of the body’s naturally occurring “good” bacteria (also known as the microbiome). Studies also show that antibiotic overuse can cause bacteria to become resistant down the line — definitely not a good thing for our immune systems in the long run.For these reasons, I refrained from using the drug daily, and only took it when I got a positive culture back from a urine test. My then-boyfriend and I were instructed not to have sex during treatment for these diagnosed infections, but he would often complain or make passive-aggressive remarks, making me feel guilty every time I was sick. Clearly, he had never learned about how common (or awful) UTIs were, and neither of us were equipped with the communication skills to deal with it.Long story short, we broke up after about a year in October of 2012, and I was UTI-free until March of 2015. During those years, I had actually begun dating my second serious boyfriend — a relationship that ultimately lasted two years — and I didn’t get a single UTI the entire time, believe it or not. I had realized the actual importance of drinking tons of water every day, of peeing regularly and not “holding it in,” and taking explicit precautions to avoid bacteria getting into my bladder. The fact that I was able to communicate with a loving partner about all this certainly helped.While there isn’t much research detailing the correlation between dehydration and UTIs, it’s certainly logical that staying hydrated — and also emptying your bladder regularly — would be beneficial for prevention. And experts agree: "Fluid helps move things through the urinary tract, but it also dilutes the urine so bacteria can't grow," Kimberly Cooper, MD, a urologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, recently told Prevention magazine.Bacteria-avoidance is also simple, though it similarly requires vigilance. In my case, I finally learned the real importance of wiping front-to-back ( studies prove that doing the opposite is a frequent cause of UTIs), and made the commitment to always showering before sex.