Worrying Too Much About STD’s
There is a percentage of men in the dating world who are so overcome with irrational fears about sexually transmitted diseases that it causes a lot of trouble for them, and not only with women and dating, but with other areas of their lives.
Over the last several years I’ve coached and received emails from men who have remained virgins in their late 20’s to mid 30’s. When I ask them why they stayed virgins so long, the most common answer I get is that they’re terrified of getting an STD.
Other men don’t take it to this extreme, but spend a lot of time and effort worrying about this. This is an email I received a while back (just one of many about this) that is a perfect example of the mindset I’m talking about:
I read your blog regularly and bought your books. You reiterate the importance of safe sex but do not cover it enough beyond condoms. Condoms are often inadequate against STDs like herpes, HPV, etc. and most people do oral sex raw.
Please do an article promoting adequate protection.
There are millions of men who are consumed with stressing about getting STD’s, about condoms not working, about getting an STD from oral sex, and other extremely unlikely events. If you are one of these men, today I’m going to do my best to allay your fears, most of which aren’t based on anything factual.
The 2% Rule
Before getting into the specifics, I need to reiterate the 2% Rule. I describe it in detail here, but the summary of the 2% Rule is this:
If a particular negative result has a less than 2% chance of occurring, don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. Proceed.
If something bad has a less than 2% chance of actually happening to you, don’t fucking worry about it. If you do, you will literally become an insane person. You won’t ever get a car because you might die in a car accident. You’ll never walk down the street in your local city because you might get shot. You’ll never go on a date with a girl because she might whip out a pistol and shoot you in the head. And of course, you won’t ever have sex because you might get a STD.
STOP IT with this silly, insane bullshit.
If something seriously bad has a 10% or 25% chance of happening, then yes, you need to stop and address it. Either refrain from taking action, or modify that action to get the odds of something negative occurring way down to 2%, or at least as close to 2% as you can. This is why I warn men against getting traditionally, monogamously married. The odds of failure of that in the Western world and in the modern era are a whopping 87%, so clearly you shouldn’t do this. But if the failure rate of forever-happy traditional, monogamous marriage was just 2%, I’d have no problem with it.
So if the odds of something are 2% or less, for fuck’s sake, stop being a pussy and proceed. You’ll be just fine, I promise.
Now let’s get to discussing the actual, real-life risk of getting STD’s.
1. First, I’ll use me as an example. I have had sex with a huge number of women. I’m not going to give you the exact number (I don’t even know it off the top of my head; I’d have to look it up in my spreadsheets), but it’s a number that is many, many times the average number of women the typical man will ever have sex with in his entire lifetime. And my last STD test just came back as clean.
So there you go. If you’re terrified of having sex because you think you might get an STD, I just showed you that you are wrong (unless you think I’m lying, of course). I’ve had sex with mountains of women, and I’m STD-free.
2. Now I’ll address other men I’ve known in the pick-up artist world. I personally know many men who have had sex with over 100 women who today are STD free. I also know two guys who have had sex with over 100 women and almost never used condoms. They just barebacked scores of women. They’re idiots (and they admit this) but these guys have both reported to me that they did get chlamydia once or twice, but that’s it. Chlamydia, if you didn’t already know, usually has no symptoms and is easily and quickly cured by taking an antibiotic for a about a week.
So again, there you go. I know way too many men who have had sex with lots of girls who either never got an STD or just got something easily fixable like chlamydia.
3. Now let’s talk about what doctors say about this. Whenever I go to a doctor, I ask a lot of questions about sexual health because I write about this stuff and want as much data as I can amass.
When talking about the risk of getting HIV/AIDS, one doctor told me that the actual risk of getting HIV for an American living in America is infinitesimal unless you’re a drug user. He flat-out told me that I could have unprotected sex (no condom!) with over 200 women in my local area and I would still not get HIV. He warned that I might get other minor stuff (again, like Chlamydia), but not HIV. He said people are way too freaked out about this. He’s right.
4. Now let’s look at the stats. According to the CDC, the greatest repository of medical data in the entire world, condoms, if used correctly, have a 98% success rate. That’s a 2% failure rate, which is right in line with the 2% Rule. That means that if you use condoms, then congratulations, you never need to worry about STD’s via vaginal or anal sex. It’s within the 2% Rule, so don’t worry and just proceed.
If you are terrified that you might be using condoms incorrectly, you can go to this page and see the most common mistakes men make with condoms. I have a feeling you’re using them correctly though; they really aren’t that complicated.
5. “But that’s just when having sex, BD! What about getting a blowjob or going down on a girl?!? You can get an STD doing that!!!” Okay, let’s look at the stats again to show how paranoid you are. Again using CDC numbers,
- Your odds of getting HIV/AIDS from a having unprotected vaginal sex with a STD-positive girl is 1 in every 2,500 exposures. Do you think that’s within the 2% Rule? Uh, yeah.
- The odds are about the same if you go down on a girl, or if you get a blowjob from her; about 0.08% risk every time you do it in order to get HIV.
- When having unprotected anal sex, your risk goes up. (This is why gay men get HIV far more often than women or hetro men.) For HIV, it goes from 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 909 if you cum inside (with no condom). Higher, but still very low. But hey, if you don’t like anal sex with women, you don’t even need to worry about this.
- To be fair, for HIV/AIDS there is a brief window of time, 6-12 weeks right after getting infected, where the viral load is more intense. During this time, the odds go from 1 in 2,500 to 1 in 50. But guess what? That’s still only a 2% risk! This kind of thing is much more relevant for gay men than it is for you, a hetero man having sex with hetero women. (All of the math above is from a website for gay guys here. The data is from the CDC, but the math is theirs; nitpickers are free to double-check it if you wish.)
Everything above applies to not just HIV/AIDS, but every other fluid-transfer STD, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and so on. In the Ultimate Open Relationships Manual, I have an entire chapter on STD’s where I analyze each one in great detail, including your risks and how to avoid them.
For you nitpickers and math nerds, mathematically speaking it’s true that if you have repeated sex with a particular infected woman over and over again, these odds compound, raising it to beyond numbers like 0.08%. But that’s exactly my point. The way most men get STD’s is repeatedly fucking an infected woman with no condom, over and over again, over a long period of time. The odds of actually getting a STD from having sex with a particular woman just one time, two times, or even five times are extremely low, even if you don’t use a condom (which of course you should).
This happened to me. I’ve mentioned before that I got chlamydia almost ten years go, back when I was still inexperienced with the Alpha Male lifestyle and didn’t yet know what I was doing. I had it for two weeks, took a pill, and it was gone. Did I get it from some one night stand, or some FB I saw once or twice a month? Nope, I got it by repeatedly having unprotected sex with a particular risky woman, usually several times a week, for about four months straight. Then I got it. (This was before I developed my once-a-week rule.) In other words, often men have to be really irresponsible to get a STD, like I was back then.
6. If you’re circumcised, congratulations, your odds of getting an STD immediately go down by a whopping 60%. (I’m personally against the concept of circumcising babies, but that’s a topic for another time. The facts are that you’re far less likely to get a STD if you’re circumcised).
7. “Yeah, well, that’s AIDS, but your odds of getting herpes is way worse BD! That’s just skin-to-skin contact, so you can get it even if you’re wearing a condom!!!” First of all, there are two kinds of herpes, and these two often get mixed up. There’s herpes one (HSV-1) and herpes two (HSV-2).
If you’ve made out with more than about six women in your entire lifetime (not had sex, just kissed them on the mouth), then congratulations, you already have herpes one. “WHAT?!?” Yep, you do. I’m sure I have it. I can’t not have it. You probably have it too, and it doesn’t fucking matter. You can get herpes one just by kissing someone, and since around 80% of Americans already have it (source), you probably already have it too. Most people who have it have no symptoms. At worse, you might get a tiny cold sore in or around your mouth. That’s it. So shut up about herpes one. You’ve probably already got it.
The one everyone is scared about is herpes two, where you can get painful sores on your genitals every once in a while. Again, using CDC figures, your odds of getting herpes two from oral sex (giving or receiving) is far less than 1%. If you’re having unprotected vaginal sex (no condom!) as a man, you have only a 4% chance of getting herpes two from an infected woman during an entire year of having regular sex with her. This assumes that you don’t have sex with her while she’s having a breakout (i.e. she’s experiencing those ugly sores on her pussy), but I don’t think you’ll put your penis inside a woman who’s vagina is covered in sores. Right?
(For nitpickers: Yes, it’s technically possible to get herpes two from a woman who is showing no symptoms when she is in her “shedding” phase, but the odds of this actually occurring is well within the 2% Rule, so shut up.)
If she’s on some kind of suppression therapy (many people with herpes two are), the 4% risk drops down to 1-2%. Using condoms drops this even further. And now, once again, we are at the 2% Rule. So don’t worry about it. I personally know married couples who have been married 12 and 15 years where one person has herpes and the other person still doesn’t, even after over a decade of marriage and having kids. (Granted, they’re probably not having very much sex with each other if they’ve been monogamously married for 10+ years, but you get my point.)
So there you have it. I just gave you a pile of both anecdotal and statistical information about all of this. Don’t be a paranoid spazoid about this stuff. Wear condoms when you have sex with new women, and then have all the sex you want with no fear or guilt. You’re well within the 2% Rule at that point, which means you need to just relax, stop making excuses, and go get laid.
You’re welcome.
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Not quite true. I think:
2500 × would give you a 63% chance
for a more than 50% chance, fuck 1733 ×
for a more than 2% chance, fuck 51 ×.
No, it’s incorrect. (assuming you are talking about a man who fucks someone in the ass). You misred the CDC statistic about anal. The number you gave is for a woman (or a gay/bisexual man receiving/bottom) who receives unprotected anal sex with cum ejaculated inside his rectum from a HIV positive man.
For the insertive partner the top the one who insert puting his cock raw inside a HIV positive person’s anus, his ejaculation inside the anus of the bottom is irrelevant to the risk for him to contract HIV from the bottom (the receiver): 1 in 909. The risk about 2.5 times higher than vaginal but still is extremely small. Heterosexual Anal sex for the man is NOT 35 times riskier than vaginal sex and ejaculation doesn’t change the risk for the man. It is about 2.5 time riskier, so still very small. But don’t do anal without condom witch untested or unreliable women.
Paolo is right. For instance:
1-(1-1/2500)^2500=0.6321
Please correct your article, it looks embarrassing.
BD, you recommend maintaining high ethical standards as part of your program, avoiding lying and taking responsibility for your actions.
Let’s say you lost the odds and ended up with Herpes or some other communicable STD.
What code of behavior would you adopt?
I’ll add that, thought it would suck to have to take medicine for the rest of your life, you can still have a normal life with HIV/AIDS if you take your medicine, and check yourself with doctors regularly.
BD, you’re incorrect regarding herpes as well. “Herpes simplex is divided into two types; HSV-1 causes primarily mouth, throat, face, eye, and central nervous system infections, whereas HSV-2 causes primarily anogenital infections. However, each may cause infections in all areas” (Wikipedia).
That the majority of genital infections is caused by HSV-2 is primarily because most people have HSV-1 in their mouths and are far less susceptible (due to partial immunity developed in response to the original infection) to get HSV-1 in their genital area. But people who don’t happen to have HSV-1 are at an additional risk because their genitals are susceptible to both strains.
I wonder if deliberately getting oral HSV-2 to protect one’s genitals could be a thing. It seems to be asymptomatic, just some cold sores like HSV-1 except much rarer.
By the way, which strain did HBRunner get and from what number of encounters?
I corrected the misread stat and deleted the one sentence about the compounding 2,500 instances, but in both of your cases you guys missed the entire statement I said right after the quoted stats, which is:
For you nitpickers and math nerds, mathematically speaking it’s true that if you have repeated sex with a particular infected woman over and over again, these odds compound, raising it to beyond numbers like 0.08%.
Only for nitpickers and math nerds who skip over entire paragraphs where I directly address and qualify possible issues with the mathematical examples.
I would tell women before having sex, but not up-front during the first 5 minutes of the first date. Most women, particularly younger women, don’t care, as many infected players will tell you.
Nope. I addressed this in the 2% Rule article about the guy who was scared he was going to get herpes two on his finger (Jesus). The odds of you actually getting a herpes two breakout on anywhere on your body outside of your genitals are astronomically small, perhaps 2% within 2%, and not even worth bringing up. Getting herpes one on your genitals is not quite as unlikely but still astronomically small.
That’s true, but since most people already have HSV-1 in their bloodstreams, it’s not relevant.
Type 2.
I don’t remember, but I don’t think it was very many. Women are at much higher risk for STD’s than men, and I didn’t address those risks in the article, since this is a blog for men.
@Anon
Who is HBRunner? I could not find anything conclusive about that name or pseudo in Google.
It has also been my impression that STDs are somewhat less of a risk in the Western world than what the sensation-seeking media purport them to be.
On the other hand, the extent to which you marginalize chlamydia in the above post I see as hugely reckless. Among the STDs it is sure one of the least threatening, yet it is known
in men
i) to cause infectious inflammation of the urethra in 50% cases, causing pain
ii) to lead to epididymitis (testicle inflammation) if untreated and ultimately sterility
in women
i) to be called a “silent epidemic” (70-80% of the infected show no symptoms for years, until…)
ii) until it is discovered one day that due to an unnoticed infection of their uterus, fallopian tubes or ovaries they cannot bear children (are sterile or suffer ectopic pregnancies)
It’s not a common cold. It has to be treated by antibiotics, after all.
There are piles of std’s you can get but most of them really aren’t the huge deal they are made out to be. They can be cured reasonably easily, for the most part. Most require a round of antibiotics for a week and for a resistant strain you might have to take another round of antibiotics.
Herpes, warts, syphilis, HIV all are a little more scary but also not the threat they once were, thanks to modern medicine. If you make a habit of getting checked and keeping on top of your health, even if you catch these things you will be fine.
I very rarely come across a guy that actually wears a condom. I’ve had sex with a pretty good number of people and I’ve caught a few things here and there but when that happened it was with reckless guys who were fucking everything under the sun and didn’t care. If you’re taking ANY precautions at all and wearing a condom you greatly reduce your risk of getting anything to begin with.
I love to double-chick, even though I’m not a nitpicker. Ha.
Seriously, I was gamed by a hot milf years ago who had the herp, and did not penetrate her, even with condom, because I was irrationally freaked about getting it. She assured me that her husband (yep, they embraced the OLTR) raw dogged her exclusively without ever getting the herp himself. She must have been soul crushed because she spent four-figures to fly down and book a suite at a swank hotel just to get a taste of my cock, but I didn’t fuck her out of fear. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Later, I raw dogged a cute nurse multiple times for months a few years back, who admitted she had the herp only after months of fucking every which way, including the big A! Never got the herp. She was nurse who faithfully took her Acyclovir and tried to reassure me that unless she was in an outbreak, I was relatively safe from contracting the herp. Again, out of fear, I spewed some educated option about viral-shedding, and broke off the relationship. Deathly afraid I cocntracted life-sentence, I immediately got a STD screen. I HAD THE HERP! Oh wait, it as HSV-1, the kind that half of all people have simply by associating with others, kissing relatives or girls on the lips, or even served a drink in a less than sterile glass. It was NOT GENITAL HERPES. I was clean as a whistle! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Except for her irrational behavior on Ambien/Alcohol at times (my first experience with that), she was a great FB. Fortunately, I reconnected with her before Christmas and could throw her back into my rotation anytime, now that i’m a little more rational about the my chances of contracting the herp.
So Blackdragon, you’ve nailed it again. And I’ve got my own experience to confirm that irrational fear, and reading too many studies and reports designed to effectively scare men into abstinence, can affect getting laid than bad game. The last thing men need is another silly reason not to have the sex we want and need.
You completely avoided discussion of HPV. It’s a real killer in the form of cancer. I’d wager in a future study they would associate HPV to more types of cancer than we are aware of currently. Might even be a cause of prostate cancer.
The real bad thing about HPV is that there is no accurate test I am aware of to test men. HPV is nasty stuff to women. Cervical cancer is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wrongo. That stuff only applies to people who never get STD tested. Chlamydia is completely harmless for a long period of time, then you start having problems if you don’t deal with it. I have repeatedly said that poly men should get STD checked twice per year, every year, even if they think they don’t need it. Even monogamous people should get a full STD panel once a year or so, again, even if they think they don’t need it (what if your partner cheated?). If you do that, you will literally never need to worry about those kinds of Chlamydia problems.
Sexually active people who are stupid and reckless enough to never get STD checked and then wind up with a serious heath problem five years later are absolute morons from hell and deserve what they get.
Correct. It’s not a big deal.
Haha! I corrected it but I almost left it there on purpose.
I like to double-chick too. 🙂
Boom. That. The internet, plus modern-day college culture, has created a legion of KJ’s, nitpickers, math dorks, and no-action bookworm nerds who freak out about everything, think they know everything, and yet rarely get laid and/or make $25,000 or less their entire lives because they never take any real action in the real world. They’re way too busy reading, researching, nitpicking, analyzing, and getting into stupid arguments on the internet.
Many of these guys post on my blog regularly. It’s sad.
Yep. Because it’s harmless 98% of the time and most people over age 25 already have it. 2% Rule.
Wrong. (God, here’s another one.) There are hundreds (or thousands?) of strains of HPV and only a few of them cause cancer.
AHHHH!!! PARANOIA!!!!!!! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE!!!!!
How does it feel to be this paranoid? That would be really weird. Man, I’m glad I’m not you.
2% Rule.
2% Rule.
2% Rule.
2% Rule, folks. Or live in fear, insanity, and mediocrity for the rest of your life.
The choice is yours…
BD, I really want hear your opinion and analysis on how do you think Charlie Sheen got his HIV. Much appreciated
Extremely reckless sexual behavior over the course of many, many years.
Charlie Sheen proves my point. How many mainstream, male, heterosexual celebrities, who have sex with far more women than the average man, have gotten HIV? One. Charlie Sheen. If you go all the way back to the early 1990’s you can find one more, Magic Johnson. So okay, two. Out of how many?
2% Rule.
My doctors tell me that they always tell that every time someone has unprotected sex they should get checked for chlamedia and the other stuff is so unlikely they normally dont test for it unless you are gay, go for prostitutes or do other type of high risk behavior that they dont normally even test for other things.
(I still test for other things anyway, at least once in a while)
By the way there is also a nasty STD: hepatitis, but for this you can get a vaccine! (Which is useful to get anyway if you travel to exotic places once in a while, like I do…)
My small problem though is that with some girls condoms dont work for me. I had girls where it wasnt a problem and we could have good sex (or I could) with the condom, and I had girls where it just didn’t work. Maybe has to do with how tight and wet she is? I dont know but its a problem because it limits how poly I can be and still be safe.
Also, I dont want to put others at risk, but what if I start dating a relatively new girl who I bang without condom but its too early in the relation to have the poly talk with her. Of course then I would use condom with others. No condom should be just one girl a time, but I dont feel good about the idea I bang her without condom while sleeping with others and she doesnt know.
To be honest until I find a solution to this problem I think Id rather date one girl at a time and not have to use condom than many girls with condoms. By date I mean sex, of course kissing and other stuff I would still do with many.
Speaking of the 2% rule, and this is probably more fit for your previous article, do you think the recent harassment charges all these famous dudes are getting has extended the chance of you getting a sexual misconduct charge above 2%, BD? I don’t think so, but it is a matter of time before that 2% turns into a 10-20% chance.
Your observations of herpes is spot on. Herpes 1 is like the “cold” of STDs. You get it, you get a sore for a few days, then the sore is gone. And I’ve had sex with a chick with Herpes 2, and yeah as long as you protect yourself, you’re good.
Hey quit picking on me, BD! I’m trying to make more money, its just taking longer than I thought! haha.
Maybe a good idea is to get a stable job that pays decently whilst gives you lots of free time and you use that to set up extra income streams. Theres lots of jobs like this where you can even work on your business during working hours. Not all of them are exciting but the point is this helps to get started.
If you live in a country where something like that is even remotely possible then you shouldnt live there, unless at the very least you already have enough influence/money that you can just throw those at the situation to solve it.
It’s funny, the clinic I went to didn’t even screen for HPV. I asked them about it and they said it was “inconsequential”. I can only assume that they said that because most people have it already and it (mostly) has no symptoms?
Yet I see all this fear mongering for HPV in the media now since big pharma wants to sell their vaccine for it.
BD, if you’d had a vasectomy, would you be more open to bare-backing?
Me? Maybe, but I’m a public figure. You, the typical guy? No.
Not talking about you specifically. There are about eight or nine of you guys on my blogs, just off the top of my head, probably more.
Exactly. HPV doesn’t mean shit. That’s why I feel sorry for spastic people like Amedean who actually worry about it.
Yep. Fear sells, fear gets clicks, fear makes money, fear gets votes. Yet another reason for all this hype.
Yes. I’ve said before that I consider an accidental pregnancy a much more serious problem than getting a STD.
I still wouldn’t go crazy though.
The good news is that within the next decade or two, you won’t have to worry about STD’s or accidental pregnancies and you can have all the condomless sex you want with anyone you want. Read this and this. It’ll be awesome!
OK I will take a shot at being the target at the rifle range.
HPV is the reason that women get PAP smears.
It causes cervical cancer which can be deadly.
It also causes throat cancer in men which is very nasty
and can be deadly, but if you want to talk like Stephen Hawking go for it.
The cost for HIV/AIDs treatment is
The average annual cost of HIV care in the ART era was estimated to be $19,912 (in 2006 dollars; $23,000 in 2010 dollars). The most recent published estimate of lifetime HIV treatment costs was $367,134 (in 2009 dollars; $379,668 in 2010 dollars).Mar 8, 2017
HIV Cost-effectiveness | Guidance | Program Resources | HIV/AIDS …
https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/programresources/guidance/costeffectiveness/index.html
45 years ago I did get gonorrhea and genital warts from three encounters with one infected woman, I did not have any other sex partners. I am natural/not cut. Back then gonorrhea was just a penicillin shot now there are multiple anti-biotic resistance strains that will have you on IV antibiotics in a hospital for a while.
The genital warts were very hard to get rid of and almost caused me to be circumcised.
you never even mention the main risk factor for STDs
THE NUMBER OF SEX PARTNERS YOU HAVE.
2 percent is just not good enough for things that will cause you pain, loss of sex or death but then I am 67 with about 85 notches on my bed post let’s see if you make it that far….
@buzz
I’m about to turn 50. My notch count is about 400. I’ve been to Thailand 6 times and had sex with over 80 Thai hookers. Mostly safe intercourse but not always. Oral has always been natural. Had a lot of ONS’s here in Aust and a lot of casual FB‘s. Many were not safe sex. I’ve now been swinging for 2 years with my GF. Again mostly safe sex but occasionally not depending on the scenario.
I get tested regularly. Had chlamydia once and gonorrhea once. Gonorrhea is still just an injection. Sure the anti-biotic resistance stains are out there but they are not common. You have to be unlucky to get it full stop let alone a resistant version.
You have more chance of winning the lotto or getting hit by lighting than getting HIV if you are hetro and always use a condom. Even if you only went to Thailand and fucked hookers! And probably ten times more chance of getting killed or fucked up in a car accident.
Always makes me laugh how much irrational fear some guys have about this stuff.
Hi BD,
What about hookers, escorts and professional sugar babies?
I assume that the risk of getting an STD from them is higher, since they have sex with much more men (at least an order of magnitude?), lower standards, and much more sex in general, than just about anyone on the planet.
Maybe Im paranoid, but after each encounter with a professional, I perform a cleanup and disinfection routine so thorough that it would qualify me as a CDC expert.
What is your clean up routine? Makes me think back on the first few girls I had and how I was so paranoid after each encounter I was even cleaning my mouth and drinking whisky (thought that last part I might still do but not out of paranoia)
tl;dr
I’ve no plans to get married, I play dumb about my income, and I’m always going to wrap my johnson before diving in because as the rappers say, “these hoes ain’t loyal.”
It cannot happen soon enough. I need this asap.
I’m actually doing this kind of thing right now, with freelancing. As long as you commit to it, it is stable. Jobs come and go, but they pay more and more. Fun stuff. If I keep it up, I’ll be able to make probably $30000 completely from home bidding for jobs on upwork. It DOES require the same 8 hours of production a day if you are not smart, however.
I outline exactly what my plan is for multiple location independent income streams on the Alpha 2 community. Just look for a thread started by me.
AlphaOmega: What is your clean up routine?
Baby wipes right after.
When I go back I wash myself thoroughly, then clean genitals/hands with alcohol based hand sanitiser, and mouth with alc-based mouthwash. Clothes immediately go to the wash.
After that, just to be sure, I wipe my genitals and other touched areas with hospital-grade sanitizing agent, like octenisept (or any other antiseptic containing Octenidine dihydrochloride – it kills nearly all germs, fungi and many viruses, and does not sting ). Available in all pharmacies without prescription, and I recommend to have it at home regardless.
My reasoning is that these antiseptics kill at least 90% of all possible infection agents, which drops the risk waaay below 2% rule, regardless of the health of your partner/escort.
May i know what’s the risk of transmitting HPV (male) assuming you don’t have any outbreak? is it life threatening for a woman if she had vaginal cancer? i assume mine is low risk hpv
i had a friend who has hsv i believe its far scarier than having hpv
also, how likely does a woman get throat cancer or hpv in her mouth assuming she performs bj on a hpv + guy? thanks, this got me paranoid, i don’t wanna get sued for harassment by picking up a rich girl who wants to sue me for getting hpv from me
That means one unprotected act of vaginal sex with a known HIV-positive woman, whose ART has failed to reduce the virus to undetectable levels (which, as the latest studies show, makes it untransmittable as well), costs $379,668 × 0.0004 ≈ $152.
That means one unprotected act of vaginal sex with a random white US woman costs, because out of 100 million such women about 40 thousand are infected, about $0.06.
It takes about four million encounters of the latter kind to bring the probability of infection to 50%, or a hundred thousand to bring it to 2%.
Divide costs by a factor of 50 to 100 if using a latex condom instead.
I’ve barebacked some of the most reckless woman you can find and only got Chlamydia one time a long time ago. I have friends who have been with 100+ women, all bareback, and nothing…
This is one of the main reasons I dont do professionals. I dont mind paying for it if it saves time and trouble and makes it guaranteed and can afford it once in a while no problem. These kind of risks from pros and having to do souch routine would making it worth it questionable for me. Plus worrying about her being infected would prob make me nervous to he point I wouldnt be able to enjoy it at all. Also I strongly prefer to have sex with girls I know.
What I would def pay for without a second thought is having sex with some normal woman. Like a normal girl I know who doesnt ever do this stuff and who I didnt succeed getting into my bed (or who is an ex now but id still bang her). Of course that is unlikely such option would ever come up, but thats an example where I would pay for a girl. Maybe I would do sugar daddy also under the right conditions and depending on the girl but looking at typical expenses there thats way over my budget at the moment.
The guys that are vocal about this fear probably just don’t like to be promiscuous so they use this as a rationalization. Others are spergs like Sheldon from BBT, who think sex is just plain gross, unsanitary etc.
Me too.
It depends on many factors. Low-end hookers from a shithole country or bad part of town are probably going to be more problematic. Higher-end or suburban hookers / pro SB’s, particular those over age 25, are actually going to be safer, since they will demand 100% condom usage all the time (whereas most normal women do not) and get STD tested all the time (with normal women it’s very hit or miss).
There are several statistics I’ve read that poly people are actually safer for STD’s than normal monogamous people, since normal monogamous people rarely get STD tested and don’t use condoms very much, whereas poly people are very good about using condoms and get tested all the time. (I’m a good example of this; I’m far safer STD-wise than the typical monogamous guy out there.) The same principle applies with pro’s (or at least can apply, depending on the scenario).
Doing all of that might reduce your odds a little for a skin-transfer STD like herpes, but I really don’t think any of that will reduce your odds of getting a fluid-transfer STD like Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, HIV, Syphilis, etc. All you need in those cases is a tiny amount to go inside your dickhole; that won’t be affected at all by wiping down your skin (as far as I know).
I would run that procedure past 2-3 doctors and see what they say. I have a strong feeling they’re going to say what I just said, but I’m no doctor so I can’t be sure.
I don’t know the odds off the top of my head, but if you have the HPV where you’ve had visible warts on or around your genitals, that is NOT the kind that can give a woman cancer. Strangely, if you actually have (or had) warts, your HPV is safe for women(!).
Again, there are hundreds of strains of HPV and the vast, vast majority of them do not cause any cancer in anyone. Stop worrying about this crap.
Yep, I’ve had friends report exactly the same: fuck 100+ women with no condom, nothing happens except you get Chlamydia once or twice.
That definitely apples to some men, yes. There is a small percentage of men who actually don’t like sex (they aren’t interested, or think it’s gross, or think it’s immature, etc). They can’t come out and say “I don’t like sex,” because they don’t want to look weird, so instead they hide behind the STD excuse or the religion/morality excuse.
However, there are a hunk of men who are very interested in sex and yet don’t have it because they’ve allowed anti-sex Societal Programming (all this STD shit) to infest their brains. Many Indian guys are a victim of this, among others.
My questions about STDs/STIs are much more basic.
Where do you even go to get tested? Or what’s the best (cheapest/most convenient/etc.) way to get tested if you plan to do it multiple times per year?
Comment deleted. Don’t come into these comments trying to sell stuff. Thanks.
Is that a joke? Your doctor (GP / family / standard doc) is the standard options.
Depending on where you live there might be other options that could be cheaper because of some government programme, for example free tests for people below certain age if you get it done a special government clinic, or free hepatitis vaccine if you are a hooker. These things are very location dependent but your doctor will know about those options (or should know…). If I am not in a hurry to get tested I just combine it with something else like when I have more than one reason to go to a doctor I say oh by the way I want this and this test also, usually takes a few minutes and have the results in a few days up to a week. Sometimes can be faster if you go directly to the place where they have the labs. I even heard of some options where you get the testing kit online or in a pharmacy and then bring it to the lab yourself.
No joke. I haven’t been to the doctor in about ten years. I moved a few times between then and now and haven’t got around to finding a new doc. I eat healthy, exercise and rarely get sick, so it hasn’t been a priority for me. I know I should find one though because I’m way past due for a checkup, but even then, I don’t anticipate many other things I’d combine an STD test with.
Planned Parenthood and family planning clinics all seem kind of ghetto, so I was hoping someone could recommend better options.
My recommendation is Planned Parenthood if you don’t have insurance and/or don’t want to go to a doctor. Yes, they seem “ghetto” from the outside, but all the healthcare personnel are licensed medical professionals (as am I), and will be MUCH more understanding of your poly lifestyle than the typical physician in a hospital or family health office. I have been in many PP’s and witnessed many procedures, and they are quite good at what they do. I even donate money to them each month because I believe in their cause so strongly.
HOWEVER, if I had the choice of going to PP or to Kaiser (for which you must have Kaiser insurance), I would likely choose Kaiser because of the integrative care they offer and most physicians I have had interactions with have been very understanding of my poly lifestyle and never questioned my frequent STD testing.
Good luck!
While we’re on the Topic..
I’ve actually heard of some Poly Lifestyle individuals who actually take PrEP to take their chances of contracting HIV down. This maybe an extreme, but I guess if you are some sort of Sex Worker or attending Orgies it’s not a bad idea.
I don’t know much about the drug PrEP, but it’s just another idea.
Well I guess I lost the marriage and herpes lottery. I am recently separated from my wife of 18 years. She had oral HSV1 and genital HSV2 when we met. Fast forward to today when we’re separated and I want to date again. I get blood tested for HSV 1 and 2. Never had symptoms for either over the years. (Many people who have herpes are asymptomatic so don’t assume you are clear.) My tests came back negative for HSV1 and positive for HSV2. Black Dragon, how would you modify your system for dating women if you were positive for herpes? I believe a person must disclose prior to sex.
Are there any males here who’ve had sex with – as in also given oral vaginal sex to a woman who has Herpes. I only ask, as I could’ve had sex with such a woman, but a logistics issue got in my way and I took her home. It’s just as well, as she’s someone with psychiatric problems and started giving me drama the next time we met, so I permanently nexted her.
I’m a pharmacist and can tell you that BD is mostly right about everything on the subject. Condoms will not break >99% of the time. Even if they do, you now have to accumulate the odds for getting a particular disease;
The most harmful ones such as HIV have a <1% chance of transmission during intercourse (unprotected). This means that if everyone but you had HIV and you use a condom, your chance of contracting the disease is <0.01% for any particular intercourse. Now add to the equation that the number of people with HIV in any given western country is <0.1% (even lower in most countries). Now your odds are <0.0001% per intercourse. You could literally have sex 10000 times in your life and you'd still have a lot higher risk of getting run over on the way to buy your condoms. If you do it "BD style" and ask your frequent sex partners to get tested, you have higher odds of winning the lottery.
And yes, your odds of contracting certain diseases like chlamydiae are somewhat higher, but most of those infections are literally treated for $10.
HSV blood testing commonly has false positives. A more accurate test would be a physical swab of an open sore. Since you’ve been completely asymptomatic all these years, I would suggest talking to another physician about it and getting retested.
As for changing your game, I’d say get tested again to make sure, then maybe ask around on other forums and see what guys with HSV2 do. The few I know proceed with usual dating techniques, then at the end of date one, or on date two they explain their situation BEFORE having sex.
I’m surprised you talk of Charlie Sheen as a heterosexual HIV-carrier. It’s been made quite clear in the last couple of years that he also fucked a lot of men. For example:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/charlie-sheen-hiv-a-tabloid-880714
When the news first came out that Sheen got HIV my gay Open Marriage friend made sure everyone around him got the memo that HIV wasn’t just a gay sickness. When later I found the linked article I thought my friend should know it and he said “Yeah, I heard that the other day… Weird, uh?”.
In conclusion, add the gay lobby to the media/big pharma coalition trying to make us all fearful of HIV.
The only reason anyone was ever afraid of HIV is the gay lobby. It’s still taboo to point out HIV is a gay disease. If you are heterosexual non drug using male in the united states, you will not get it. Black guys have a higher risk but I’m fairly sure it’s because of the guys on the down low not being honest about being on the down low with their doctors.
I always figured Sheen got it from drug use.
1. A doctor.
2. Planned parenthood or city government testing center.
3. An online testing center like STDcheck.com or STDtestexpress.com.
You have lots of options in the USA. If you live in Europe, it will be much harder (rationed health care over there).
I already answered that question in the comments above.
There’s also a dating site called infected singles or something like that you should check out.
Yup.
My understanding is that those are very vague rumors.
But yeah, if they’re true, it wouldn’t surprise me. As I said, reckless sexual behavior over the course of many years.
As another point of view on this, 1 in 6 Americans have HSV-2 genital herpes, and you can basically suppress it to nothing with the meds they give you, maybe one light to moderate outbreak a couple weeks a year.
Should you disclose a highly-manageable virus with tiny odds of transmission (<5% over A FULL YEAR of UNPROTECTED sex) before having sex ONCE? That 1 in 6 people she’ll sleep with will have? Where <0.1% of the time she might catch something that is manageable to be a slight nuisance once a year?
To each his own–but personally I’d draw the line at don’t have sex on an outbreak or be very forthcoming no exceptions if you perceive any chance of one coming on or clearing up. And tell a repeated unprotected partner, but beyond that raising a less than 2% of 2% risk yourself seems silly and scaremongering more than useful. I’m sure the arguers and std-fearful types on here will nitpick and disagree, but I can say for sure I’m following the golden rule on this one. 😉
How about unprotected oral sex? When licking you can get some fluids from vagina. Don’t they have any risk? Any chances of getting STDs from unprotected oral sex?
Complete nonsense. You have exactly the same options in Europe. On the contrary in Europe you usually have to pay for these tests immediately on spot.
I always cringe when I hear someone saying unprotected oral sex. Like as if someone would do protected oral sex. Either you do it or you dont. I am not so much on oral sex and I only do it with some of the girls and only if shes very clean.
What did I say in the article?
Maybe in your country, but I’ve spoken with several Europeans who clearly told me the were not allowed to get STD tests more than once a year and had no other options of doing so. I couldn’t tell you which countries they lived in though. So no, it’s not nonsense.
Ive lived in a few different countries and have friends who live in several more and I’ve never heard of something like this. I just ran a google search and couldnt find any info on this. Sounds like a hoax / they were misinformed – maybe there were foreigners living there and dint understand the system or something. Sounds like some kind of fascist dicatorship if it was true so maybe Scandinavia.
It’s hard to believe it’s 2018 and many high schools are forced to preach abstinence only to students and one of their propaganda tactics (similar to decades ago where they used to say touching yourself caused hair to grow on your hand that most people now laugh at because they know that is silly and false) is the exaggerated fear of stds to try to irrationally scare people. National Christian Foundation/Focus On The Family/Family Research Council/TheFamily/American Family Association, plus many anti-sexuality media groups promote fear of stds and fear of sex. Many of these groups are so anti-sex extremists they make many in the spectrum of repressive of sexuality churches (including the Jesuits and theVatican with over $8 Billion tax exempt plus over $200 Billion in property) look tame by comparison. Most of them say they are doing this in the name of “god,” but they never say god is not a name as it’s simply based on the Old English word that simply means “to pour a libation/to invoke, that also happens to be a root of the Lombardic Wodan/Godan for the Norse deity Odin (who was the main deity in northern Europe up to 600 AD) that could have been shortened to God,” and it’s a translation of Latin Deus (Jupiter/the Sun)/Greek Theos/Hebrew Elohim (that’s plural for deities) who originally were the Mesopotamian religion Anunnaki (such as Enki/Ea “Lord of Wisdom/Knowledge,” Ninkursag “Lady of Life,” NinTi “Lady of the RIB,” Enlil, Inanna/Ishtar). They say it’s for “Jesus,” but most don’t know the letter J was first used in English in the 1600’s AD, and it was Iesu in Latin/Iesous in the Greek Septuagint in Alexandria Egypt around 135 BC where the new Egyptian/Greek made-up deity was Serapis/and Greek Iesous is a translation of the Hebrew Yeshua (Hosea was renamed Yeshua/Joshua who was a spy for Moses). It was the Roman Empire that really created/promoted “Christianity that’s really Paulanity” especially in the late 300’s AD that became the church that in the 1500’s broke up, then those eventually became the extremist religious right groups of today. Even many Priests and Popes used to have pre-marital sex/had children while not married/had mistresses/there’s lists of sexually active Popes. There’s many religious right (and political left) front organizations that push for abstinence only, must get traditionally monogamously married, and are anti-sexuality/anti-sex. There’s many billionaires with this agenda (around say 12 out of 14 are beta guys, about 2 are repressive controlling women). Devos(Trump’s Sec. of Ed. who’s against males and is anti-sex, did that selection benefit men?), Mercer/Koch’s/Wilks/Bradley/Anschutz/Fieler/Friess/Bolthouse/Maclellan/Green/etc, etc. Trump’s Supreme Court pick appears anti-male (so “great” doesn’t include masculinity?). One of the main places for many people to get stds tests and contraception is PP, and Trump’s beta VP is anti-PP (that’s bad for men), Trump is taking away funding contraception coverage (and that’s hugely bad for men) and Trump is cutting funding for PP (and that is also against men). Some say DirtyMoneyDon, but that’s not fair, Panama is a beautiful nice place. Why are people such as those so anti-sex? Part of it might be to control the sexuality of women to thereby control the sexuality and lives of men. Part of the neurotic elite’s plan is disinformation, diversions, get males like PUAs attacking the wrong people, get women like MeToo attacking the wrong people, enact policies to increase fear/frustration/anger/misunderstandings/to create an authoritarian totalitarian dystopian sex-negative society so that they the neurotic miserable control freaks elite can bank on it and stay in control. It’s not really about stds or sexual harassment, it’s about their larger agenda.
Certainly in the UK you can be tested as often as you like. If you don’t want to go to your ordinary doctor (general practitioner), you can go to an STI clinic. There are other options too. I can’t speak for other countries in Europe in any detail.
I suspect (but I don’t know) that if there is a problem in some countries it is with publicly funded testing. I can’t imagine that you can’t be tested if you are prepared to pay for it. However, some countries do have very limited provision of non-public medicine, which might well complicate things.
You can always get the kit online and then bring your stuff to a local lab. My guess is that the guys who told this to BD were either exaggarating or they just didnt bother researching their options. Like was said before many guys who are lazy are using this as excuse not to work on getting women. Maybe this was the case here.
The idea that you can’t get tested more than once a year in Europe sounds extremely suspicious to me. I can’t believe that honestly, especially if you pay for it.
In France there are even centers dedicated to STI testing and it’s free for everyone, including foreigners ou tourists. Same in Canada. You can also go elsewhere and pay for it.
I am in the Philippines right now, most cities are shitholes honesty, yet there is also free HIV testing center in Manila, Cebu and Davao, for everyone, even foreigners on a tourist visa like me. These are the ones I went to but there are possibly some elsewhere. You can get tested every 3 months. FOR FREE. More often than that doesn’t make much sense because their tests works only 3 months after infection. 6 weeks in Canada and France.
The guy who told you that about Europe is most probably some misinfomed dumbass.
The guy who was asking where to get tested… Seriously, in my experience finding the nearest free center for STI testing is just one Google search away. Is that how hard you tried looking for it ?
It makes me think of people who never have condoms because they are too shy to buy some.
yes
“If you go all the way back to the early 1990’s you can find one more, Magic Johnson.”
I would add Easy-E, who dies of AIDS in 1995. But yeah, 3 straight celebrities in 27 years isn’t very many.
Also, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Charlie Sheen got it from shooting up with a shared needle or had gay sex, maybe with a tranny. In fact, several prominent people have said he is bi.
I get the gist of your article.. Sex with a warning label sucks…. I’ve been having mostly protected sex with many many women over the last 30 years and have contracted Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Chlamydia and Crabs at different times. I gave these STDs to girlfriends and wives and this was very difficult to explain and deal with but I could never stop. My biggest issue started about 10 years ago when I met my current wife and started having the best , most mind blowing sex that basically ruined condom sex forever for me. Now in my 50s sex is better than ever and it seems my risk taking if worse than it’s ever been too. I do worry about it … BTW, I have a theory about common STDs you can get from long wet oral sessions. It will sound ignorant but I do think rinsing with Listerine before and after on both your throat and penis can reduce the chance of spreading it. I also think the wide availability of HIV meds and PREP is significantly reducing new cases of HIV. It’s just crazy to me that something as natural as sex comes with such risks. Anyways, i want you to know that you can’t look at somebody and assume the way the speak and act is any indication of their sexual habits, I’ve learned the very worst sexual freaks have split personalities and conceal their true sex lives.
I had sex with a shemale about month ago we had oral no condom but i only penetrated her with a condom not me.. now im getting symptoms of hiv like dizzyness white tongue legs r sore and fatigue.. im deadset stressed out its aids or hiv even though we used condom we both gave eachother oral .. please help me black dragon im going go get tested but i cant even sleep coz the symptoms im getting seem to match up to well for it not to be true