Performing oral sex on an man without a condom, if he is infected, carries:
- *no risks for contracting Trichomoniasis and very low risks for contracting HIV.
- *very low risks of contracting Hep B, if you don’t have a cut, sore, or bleeding gums.
- *Low risks of contracting HPV or HSVII (genital herpes) if the person is currently ‘shedding. Shedding means that the HSV virus can spread through skin-to-skin contact. This occurs about 3% of the time for infected people, less if they are taking medication, and happens even when there are no visible symptoms.
- *Some risk of contracting Gonorrhea or Chlamydia.
- *Some risk of contracting Syphilis, if the person currently has a lesion or recently healed lesion, (The lesion does not have to be visible) or someone with HSVI (oral herpes), if the person is currently ‘shedding.’
Unfortunately, no definitive data exists on the likelihood that someone will contract any of these STIs via a single act of unprotected oral sex with an infected person.
Gonorrhea, Chalmydia, HPV and HSV are local infections, meaning they will not spread to the rest of your body unless you move them to other parts of your body (for example, by having oral sex and then vaginal or anal sex without a condom, or having oral sex with a condom and then moving directly to anal or vaginal sex, without switching the condom).
Gonorrhea or Chlamydia in your throat either have mild symptoms (a slightly-sore throat) or no symptoms. And about half of the time, infections spontaneously cure without antibiotics in a few weeks. However if you have an infection in your throat, you can spread it to a sexual partner via unprotected oral sex, and then to other parts of your body.
And obviously, your risks also depend on the risk of your partner being infected. So who you’re giving a blow job to or receiving a blow job from also influences how risky this is: if your partner has multiple partners who also has multiple partners and is not regularly tested and treated, or if you’re partner or one of their partners engages in injected drug use and shares needles or doesn’t sterilize needles, then they’re more likely to have an STI and thus, having unprotected oral sex with them is riskier for you.
For more information, see the San Francisco’s City Clinic Website.
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