[Question #13992] mutual masturbation

1 months ago

I am a male and engaged in mutual masturbation with a male yesterday. There was no oral or anal sex. Our penises rubbed against each other. There may have been pre-ejaculate but there was not much. When we ejaculated we did not ejaculate on each other. He had no visible sores, wounds, etc. I am wondering my risk for STIs is? I am in a long-term relationship and am concerned about contracting a STI and then sharing it.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

1 months ago

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for your confidence in our services.

There was little or no risk from the events described. STIs are virtually never transmitted without much more direct contact than this: with no penis inside another person's vagina, rectum or mouth, there is no risk. I would don't advise testing for anything. It is entirely safe for you to continue your usual sexual practices without putting your regular partner at risk for any STI. For more detail, consider using the forum's search function using terms like "hand-genital contact", "mutual masturbation", "frottage" (body rubbing), etc; there are hundreds of questions much like yours, all with pretty much the same sorts of replies.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD

---

1 months ago

Thank you so much of your response. It has definitely helped ease my anxiety. I apologize for the follow-up question, but I'm wondering about asymptomatic shedding of herpes. I have read that this can happen when someone is not visually symptomatic and since our penises were masturbated together there was skin to skin contact. Again, thank you for your prompt and thorough response to my question. It provided much relief.

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

1 months ago

This sort of contact was not sufficiently close or intimate to transmit HSV. Can I say the risk is truly zero from penis to penis? No. But the odds that your partner a) has genital HSV and b) was acting shedding virus at the time, and c) this sort of contact could transmit it probably comes to under one chance in millions. This is nothing to be worried about.

Don't be mis-led about descriptions of STIs transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. That doesn't mean ANY skin-skin contact. It refers to the mechanism of transmission during intimate contact only. It distinguishes those some such infections (HSV, HPV, syphilis) from those transmitted through fluids (gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV). But it applies only to intimate contact, and in my 50+ years in the STI business I've never seen a case of herpes that did not follow penile penetration.

---