[Question #3145] Unprotected oral sex exposure

92 months ago

So I screwed up. Received oral sex unprotected from a stripper last night. Stripper was young, attractive, seemed educated and did not seem a drug user. Said she gets tested every 3 months, never had a cold sore, and wouldn't give me oral sex if she had something, and that she doesn't really do this. This is stripper talking, so don't know what to think. She had no sores on her mouth, lips ,just a white head on her lower lip area which was a definitely not a cold sore. I told her to be careful just giving out blowjobs, but At the same time, im the moron she gave one too. Hahaha. She seemed nervous by this and asked if i had something. I said no obviously, as I didn't prior. So this is a good sign, from a perceptual standpoint. Apologies on the rationalization, it's just the only thing saving me from not bugging out For me I did not have any stds ever before, only molluscum in the past and was tested for hsv1 multiple times and neg. Just wanted to know the likelihood of acquiring something from this scenario.? She had no visible outbreak, only unprotected oral sex giving to me. She already seemed knowledgeable of stds, and basically assumed I had one after my questioning, and seemed genuinely nervous for herself. Which can bring up the fact, that she doesn't have an std or at least doesn't know she has one. Thanks

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

92 months ago

Welcome back to the forum. Thanks for your question.

This was a low risk exposure. Oral sex truly is safe sex, at least if "safe" is not interpreted as zero risk. But it's low risk for all STDs and virtually zero for some, such as HIV. Although various STDs can involved the oral cavity (mouth, throat, lips, etc), mostly they do not: even in people with genital gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, herpes, HPV, etc, most do not have oral infections. And when they do, they are transmitted infrequently.

From your previous threads, I know that you may be expecially concerned about herpes. But although oral HSV1 infections are very common, they are infrequently transmissible, and even when someone has oral HSV1, probably fewer than 1 in a thousand oral sex events result in transmission. Another basic truth is that having genital herpes due to HSV1 generally is no big deal. While nobody wants GH, if it happens, HSV1 is much "preferred" over HSV2, because recurrent outbreaks usually are uncommon (up to 40% of persons never have any recurrent outbreaks at all) and sexual transmission to future partners also is rare. Both these features are very different than for HSV2. So while I'm not suggesting a cavalier attitude about genital HSV1, if it happened it probably would not be a major issue in future sexual relationships or other aspects of your life. (Here's an intersting blog about genital HSV1 vs HSV2: https://www.thehairpin.com/2013/11/how-i-found-out-i-didnt-have-the-herpes-id-been-living-with-for-four-years/) So this is really not an outcome that should weigh heavily on you.

In addition, most STDs that might be acquired by oral sex would cause obvious symptoms. That is, lack of urethral discharge and of lesions that suggest herpes or syphilis is pretty solid reassurance that no infection was transmitted (although that's certainly not a hundred percent guarantee). On top of all this, everything you know about your stripper partner suggests she is even less likely than most to have had a transmissible oral STD.

So my advice is to just sit tight. If within 10-14 days of the event you have had no symptoms, you can consider yourself home free. Of course you are free to be tested if the negative results would help reassure you. If so, have a urine test for gonorrhea (valid any time more than 2-3 days after exposure); that probably would also include chlamydia testing, but chlamydia is one of the STDs almost never transmitted by oral sex. You could have a syphilis blood test in a few weeks, but this is optional. No testing is needed for HIV (there has never been a proved case transmitted mouth to penis), and without symptoms I would not recommend another round of HSV testing.

I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear. Best wishes and happy new year--

HHH, MD

---

92 months ago

Thanks doc. Yeah has been 3 days now. So under 1-1000? That's not likely then. What's that like .01 percent probability?

H. Hunter Handsfield, MD

92 months ago

1 in 1,000 is 0.1 percent. It's only a rough guess of the risk for HSV1 from oral sex; the actual risk probably is even lower than this, and for sure it's a lot lower for all other STDs, since it is unlikely your partner had any of them.

---

92 months ago

Thanks I'm really not worried at all anymore, after seeing that. I don't know if it's a discharge cause it doesn't ooze out or smell. But sometimes randomly, not very often, or if I have to urinate, clear liquid just sits in my penis opening. Very clear, like water. This happened to me before this exposure. And the urologist didn't think it was something to worry about. They told me on my previous post here, it was too much masturbation as the diagnosis. No std

92 months ago

If I don't masturbate, these effects don't happen. Or if they do I don't notice. If that makes any sense