[Question #9355] Possible exposure

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33 months ago
Hello and thank you for taking my question.

 I am a male and was seeing an escort and received unprotected oral. Then had vaginal intercoarse with a condom. Only lasted about a minute  or 2 max and lost my erection. Did not ejaculate. But when I pulled out the condom was broken so I'm a little scared. Wondering if a minute or 2 would be long enough for any type of exposure to occur. Would you recommend going for any testing?

Thank you.
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
33 months ago
Welcome to the forum. Thank you for your question.

The most important aspect of this exposure, I would say, is that you describe your partner as an "escort". That term usually means (and this is how I use it) a relatively expensive female sex worker by appointment, as opposed to bar pick-ups, brothel workers, etc. Such women typically are believed to be at quite low risk for active, transmissible STDs -- overall probably even safer than many non-commercial sex partners, like the woman who might be introduced by friends. Escorts usually are very health-aware, tend to have low risk clients (men like you!), know the risks, use condoms regularly, and get tested frequently. If these comments describe your partner, the chance you acquired an STD is quite low.

In addition, your question implies your awareness that a brief exposure probably carries lower STD transmission risk than a longer one. That said, 1-2 minutes is plenty of time to acquire any active STD she may have had. However, in general all STDs are inefficiently transmitted:  that is, even prolonged unprotected exposure to an infected partner usually does not result in transmission. This varies a lot between specific infections (higher for gonorrhea, intermediate for chlamydia, low for herpes, and very rare for HIV). 

What to do now? One approach could be to contact your escort partner and ask her to be tested; or perhaps have a conversation about her most recent testing, the results, etc. Barring that, you don't necessarily need to do anything but sit tight for a week or two:  absence of painful urination, abnormal urethral discharge, or penile blisters or sores will be strong reassurance -- although not conclusive proof -- against the most common STIs of concern (gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes). Or you can be tested yourself. If you go that route, I would recommend a urine test for gonorrhea and chlamydia, which would be valid for both infections any time 3-4 days or more after the event; and blood tests for HIV and syphilis, although these will not be conclusive until ~6 weeks later. OTOH, both are so exceedingly unlikely that I would say it's fine for you to continue to be sexually active with other partners (e.g. a regular partner, if you have one) in the meantime.

I hope these comments are helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.

HHH, MD
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