Is sucking or getting sucked "safe"?

[+ HeyDude]

I know this sounds naive but have to ask it anyway:

Is sucking or getting sucked "safe" or "unsafe"?

It would be good to hear from the Doc that monitors this forum with

The most current thoughts on this common concern.

Thanks

[bcohen7719]

I'm not a Doc, but news reports like the one below worry me about

this issue, also. More experienced/knowledgeable guys might

weigh in.

 

BC

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/health/throat-cancer-link-to-oral-sex-gains-credence.html?_r=0

[Zapped]

I am not a medical doctor, but I do read, and have discussed this with physicians and people in public health.

 

No sexual activity is completely risk-free. Walking down the street, driving a car, taking a flight--none of these are risk-free, either. We each have to decide what is an acceptable level of risk. People are killed in auto accidents every day. I drive all over the place anyway. It's possible I'll be in a fatal accident, but I am an aware, safe driver. I minimize my risk, but accept some.

 

When it comes to HIV transmission, the consensus is that it is extremely low risk to be the guy whose cock is sucked (extremely low as in evidently there is no documentation of HIV transmission this way).

 

Sucking a guy's cock without him cumming in your mouth: also extremely low risk.

 

Guy cums in your mouth: low risk, but transmission theoretically possible if you have an open cut in your mouth.

 

Personal experience: I have had countless guys cum in my mouth since AIDs first appeared, and I remain HIV negative. I have never had anyone cum in my ass without a condom, except my current partner, with whom I'm monogamous. Unprotected anal sex is high risk, especially for the guy getting fucked.

 

Go to a gay health clinic and/or talk with a physician who specializes in working with gay men. It may be uncomfortable for you, but you are worth it and it's confidential. And do your own research! Here are a couple of articles worth reading that show that the risk is low, although not disproven (and very challenging to research), with oral sex.

 

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=pr-rr-05

 

http://www.catie.ca/pif/summer-2012/putting-number-it-risk-exposure-hiv

 

And I'd suggest you Google "gay men oral sex HIV transmission".

 

Don't do anything that makes you genuinely uncomfortable. But don't let an unreasonable fear stop you from enjoying sex. Educate yourself--including talking with health professionals who work with gay men. Then you can make an informed choice.

[Juan Vancouver]

I am not a medical doctor, but I do read, and have discussed this with physicians and people in public health.

 

No sexual activity is completely risk-free. Walking down the street, driving a car, taking a flight--none of these are risk-free, either. We each have to decide what is an acceptable level of risk. People are killed in auto accidents every day. I drive all over the place anyway. It's possible I'll be in a fatal accident, but I am an aware, safe driver. I minimize my risk, but accept some.

 

When it comes to HIV transmission, the consensus is that it is extremely low risk to be the guy whose cock is sucked (extremely low as in evidently there is no documentation of HIV transmission this way).

 

Sucking a guy's cock without him cumming in your mouth: also extremely low risk.

 

Guy cums in your mouth: low risk, but transmission theoretically possible if you have an open cut in your mouth.

 

Personal experience: I have had countless guys cum in my mouth since AIDs first appeared, and I remain HIV negative. I have never had anyone cum in my ass without a condom, except my current partner, with whom I'm monogamous. Unprotected anal sex is high risk, especially for the guy getting fucked.

 

Go to a gay health clinic and/or talk with a physician who specializes in working with gay men. It may be uncomfortable for you, but you are worth it and it's confidential. And do your own research! Here are a couple of articles worth reading that show that the risk is low, although not disproven (and very challenging to research), with oral sex.

 

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/insite?page=pr-rr-05

 

http://www.catie.ca/pif/summer-2012/putting-number-it-risk-exposure-hiv

 

And I'd suggest you Google "gay men oral sex HIV transmission".

 

Don't do anything that makes you genuinely uncomfortable. But don't let an unreasonable fear stop you from enjoying sex. Educate yourself--including talking with health professionals who work with gay men. Then you can make an informed choice.

 

 

That is a beautiful and well informed response. I just want to add that aside from the risk of contracting HIV, which is very low through oral sex, there is a much higher risk or contracting other diseases, all of them of different degree of seriousness. Some of them can be treated by antibiotics and disappear completely, some of them, like Herpes, would stay with you for the rest of your life and can only be controlled to a degree with the correct medication.

 

The bad news is that even heavy petting would be enough to potentially transmit Herpes or Syphilis. Refraining from oral or anal won't help you avoid them.

 

There is no sexual activity free of risk. When you engage in it, as a adult, you have to be aware of these risks and have to make up your own mind. Engaging in sexual activity -for an adult- is pretty much signing a waiver that says you understand and agree with the risks involved. Would you sign a waiver without knowing what it says?

 

How many times have I heard clients complaining about other ex-partners saying: "Joe told me he was clean, and see where that got me."

 

Know your risks. Choose which ones you are willing to take. Refrain from anything that would expose you to higher risks than you are comfortable.

 

And as Amy Poehler's character on SNL said constantly: "Go live yah laif!"

[+ purplekow]

Those who drink AND smoke have a much higher risk of oral cancers than those that do either one alone. If you do both of those and are exposed to the type of human papillomavirus (HPV) which is assoiated with being carcinogenic, your risk increases again. We do not live in a vacuum. Everything we do puts us at risk for something. The best way to minimize risk is to be knowledgable and follow a prudent course based on that knowledge. Eating poorly, smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, having poor dental hygiene all put you at risk. If you are doing those things, you might not want to add sucking a dick to the list. For me, I would rather be a pipe smoker and elimiinate the cigarettes.

[+ Axiom2001]

Do a google.com or a bingiton.com and ask your question: Is sucking dick without a condom safe? you'll get a plethora of responses from medical folk as well as from lay folk.

[+ honcho]

I'm going to supply some anecdotal evidence. I've lived in San Francisco from before the AIDS epidemic began.

 

During the late 80's I switched to a gay dentist whose office was in the bottom floor of his castro-area home

(and had a 7' bluethner grand piano in it, which will ID the dentist for some of us, I'll bet).

 

He had a practice of 900 clients, mostly gay men.

 

3 of them sero-converted during those years due to oral sex alone. And this was before protease inhibitors became widely available.

 

I imagine the incidence level has gone way down since..

[bostonman]

Just to throw a bit of (welcome, I hope) humor into this topic, I was reading some of the first link provided by Zapped above, and incorrectly read the following exchange:

 

 

FH: ...Can I ask one question before I forget this: When you say you have "5,000 acts of fellatio," is that with ejaculation or without?

 

 

KS: I haven't split that out yet. I've been sort of running these data quickly, but about 30% of them have partners who ejaculate.

 

 

(Somehow my brain misread KS's response, and I thought I saw "I haven't spit that out yet.")

 

 

More seriously, I echo Zapped's statement, "Personal experience: I have had countless guys cum in my mouth since AIDs first appeared, and I remain HIV negative." Same here. Though not to make either Zapped or myself sound like total sluts, lol, I'd say "countless" refers more to the fact that I haven't thought to ever count the number, not that there are so many that I couldn't possibly count. The truth for me lies somewhere in the middle of all that, lol.

 

But yes, I've always felt that oral sex, either way, is much safer than anal sex, even if no one can prove that it's 100% safe (and as the many wise folks in this thread have pointed out, sex by definition is not 100% safe from anything). I do not enjoy anal sex very much, and pretty much *could* count the number of times I've been fucked (and I'll say it's actually been around 15 years since I've done it now), and oral sex is my preferred method of genital sex. And in terms of STD's, I've never had any health issues. If one day I do become HIV+, at least I won't feel like I did anything outside of my better judgment.

 

But oh, it is sobering to think sometimes about the era we live in. I'm 49. I "officially" came out at 17 (the summer of 1981), just as news of this mysterious (and then totally gay-related) disease was becoming a fact of life. Even then, and through college (where AIDS was of course being talked about, but we all felt a bit insular and still relatively unaffected), I didn't go for anal sex much, and when I did, it was protected. (I did go through a time where rimming was hot to me, but nowadays I'm not interested in that so much either, really. So sue me.) But my point is this - shared certainly with any of the posters out here that are older than myself - I do remember just a glimpse of that time in my teen years where gay sex really had no devastating risks - yes, all of us, gay and straight, had risks of the typical STD's - but oh, to think back to the days when a condom was purely a birth control device, and though as gay men we couldn't be nearly as open about our sexuality as we can now, sex could at least be something we shared without any fears of becoming mortally ill. What makes me sad is that loss of innocence - that in some way, sex always now comes with questions of risk, unlike anything I knew when I was still "experimenting" and figuring myself out in my teens.

 

I wish we could somehow go back to that time. Not so much that we'd be freer to fuck without a condom and all of that - I might still not care for that personally. But just that the pervading worry would be gone. (And yes, of course, that no one would contract, or die from being infected with, HIV. That goes without saying.)

[+ deej]

but oh, to think back to the days when a condom was purely a birth control device

 

That was actually a secondary use. (Much like ED was a secondary use for Viagra.) Condoms were developed originally to stem the spread of syphilis.

[+ Charlie]

I notice that this is the second post you initiated here within an hour about contracting disease from sex partners, which suggests to me that you are somewhat obsessed with a fear of this possibility. There are all sorts of things you can pick up through sexual activity, not only from escorts but from anyone, male or female, straight or gay. If you are afraid of HIV, then avoid anal sex--especially as the bottom--with all men, and genital/anal sex with women, because they are the riskiest activities. (And don't exchange needles with anyone!) If you are afraid of other STDs, then limit yourself to petting and dry kissing. If you are afraid of crabs, stick to mutual masturbation without touching one another. If you are afraid of headcolds and other easily transmitted viral infections, jack off at home alone while watching porn. But if you still want to enjoy any of these sexual activities with a minimum of fear, just take common sense precautions, like using condoms for anal sex (and even oral if that will make you less nervous, though sucking on a condom is not as exciting), look carefully at any body part before you put your mouth on it, avoid sex with anyone who shows obvious signs of illness, and don't have intercourse when you have signs of illness that might weaken your immune system or endanger the other person.

 

And DON'T use recreational drugs, including poppers, just to lower your fears, because you will probably end up doing exactly the things you know you shouldn't do, and then be wracked with fear and guilt afterwards.

[Epigonos]

Damn Charlie I could not possibly have said it better myself. WELL DONE!!!!!

[+ HeyDude]

Gentlemen:

Thank you for these thoughtful, informative, well documented

and supportive replies. They have been tremendously helpful.

Plus I'm feeling gratitude to this awesome community of men

who reach out to support one another.

[JoeyBryant]

Gentlemen:

Thank you for these thoughtful, informative, well documented

and supportive replies.

 

Ah, not so fast. Come back here...

 

There is no sexual activity free of risk. When you engage in it, as a adult, you have to be aware of these risks and have to make up your own mind. Engaging in sexual activity -for an adult- is pretty much signing a waiver that says you understand and agree with the risks involved. Would you sign a waiver without knowing what it says?

 

How many times have I heard clients complaining about other ex-partners saying: "Joe told me he was clean, and see where that got me."

 

Okay, people need to just stop using the word 'clean' to inquire about a person's current sexual health. It's politically incorrect. I just recently got my whole 9 test done earlier this week. Judging by the intrusiveness of such test, as far as sucking or getting sucked being 'safe', it's not. You can still get gonorrhea or chlamydia in your throat and not even have any symptoms obvious enough to warrant realizing you have it. Meanwhile, Mr. Johnny deepthroat is going around giving the clap to every guy he sucks off.

 

But I agree with Juan 100%. No sexual activity is risk free. I have to admit I'm getting annoyedwhen guys sometimes ask when I was tested, if I get tested, am I clean, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone needs to understand that is irrelevant. I know it makes you feel better, gives you peace of mine or what not...but the fact is, getting tested even every 3 months will not prevent something that may have been contracted 3 days (or hours) ago. As far as I know, there just isn't any test kits that you can do yourself that give results instantly.

 

I know, it sucks. But so is life. If someone is so concerned, you can either wear condoms for oral or not do it at all. Or at the very least, don't deep throat a guy since technically it's not in your saliva. It'd be in the very back of the throat. It's just all stuff to keep in mind. The good news is, it doesn't happen as often as it COULD happen. Not to mention, it's not a 100% chance you'll contract it even from an infected person, it's a 66% chance. I've gone to sex parties and bathhouses and thought for sure within 7-10 days I'd come up positive for something. But I trust clients moreso than guys out and about.