Pregnancy scare

[lika]

Hello! I just have a question since I cant really find a clear answer anywhere on the internet.

So me and my boyfriend dry humped both fully clothed but that is not the part that worries me, the part that worries me is that i touched his penis BUT he had clothes on (underwear plus shorts) so i touched his penis through clothes and then i used the same hand to finger myself. During the event he didn't ejaculate at all, only possible pre-cum and his shorts looked dry (no visible wet spots).

This event took place during fertile window.

[Heather]

Hi there, lika.

I want to start by saying that it's very unlikely that you actually know with any accuracy when you are fertile. To know that information, you'd have to have had your periods, and have them be pretty regular, for at least five years or so, and you'd have to have been (and still be) charting your cervical mucus and/or basal temperatures every day for about six months AND then know how to interpret that data. It's a pretty serious learning curve, and it's not something anyone can know from an app or just knowing when their periods have happened. For more, see: https://www.scarleteen.com/about/announ ... -freakouts and https://www.scarleteen.com/read/sexual- ... -about-fam

I like to make sure folks like you know this because a false sense of fertility tends to make people worry when they don't have to or can give others a false sense of security, leading them to risk pregnancy when they don't want to.

Pregnancy isn't something that is at all likely to happen from manual sex (like fingering or masturbation). That's because sperm cells are incredibly delicate, and for pregnancy to be a real possibility, the fluid from an ejaculation as well as the momentum of the ejaculation are important. Too, any sperm cells left in any pre-ejaculate not only are rarely enough (it takes about 500 cells to do the work needed for fertilization), they are also the least viable cells in the bunch, which is why they are left over in pre-ejaculate, if any are at all.

For more about that and the whole of how pregnancy actually happens, you can check out: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/pregnan ... rers-guide and https://www.scarleteen.com/about/announ ... perm-cells

[lika]

Thank you so much for your thorough response! I have read the articles you sent me and I found them really helpful.

I started tracking my period and fertile window since the beginning of this year so it isn't really accurate since my periods aren't that regular but most of the time they come around the beginning of every month.

And just to be clear since English isn't my first language (so just in case i didn't interpret something wrong), touching someones genitals over a barrier like clothes with no visible wet spots on clothing (no real ejaculation) can't cause pregnancy since sperm cells are very fragile and cant pass through layers of clothes (in this case two layers).

[Heather]

You're welcome.

Yeah, so, like I said, tracking periods alone isn't actually enough information to accurately know when you will ovulate. It can tell you when you probably DID ovulate in the cycle before (I can explain more about that if you like), but isn't enough information to predict when you WILL ovulate in thew following cycle. So, for now, it's best to figure you just can't know that and thus, that it also just doesn't make sense to be worrying because of it.

And yep, you have that right: that isn't a way pregnancy can happen. What presents actually real risks of pregnancy is direct genital-to-genital (as in, a penis to your genitals) contact.

If you want to find out more about which activities pose what risks, here's another one for you: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/can-i-g ... r-pass-sti