Scarleteen

ive seen similar situations on here and other websites but i still want to be sure and safe because ive been worrying way too much, this is one of my last ways to reassure and try to calm myself. very few days ago me and girl are hanging out, she gives me a handjob, ejaculate on her hand and on mine then we clean up with paper towels, i go into the bathroom and wash hands with only water and dry them off, we wait a few minutes then another handjob, same thing happens, pretty sure i wash my hands with (water only again) and dry them and she uses a paper towel to dry the semen on her hands off, and she also said she used her jeans to wipe the rest of the shiny/sticky remainings, no signs of visible sperm on any of our hands (from what we remember), then a few minutes later i finger her, then for a bit she fingers herself as well, less worried about her doing it because the sperm didnt really get close to the finger she used as i remember, but i still worry about her doing it as well, but more so when i fingered her, what are the chances she can get pregnant? ive been giving this same scenario to different ais and ive gotten the same answer, very close to zero, i get confident but then i go on other sources and i just get slightly mixed answers and it discourages me, also cant seem to get a consistent timeframe of how long sperm lives outside the body, some say a few minutes, some say a few hours, i just wanna know, because she doesnt get her period in quite a bit, until then i might still be really worrying, i just want a real person to explain it to me and hopefully calm me down. thanks!

Hey, welcome to the boards!

So, I am unsure of where else you’ve gone for information, but I’ll remind you that the internet contains a lot of inaccurate and factually incorrect ideas. AI can especially be misleading.

Bear with me, because I want to make sure you have truthful and accurate information to help you understand why this is not a pregnancy risk.

Sperm are reproductive cells, and are smaller than what we can see with our eyes. Semen, on the other hand, is the fluid that sperm live in. Semen is about 95% stuff besides sperm cells. These teeny little cells need pretty specific environments to thrive. They can only survive for about 20 minutes to half an hour in conditions that are unfriendly to them. Wiping/drying semen with a paper towel and rinsing hands would pretty much ruin any chance those sperm would have of survival. Side note: In general, when you’re washing hands before and between sexual activities, we would encourage using soap and warm water because it reduces spreading and introducing bacteria.

Further, fingers do not have the capability to push sperm cells through the vaginal canal the same way that ejaculating inside of the vaginal canal does. If you were trying to create a pregnancy and you told a fertility specialist this plan, they would be absolutely dismayed. Remember: fragile little cells, who need very specific environments to survive. They aren’t just getting up and walking around after having their special fluid home wiped to bits and being rinsed down the drain.

To reduce anxiety in the future, I really suggest reading up on how reproduction happens:

Human Reproduction: A Seafarer's Guide

And sexual activities with no pregnancy risks:

Birth Control Bingo: NO Pregnancy Risks. You’ll notice that manual sex (which includes what you’ve described above) is on the list.

Do you have any questions? Is there anything you think would be helpful to navigate anxiety around pregnancy in the future?

im just hoping nothing bad happens, im still doing research and stuff because the thought of it has stressed me to death, im not very experienced and not as educated as id like to be, but thank you so much

I think you've probably done more than plenty of research on this specific situation/worry.
Rather than continue to feed the anxiety around it, do you think you can try to do some things to reduce your stress? Maybe try talking to someone you feel safe with about how much stress this has caused?

Having a solid base of education will help reduce unnecessary fears in the future, so I encourage you to keep learning!

ive been talking to her about how i feel and stuff, feeling a bit better
sorry but, could u just clarify what about my situation cant cause pregnancy or like facts that made us safe from it, and maybe to what degree it COULD happen, if ykwim? im writing this in a rush rn because i have to do something so my fault if it sounds silly, thank you

Hey hggehh12!

I'm sorry this is feeling stressful for you. But here at Scarleteen, we do have a policy of not continuing to reassure users about pregnancy risk after we've already explained how there is no risk of pregnancy. We've found that this isn't helpful in the long run and tends to contribute to more anxiety and spiraling.

I will say this (and this will be the last reassurance, ok?)-- there is no degree to which your partner could get pregnant from this. There has never been a report of someone becoming pregnant from fingering, even with semen on their fingers.

If you want facts and clarity about your situation, I would encourage you to revisit the articles that Mikky posted earlier in this thread.

Please feel free to come back to the boards or search through our articles anytime you have a sexual health question. AI is not a good resource for sex education as it scrapes data from all over the internet, including things like Reddit posts, that do not have scientific or accurate information.

right, sorry lol, thanks for the help

Hey there! Your last post makes it sound like you haven't yet read the links that were provided for you upthread. Those give the facts you are asking for, so, if you think facts will help you, I'd strongly suggest you read those links.

And if facts turn out not to help you, then you need to know that this isn't about a lack of facts, it's about anxiety. If that's the case, it's often much more helpful to stop focusing on the topic that has you spinning out, and instead work to put your focus elsewhere. Anxiety will effectively not only stick around but often grow if you keep feeding it: in order to get past it, you have to stop giving it power.