Scarleteen

Hi, I was wondering if it's possible to get an STD from someone's having saliva contact your genitals (not from oral sex, just mutual masturbation) Thanks.

Hi Invisible!

So strictly speaking STIs are STIs because they are Infections whose main mode of Transmission is Sexual, hence S.T.I. This means genital-skin-skin, direct contact of mucus-membranes (throat tissue, genital tissue, urethra, anus, etc) or sexual fluids (semen, etc), or parasites like pubic lice (hair-hair) or scabies (skin-skin).

Herpes, or HPV could find its way into saliva if there are active sores... just as you could catch coldsores from kissing, or an unpleasant flu virus, or CMV (which at least 80% of people have already had), or the strains of HPV we don't test for or don't present symptoms, and so saliva-genitals is possible for some STIs and other viruses but most for others (HIV, Gonorhea, Chlamydia, Hepatitis B, Syphillis) that's not how they spread.

Using lube instead of saliva would be a little safer.

Is that helpful?

Managing STIs is about a combination of 3 things: prevention, accepting we (or those we care about) might catch them anyway (which says nothing bad about us/them) and keeping up to date with testing so we can manage the spread and treatment if we do catch something. Does that feel doable for you?

Thank you, your response was very helpful.