Semen on hands?? Condoms?? Washing hands??

[anonanon]

Hi so im a 19 yr old girl and I have been with my boyfriend for almost 2 years and we are both sexually active with each other. I take birth control but im not the best at taking it so we try to use condoms. Just this month I got onto a new birth control because the other one was giving me bad headaches. I just completed the "ok to have unprotected sex after 2 weeks of taking the new pill". We still like to use condoms anyway because you never know. Well usually we have foreplay before sex and i give him handjobs and oral and he does the same to me but there have been times where he will masturbate while giving me oral and then proceed to finger me (he usualy has a bit of precum) and he stops himself from fingering me because "precum has some chances of semen" same for me I will give him a handjob and he will help me out and then when we go to have sex and put the condom on our hands are wet with precum. Now i have a few questions. One being is precum just as fertile as actual cum like could i get pregnant from coming into contact with it. Two being when coming into contact with precum then trying to put on the condom with precum on our hands will that defeat the purpose of using the condom for pregnancy protection since im basically going to come into contact with semen? And the biggest question that i always hear mixed reviews about that i would like a soild answer. Lets say i stop and wash my hands after coming into contact with precum is it then safe to put on the condom or will there still be a chance of semen on my hands? I hear answers like "wetting your hands just keeps the semen moist and alive" "semen dies as soon as it touchs air" "even if you wash your hands semen lives for 3-5 days". Will washing our hands help or will there still be semen? I know that this seems silly especially me being 19 but when you always hear different things its hard to know whats right and whats wrong. I would love an answer.

[Heather]

I have two articles for you that can answer both of these questions:
1) http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advic ... _pregnancy
and
2) Human Reproduction: A Seafarer's Guide

Lastly, washing hands before genital sex is good form no matter what because no one likes UTIs or bacterial infections and that can help prevent them. So, if just wash your hands first and ask your boyfriend to do same and you don't even have to think about any of this in the first place.