by Adams Media
Active vs. Inactive Infection
While infections can be spread at any time, you want to avoid oral sex, or any kind of sex for that matter, when a partner has an outbreak, especially when either individual has open cuts or sores on or in the mouth or genitals.
Fact
A study of 300 people conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that the risk of throat cancer was nearly nine times greater for people reporting oral sex with more than six partners.
Oral Health
If you’re the lover giving oral sex and have cuts, ulcers, bleeding gums, and sores in or around your mouth and throat, you’re at increased risk of contracting an STD.
Dental Work
Related to your oral health is any recent dental work, including having undergone a root canal, having your wisdom teeth pulled, or getting dentures re-fitted. Going to the dentist for any kind of check-up or brushing or flossing your teeth before oral sexual activity also increases your risk of acquiring an STD. This is because these activities can result in lesions, scrapes, sores, irritations, or tiny cuts on the gums you may not even be aware of.
Fact
With early HIV research largely focusing on the anal sex practices of gay men, the scientific community failed to pay enough attention to the oral transmission of HIV. A presentation of eight HIV cases, given at the seventh Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, suggested that all of these eight cases were oral sex attributable, with all eight HIV-positive individuals having had some type of recent dental work.
Ejaculation
If your lover is performing oral sex on you and you ejaculate into her mouth, this increases her risk of infection. While it has yet to be confirmed, female ejaculation in one’s mouth may also pose a threat.
Question
When suffering from a sore throat and swollen glands, how does a person know if he or she might have an STD versus simply having the start of strep throat or the common cold?
There is no way to tell with certainty if you acquired an infection during oral sex or if you’re coming down with strep or a cold since these conditions often share many of the same symptoms, like fever, swollen glands, sore throat, and tonsillitis. Indicators that you may have an oral STD specifically include oral lesions or cold sores, though this is not a hard-and-fast rule. Symptoms may also last longer than your average sore throat or cold. In determining whether or not you have an STD, or a more serious cold, pay a visit to a healthcare professional, who will take a throat culture to determine the cause.
When to Play vs. When to Abstain
If you or your partner have an active STD, it practically goes without saying that it’s best to abstain from sexual activity until the infection is treated or goes back to an inactive status. If the STD is curable, make sure that you refrain from sex until treatment is complete. Be sure both you and your partner are tested and treated. Failure to do so could result in reinfection.
In cases where abstinence is out of the question or where a lover is carrying a lifelong, viral STD, safer sex options, as outlined in the next section, are available. You can further reduce the risk of transmission in having open, honest communication, limiting the number of sexual partners you have, and going for regular sexual and reproductive health check-ups.
All of these points are really important given that many STDs are asymptomatic (without symptoms). A person can be a carrier and never even know she is infected, especially since an infection may lie dormant in her system for months or even years after exposure. Thus, she may not be aware that she poses a threat to others. Take, for example, that two-thirds of the 45 million Americans with genital herpes never have any symptoms. Even when a person looks perfectly healthy, and the sexual exchange appears totally risk-free, make sure that you’re both being attuned to the need to discuss and employ safer sex practices.
Tools for Safer Oral Sex
Being on the birth control pill, or any other hormonal contraceptive, does not protect either of you from STDs, including HIV, during oral sex or other sexual activities.
The only way to protect yourself from STDs, other than abstaining from sexual activity, is to use a male condom, female condom, dental dam, latex gloves, and/or finger cots, depending on your sex acts of choice. No matter what your choice of protection, the key to avoiding infection is to use your prophylactic consistently and correctly. Latex offers the best protection, while polyurethane products are a great second choice for those with latex allergies. In any case, a non–animal-skin barrier should be used.
Here are prime ways to protect yourself and your lover during oral sex on her:
Dental Dams
A dental dam is a thin, square barrier, typically made out of latex, which provides protection against STDs, including HIV, during oral sex on a female and during analingus on any gender. It is placed over the body part you are stimulating on your gal. The Sheer Glyde dam has been approved by the FDA especially for safer sex. Other brands include Glyde Lollyes and Lixx.
Alert
Be sure to avoid using food, Vaseline, massage oils, and oil-based lubes with your prophylactics since such items can break down the latex, compromising the protection you’re getting.
At times hard to find, dental dams can be purchased at select drugstores or at specialty sex shops. Businesses specializing in safer sex supplies also carry dental dams in a variety of sizes. Many of these businesses offer confidential online shopping and shipping services for those longing to make discreet purchases. Certain sexual and reproductive health organizations, like Planned Parenthood, or your local Department of Health or campus student health services may also have them available for free.
If you have trouble finding dental dams, or are in immediate need of protection, there are a couple of around-the-house substitutes at your disposal. You can:
Tear off a sheet of nonmicrowavable (since it’s nonporous) plastic wrap, like Saran Wrap, for a thinner alternative.
Using scissors, carefully cut off the tip of a nonlubed, “dry” latex condom, as well as its elastic band at the open end. You’ll want to then cut across the length of the condom for a stretchable, rectangular barrier.
Trim the fingers (but not the thumb) off of a powder-free latex glove and cut along the side opposite the thumb.
In using a dental dam, make sure you cover her entire vulval or anal opening area, holding the edges firmly with your hands as you feast away. For greater pleasuring for you, consider adding flavored lube to your side. In giving your partner more sensations, add a few dabs of your lover’s favorite silicone- or water-based lube. When you’ve had your fun, be sure to throw away the dental dam since it should never be reused, shared, or reversed (or transferred from the vagina to the anus and vice versa).
Alert
Be cautious in performing oral sex if you have braces. First of all, you don’t want to tear your prophylactic. Second, you don’t want to draw blood. So be gentle, with both of you seeking to avoid sudden, jerky, or unexpected movements.
Latex Surgical Gloves
Whether you want to cover cuts on your hands or fingers, avoid jagged fingernails or hangnails, or simply want a smooth touch, gloves can provide feel-good sensations as you’re delivering oral. Plus, they make for easy cleanup, enabling couples to seamlessly transition into afterplay and cuddling without worrying about mess. Nonlatex polyurethane gloves are available for those with a latex sensitivity or allergy.
Finger Cots
Found at your local pharmacy, these singular finger condoms are meant to protect fingers with cuts, allowing you to play with all sorts of parts while feeding your oral appetite.
Fact
Have a new tongue, lip, or mouth piercing? Then you’ll want to avoid oral sexual activity or open mouth kissing for up to six weeks, giving your piercing time to heal. Failure to do so increase
s your risk of tissue damage and bacterial infection.
Talking about Your Sexual Health
Annually, 19 million Americans acquire an STD, which means that, sooner or later, you may have good reason to talk about your sexual health and safer sex with a sweetie. These discussions aren’t easy, and if you’re the one with an STD, you risk rejection, loss of confidentiality, potential humiliation, and other adverse consequences. Thankfully, there are ways you can prepare yourself for the tough conversation.
Get Informed
Knowledge is power, so become familiar with everything there is to know about STDs and safer sex. Educating yourself allows for greater understanding, ultimately reducing fears and giving you a sense of self and body ownership as you regain a sense of control and the power to cope. This also prepares you to correct any myths or calm any fears your lover may have.
Know Your Body
If you’re infected with a viral STD, note when your outbreaks occur to better understand their timing. This might be when you’re under a great deal of stress or drinking lots of caffeine. This will give you a greater sense of control over the infection and bodily changes, plus have you better able to counter triggers in taking better care of yourself and the best times to be sexually intimate.
Confide in a Professional
If you’re distraught about your sexual health status or the risks involved in being intimate, talk to a mental health counselor.
Move the Conversation Forward Together
In successfully, confidently having sexual health discussions with your partner, be sure that they take place in an emotionally neutral environment and not when you’re feeling horny and wanting to get all over her. Don’t make a big deal out of them. This begins by not sounding anxious, panicky, or stressed rather seeking to sound calm and confident. You may also want to point out that STDs tend to get a bad rap. Oral herpes, genital herpes, shingles, and chicken pox, for example, are all due to having acquired a virus that remains in one’s nervous system permanently. Yet genital herpes is stigmatized much more often than your common cold sore or chicken pox outbreak because it’s related to sex.
Be open-minded and ask that your potential partner do the same. Discuss your levels of comfort with STDs and safer sex, weighing the risks in light of your relationship, values, and what’s important to you in a sexual relationship.
Suggest that you put your heads together in crafting a game plan on how you’ll protect yourselves from here on out, or at least initially. Some lovers may want to weigh the pros and cons of unprotected sex differently when in a long-term relationship, as some may be more willing to take or accept the risks involved in becoming more serious and intimate. In any case, tons of communication, trust, care, and protection are needed.
Talking isn’t easy, but the benefits to your health and relationship are well worth it. Ultimately, you and your lover can feel closer in better knowing each other, and in becoming a team, protecting yourselves from here on out.
Question
What STDs are detectable even if you don’t show any symptoms?
Both men and women can be tested for HIV, hepatitis, syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. Gonorrhea and chlamydia screening involves a urine test or swab of the inside of a female’s cervix or the swab of the inside of the penis. Doctors test for syphilis using a blood sample or swab from a genital sore, if present. Blood samples are drawn to test for HIV and hepatitis. Unfortunately, no good screening test exists for herpes, though blisters or ulcers can be scraped for tissue samples. Women can have a Pap test done to test for an HPV infection. There is no screening test available for men in checking for HPV. Be sure to ask for STD testing specifically, as different doctors have their own agenda during exams and may not test for everything.
Deciding Your Oral Sex Rules
New and different sexual relationships and opportunities require a constant re-evaluation of our sexual health, and just how much we want to or need to protect it. Ultimately, your sexual health comes down to your knowledge, skills, and motivation in protecting yourself. In becoming more informed, you learn more about your choices. You can do what’s best for you given how much you’re willing to roll the dice — or not.
So take the time to assess your levels of risk and decide upon the rules that will guide your oral sex efforts. You may, for example, always require a barrier method when having oral sex with somebody you just met. You may require that a partner get tested before having unprotected oral sex. This is a game where you draft your own guidelines, and hopefully have a partner who is on the same page.
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Copyright © 2012 Simon and Schuster
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publishers: exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
The Secrets of Great Sex: Man’s Guide to Oral Sex contains material adapted and abridged from The Best Oral Sex Ever: His Guide to Going Down by Yvonne K. Fulbright, copyright © 2011 Simon and Schuster, ISBN 10: 1-4405-1080-6, ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-1080-9.
Published by
Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322 U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com
ePub ISBN 10: 1-4405-5911-2
ePub ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5911-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Is available from the publisher.
This book is intended as general information only, and should not be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. In light of the complex, individual, and specific nature of health problems, this book is not intended to replace professional medical advice. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions in this book are intended to supplement, not replace, the advice of a trained medical professional. Consult your physician before adopting any of the suggestions in this book, as well as about any condition that may require diagnosis or medical attention. The author and publisher disclaim any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use of this book.
Cover art © 123rf.com
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