…was the major overall theme yesterday in our anonymous texting service’s inbox here at Scarleteen!
Was some misleading info about dry humping + pregnancy starring in some big TV show we must have missed last night?
Seriously though, dry humping is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
It’s “dry” because it does not involve the potential for the exchange of bodily fluids.
But just because we get this kind of question so often, it seemed best for a volunteer (Hey, I’m Claire!) to try to make sure everyone ever is down with the real deets on dry humping.
The main question: CAN I GET PREGNANT FROM DRY-HUMPING?!
The quick answer here is no!
The just-a-bit-longer answer I know you all want anyway will be illustrated in a collection of super scientific charts and venn diagrams below.
THE REAL DRY HUMPING DEAL:
In order for there to be a risk of pregnancy, first of all, there needs to be direct genital-genital contact.
This does not include genital and towel, or genital and shorts with holes you think are a tad on the large side.
Scarleteen’s Volunteer Assistant Director Robin posted THIS RESPONSE to a pregnancy scare question recently.
(I think it’s one of the clearest explanations of why the fixation everyone has with whether or not semen is able to soak through clothing is a little off-base.)
“They [ sperm ] need the properties of semen in order to move. Another way of looking at it is that if the semen makes any stops between a penis and vagina , such as on your hands or a piece of clothing, the sperm can’t then move from there to the vagina, even if the area where they landed touches the vulva (outside of the vagina) or inside the vagina itself.
And remember, if you are scared that you must be pregnant, but your ONLY VALID reason to “back up” that being a possibility is that you are really scared about it? Well, this can be that rare scenario in which you are relieved by your lack of supernatural abilities!
To sum this all up, check out our final scientific graph for today’s post to once-and-for-all clarify the pregnancy risk of dry humping for all you visually-minded folks! It took a good hard look at all possible scenarios or situations and turned it into raw, real data!**
**Seriously though, this data is not a joke.
Do you still feel unsure about YOUR DRY HUMPING RISK? If you think you could be categorized as “other,” refer to the red section on the pie chart above to suss out the level of your potential pregnancy risk.