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STI Risk Assessment: The Cliff's Notes

1 min read • first published • updated • 357,850 views

Based on any one instance of the following, you may/can have been at risk for transmitting (giving to someone else) or contracting (getting it yourself) the following diseases and infections:

Vaginal or anal intercourse, or vaginal intercourse with a condom that has also been used for anal intercourse:

Oral sex:

(“blow job,” “giving head,” “going down,” “rimming”)

Manual sex:

(“hand job,” or “fingering”)

Safer sex - using latex barriers, getting regular and complete STI testing, and adapting lifestyle issues – vastly reduces these risks.

So, if you’re sexually active⁠ and not practicing safer sex⁠, or not sure if you are, check out how, and hop on it! And once you’ve started becoming in any way sexually active, it’s time to start getting into your doctor or sexual⁠ healthcare clinic’s office for those yearly tests.

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From OW! to WOW! Demystifying Painful Intercourse

  • Heather Corinna

At least once every couple of days, someone posts or writes into Scarleteen reporting that vaginal entry – usually intercourse or manual vaginal sex, and usually (but not always) with cisgender male partners – is painful, uncomfortable, or unfulfilling for them. Whatever sort of vaginal entry we’re talking about – with fingers, a penis or a dildo, with partners of any gender – not only doesn’t have to be painful, it really shouldn’t be. More than that, any kind of sex shouldn’t be about a lack of pain, but about the presence of pleasure.