STIs

Articles and Advice in this area:

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

When you and a partner have no clothing on, and direct genital-to-genital contact, please understand that it isn’t dry sex anymore. The “dry” in dry sex is pretty critical: it means that sex was had in which there was no chance of any fluid contact or exchange. If you’ve got a naked penis rubbing…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Yes. Please understand that becoming pregnant isn’t about how long someone lasts, if someone is having sex for the first time, if someone reaches orgasm or not. There is ALWAYS a risk of pregnancy if a man and a woman have vaginal intercourse, and a high risk if during that intercourse the male…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

If your period is only five days late, it’d be pretty unusual, even if you had become pregnant, for you to be having symptoms this soon. Plus, the symptoms you’re describing are also common PMS symptoms, as you said. Since the condom was spermicidal and there wasn’t a full ejaculation, your…

Advice
  • Hollie West

For of all you need to understand that the length of time you have sex has nothing to do with your risk of pregnancy. It doesn’t matter if it was 15 seconds or 15 minutes; it doesn’t matter. If your partner did not ejaculate, your risk of pregnancy is pretty low. Your risk of sexually transmitted…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

The state of the hymen does not change risks of pregnancy in any way, nor does the hymen – or not having had sexual intercourse before – act as any kind of birth control. If you’re at least in puberty, and you’re menstruating, then already, it’s a given that your hymen at least has micro…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Your body doesn’t really care how long intercourse goes on for. Whether it’s 30 seconds or fifteen minutes (and it’s worth mentioning that five minutes of intercourse is about average, so that’s not a short period of time for that activity), what your body cares about if it has been exposed to…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

Starting with the birth control issue, not knowing which pill in particular you’re on and not being able to see the insert for myself, I can’t give you a 100% answer per promising you I’m being as accurate as I know how to be. However, there are indeed some BCPs which operate in the way you’re…

Advice
  • Hollie West

The NuvaRing is a HIGHLY effective method of birth control. As you’ll see here, the NuvaRing has only a 8% failure rate with typical use (and less than 2% with perfect use). This is lower than the birth control pill (9%) and the external condom (15%). The real question is how much of a risk you and…

Advice
  • Sarah Riley

Whether you orgasm or not, sex without a condom leaves you open to both STI transmission and pregnancy risk (assuming your partner is not using another form of contraception that would protect against pregnancy). Pre-ejaculate (sometimes referred to as “pre-cum”), the fluid that is released by men…

Advice
  • Heather Corinna

First things first: with ANY new partner – as in, someone we have not been with for six months or more, and practicing all aspects of safer sex with – we really, truly should be using latex barriers (condoms, in this case) with fellatio. I know, I do, that at 14, it often seems really unlikely…