Sex Info. About Safer Sex

Safer Sex doesn't have to be a wet blanket. Hey it's better than no sex..Right?

Using Latex/Vinyl Gloves and Dental Dams.

So latex or vinyl gloves are great for safe sex, particularly if you have cuts or sores on your hands, and also if you have long or rough fingernails. You can use then for vaginal penetration or anal penetration. Combined with lubricant, latex gloves make penetration smoother and much more pleasurable, and a great for fisting. You can cut up the middle of a latex glove and across and then you can use it as a latex barrier for oral play like a dam. You can also get vinyl gloves for people that have latex allergies. SO a dam, also known as dental dams, they’re a rectangular sheet of flavoured latex designed to use as a latex barrier for oral sex, that’s for cunnilingus or for rimming, so oral stimulation of the vagina and vulva, or the anal region. So what you do is apply some lubricant and then you stretch the dam over the vulva area before giving oral stimulation, SO it creates a total latex barrier, it means that no vaginal juices comes into contact with your mucous membranes in your mouth or any cuts you may have and same with rimming which is oral stimulation of the anal area. You can also use Glad Wrap that is doubled over, it’s not quite as effective but if you’re somewhere and you don’t happen to have a dam, then you can whip out the Glad Wrap.

STDs and STIs

The main STI that people are concerned about is HIV which is Human Immunodeficiency Virus which then can develop in Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome known as AIDS. So if a person has, or is, HIV positive the virus is concentrated in the blood, the semen and the vaginal juices. HIV affects another person by entering their bloodstream, so you need to be really aware of any kind of contact with blood, but also with sexual fluids. HIV can be transmitted through sexual contact when any of the bodily fluids come into contact with the mucous membranes of the vagina, the mouth, the throat, and anal wall and in the hands if you have any kind of cuts and any vaginal or anal penetrative sex with a penis or a sex toy without a condom, oral sex including rimming, hand jobs if there are cuts on the hands are all high risk. It’s very rare for HIV to be spread by saliva, so kissing is low risk unless the person has cuts or ulcers in their mouth, or bleeding gums, and sharing needles is extremely high risk. People of all sexualities are at risk of HIV infection and the statistics of people in New Zealand who are heterosexual and contracting HIV is definitely on the rise, so one definitely to be very concerned about. I think the other ones of concern are genital herpes and genital warts. Genital herpes is the herpes simplex virus which is the same virus that gives you cold sores round the mouth. SO basically it’s giving you cold sores on the genitals, it’s extremely infectious and can be transmitted during the infectious stage before you actually know you have it, so it’s very contagious and it can actually appear about 2-20 days after exposure, and you have quite unpleasant blister. It’s not actually terrible but it is manageable, and so people that do have genital herpes need to totally practice safe sex and to communicate that with their sexual partners, and also has been linked to cervical cancer for women, so it’s really important that women who have genital herpes get regular smears. Genital warts is the warts virus and a large number of people actually have the HPV virus and it won’t ever develop, but persistent infection has been linked with cervical cancer and it’s spread very much like herpes, from skin to skin contact and mucous membrane contact when the virus is shedding. We have run out of time and we haven’t actually covered hepatitis, ghonnoreah, syphilis or chlamydia which are actually on the rise in New Zealand, or public lice, crabs and scabies, so there is some more information about these on the D.VICE website. And remember safe sex is hot sex!