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Home › Forums › Nurse Nettie › Can I get STI from fingering?
Tagged: STIs
Hi Nurse Nettie,
Just wondering, can you get any STIs from fingering?
Thanks.
I am pretty sure you can but I’ll leave it with a pro to tell you @Nurse_Nettie to explain. Also this video might help – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW2NWADZJo0
Hi @walk_on_walls, this is really common question people ask me! First of all STIs transmitted through fingering might be a risky if there’s mutual masturbation & lots of precum, ejaculate or vaginal secretions that’s exchanged between partners. Often these body fluids are used as lubricant & if shared may be a risk for infections like chlamydia or gonorrhoea. It’s important to know that infections like HIV are NOT transmitted this way & there’s never been one reported case! If fingering is one way only (one person giving to the other) then its safe 🙂 .
@CloakOfAsh, your movie deserves an Oscar! It explains how Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) are anatomically risky for women compared to men. Drinking lots of water & peeing after sex is a good way to prevent UTIs in women. Also if a guy is having condomless anal sex with a woman…it’s not advised to have condomless vaginal sex after. This can make it easy for ecoli, a normal bacteria in the bum, to be transferred to the vagina & urethra, where it can cause infection. A solution to this is to use condoms & change them between having anal & vaginal sex.
Thanks for the reply @Nurse_Nettie I was kinda hoping it would be safe but that makes sense if it’s precum or other fluids moving from one person to another.
When you say ‘one way’, do you mean it’s okay if I’m fingering someone else, as long as my fingers don’t go near my junk? How thoroughly do I need to wash my hands afterwards?
@CloakOfAsh thanks for the vid, I think these types of videos are a lot more useful than the boring sex ed ones we got in high school!
Yes that’s right @walk_on_walls…that’s what I mean by one way. How thoroughly do you need to wash your hands? Just with normal soap & water will do. There’s no need for disinfectants or anything like that. I lot of people ask me if cuts on the fingers increase the risk of HIV or STI transmission. The answer is no. Generally, if you have a small cut & bleed from the wound it will usually clot within a few minutes. That clot then forms a scab which provides a protective barrier & stops infections getting into the blood stream. Another amazing wonder of the human body!
Great, thanks for the clarification and the hand washing info! And good to know small cuts are nothing to worry about 🙂
@Nurse_Nettie you said that usually it is fine if you have a small cut and it was clot quickly but what if you regularly bite your nails and fingers so there is usually a cut
@curious thanks for your question! Again, there is no risk here, as even if you bite your nails and fingers regularly the body is incredibly fast at healing small cuts such as these.
Why is it that you can get chlamydia/ gonorrhoea with mutual masturbation but not HIV? What is the difference?
@fiona6666 great question! To put it simply, HIV as an infection is harder to catch generally. Even during insertive anal or vaginal sex there has to be a lot of the virus present in a large amount of precum, ejaculate or vaginal secretions. HIV also doesn’t like living on dry or “keratinised” skin, so it’s incredibly difficult for it to be transferred from bodily fluids to another person via their hands or fingers.
Even catching gonorrhea and chlamydia through mutual masturbation, whilst possible in theory, is still unlikely.
@fiona6666 great question! To put it simply, HIV as an infection is harder to catch generally. Even during insertive anal or vaginal sex there has to be a lot of the virus present in a large amount of precum, ejaculate or vaginal secretions. HIV also doesn’t like living on dry or “keratinised” skin, so it’s incredibly difficult for it to be transferred from bodily fluids to another person via their hands or fingers.
Even catching gonorrhea and chlamydia through mutual masturbation, whilst possible in theory, is still unlikely.
Okay thank you for your fast response @Nurse_Nettie , so to confirm, even if someone were to get little bit of precum on their nails (even fake acrylic nails at that) and were to finger someone else, viruses like HIV wouldn’t be transferred, as they would die off on that kind of environment?
Also @Nurse_Nettie, if the fingers/ hands are replaced with latex/ plastic gloves does this still apply? HIV virus would not survive?
@fiona6666, yes you’re correct, HIV would not survive outside the body with or without latex/plastic and will die off very very quickly.
@nurse_nettie thanks for replying. Can you tell me the source of this information? I just want to look more into it