Your question about CSWs is not disrespectful- its fine and reflects a common misperception. The fact is the "high risk" should really be thought of as RELATIVELY high risk. In the United States less than 10% of men who have sex with have HIV. Similarly, inglobal studies of CSWs, it is uncommon for more than 10-15% of women to be infected, even in places like SubSaharan Africa the rates are typically less than 25% and in the US, typically less than 5% and typically far less have HIV.
Unfortunately, governmental agencies are, by nature conservative and tend to take a "we can't afford to be wrong" approach. There is little chance that they will change their pronouncements relating to HIV and oral sex- sorry. EWH
Thank you Doc for your answer. It helped a lot. Just one last tought: Why the government and policies makers around the world does not adjust the guideline for oral sex? The public guideline is " oral sex is less risky than vaginal an anal sex but there´s a risk and you should not do it unprotected"; but when you start investigating deeper in the medical community , the less convinced you become that oral sex is a transmission route for oral sex. this has to be one of the greatest debates of all time in medical history. Why tehy dont update the guideline? And is there any movement to do so?
Let people have their blowjobs without fear. thank you.
Welcome to our Forum. Dr. Handsfield and I share the forum and take questions based on our availability. You got me. FYI, the reason we share the forum is because we have worked together for nearly 30 years and while our verbiage styles vary, we have never disagreed on management strategies or advice to clients.
Since you have already read other replies on our Forum you will know that the oral exposures that you mention are virtually no risk at all for HIV and should not concern you. I understand how you might worry that your rash and possible swollen glands could be due to HIV but the odds are very much against this. When people develop symptoms for recently acquired HIV, they almost always have fever. Further, the symptoms of the ARS are TOTALLY non-specific and are mimicked by many, many other far more common, non-STD viral infections. When this has been studied, less than 1% of persons with classical ARS (and your rash and possible swollen glands is not classical ARS) turn out to have HIV.
Further in answer to your follow-up question, the fact is that when studies have been performed, most commercial sex workers do not have HIV or other STDs. Even in very high risk parts of the world like sub-Saharan Africa, less than i 4 CSWs have HIV and in most parts of the world the rate is far, far lower.
Thus, the likelihood that your rash is due to HIV is very, very low. So is your risk for HIV. In fact, the risk is so low that I would not even recommend HIV testing from a medical perspective.
I hope this information is helpful to you. EWH
hello Doc I dont mean no disrespect to you extreme professional answers but i was reviewing some anwers about oral sex exposures and in one of them, from a guy who received oral sex from a TRANSEXUAL SEX WORKER you stated:
"There is virtually no risk for HIV from the exposure you describe. Despite the fact that your partner was a transsexual, it is unlikely that she had HIV. More importantly, even if she did, there are no cases in which someone has gotten HIV from receipt of oral sex. Some official sites will tell you that, IF your partner had HIV, the risk of infection is about 1 infection in 10,000 episodes but even that low estimate (it is the equivalent of receiving oral sex once daily from an infected partner for more than 27 years) is probably too high. "
What is the rationale to state that that it is " unlikely " that the sex worker had HIV. He/She is a sex worker ( high risk group ) who has sex with men ( high risk group ). Of all the possible risks groups of people in the world, on an statistical basis, isnt she the MOST LIKELY to have HIV?
Again I am sorry to question your answers, and I hope I did not do it in a disrespectful way. Thank you for everything .