Unprotected Heterosexual Sex

[Rangers22]

I am a 39 year old heterosexual man who was in a monogamous relationship for 8 years which ended in March.  In May I had sex for the first time since, unprotected vaginal and oral, both giving and receiving with a woman I met at a conference.  This has been my only encounter since March.    

She said I could “rest easy” as she had no diseases but of course I can not.  I have never had an STD before.  Should I get tested for HIV?  When should I go?

[Rangers22]

Brad_

Thank you!  It helps to hea I'm not alone, worring about this stuff.  I sware never unprotected again!!!!!

[Brad_]

yeah stay off the net. man you dont have much to worry about, if you got HIV everytime you had a one time encounter I would have had HIV a ton of times already. Really man your chances are slim to none, try not to worry, theres really no need to.

[LIZZIE LOU]

i totally agree with evenflow about staying off the internet.  it is well known that reading about symptoms will cause you to start developing them (in your mind).  

[evenflow1121]

Dont google stuff about it on the internet, no matter how hard it gets resist the urge. Try to keep your mind on other things.

[Rangers22]

Thank you all for your answers.  So the concenus advice is relax, get tested at the 6 week and 3 month mark

This will be the longest 3 1/2 weeks (until the 6 week mark) of my life.  Any advice on how to cope?

[evenflow1121]

You should get tested for HIV though you probably did not contract it from this single episode.  You should get a complete STD test however.

[worried826]

If its going to bother you then go get a test at the 6 week mark. the chance you contracted the virus is slim to none from a one time exposure assuming she indeed has HIV, which is also a slim chance. Only one third of one percent of the population has it.

[lookin4answers80]

The risk from a single episode of unprotected insertive vaginal sex is usually given (on this forum) as around 1 in 2,000, if memory serves me right. The risk from unprotected insertive oral sex is negligible, if even existent at all. The risk from giving her oral is similiarly negligible, although also theoretically possible. The vast majority of heterosexual women do not have HIV - it is not a so-called high-risk group, unless she has sex with gay or bi men or uses injection drugs.

Nevertheless, it couldn't possibly hurt to get an HIV test, despite the fact that your risk level is quite low. Think about it. If every straight person having unprotected sex with a partner of unknown status contracted HIV, practically the whole world would have it by now. It's just not something that happens that commonly in the Western world. A test will be at least 95% accurate after six weeks, and over 99% accurate within three months. Unless you have some other serious underlying immune condition that you would almost certainly already know about, it's practically impossible for antibodies - what the test is looking for - to take more than three months to develop. So test at three months for conclusive results. But I'm extremely optimistic that they'll be negative.