Do STDs travel through the body sex or sexual contact?

[Birdy18]

My question is whether an infection can travel from one part of the body to another without sex or sexual contact.  For example, if you only have oral sex and contracted chlamydia, would you pass chlamydia on if you had vaginal sex with your next partner? Or if you only had anal sex with an infected person, would you pass chlamydia on through oral sex with your next partner?

[auntiejessi]

Hi there -

If I understand your question correctly, no, sort of. If you have oral gonorrhea, you can't pass that on through vaginal or anal sex. However, if you have gonorrhea vaginally, it could be possible to transmit that even if all you do is anal sex, since the fluids get all mixed together, so to speak, if you are lubricating when aroused.

If you have oral herpes, you won't transmit that via genital to genital contact, but if you perform oral sex, you could transmit hsv1 to your partner's genitals. (It's not nearly as likely for herpes 1 or 2 to go from the genitals to the mouth, though it is possible.)

Generally speaking, the point of infection is where it's spread from - if you are infected genitally, you can only transmit it from the genitals. If you are infected orally, you can only transmit it orally.