Unprotected Cunnalingus Risk

[now_scared]

Hi I'm a heterosexual male from Canada in my mid 40s. I have been married over a decade in a monogomous relationship until a recent mistake. My wife and I haven't had sex for over 6 months, and in a moment of weakness i visited a massage parlour a few days ago. She gave me a handjob (which i'm not worried about), but for about 45 seconds-a minute-ish i performed unprotected cunnilingus on her.  I did not see any sores, lesions, bumps, I have read many of the threads here and know that my risk is low, but i'm feeling horrible guilt and shame and worried about my potential risk of getting herpes, oral gonorrhea, or even syphilis (my province recently declared a syphilis outbreak).  

I've never done this before and i'm so worried and stressed I'm not sleeping and never will do this again. I'm so worried about ruining my marriage.  What is my risk from brief 45 second unprotected cunnalingus on a massage provider (who doesn't have sex with clients just hands and covered oral) but she lets clients go down on her?

[auntiejessi]

So first, I never want to downplay a public health alert - they are meaningful, and important. I'm sure that Ontario Health or whatever it's called shared the news of the syphilis outbreak because there has been a significant increase in cases.

But it's also important to keep in mind what "significant" means here. In 2021, Ontario had 2,678 cases of syphilis. (https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/Documents/Surveillance-Reports/Infectious/2021/quarterly-infectious-diseases-surveillance-report.pdf?sc_lang=en) In 2020, there were 2,316 cases.

This has a chart so you can see how it's increased across Canada - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8889924/

That all said, there were 14,223,942 people in Ontario in 2021. That means 0.0189% of all Albertans had syphilis in 2021. (Feel free to double check my math - not what I'm known for.)

In any case, to get syphilis, you need to have direct contact with a sore. Even if I give you my talk about brevity, which I'm sure you've already read if you've seen my other responses, it wouldn't matter if she didn't have a sore.

Something else you've probably seen - guilt doesn't equal risk.

Really, I wouldn't worry about this at all. Oral sex on a vagina is incredibly low risk.

[now_scared]

Thank you!

[auntiejessi]

You're welcome :)

[now_scared]

Unfortunately I now have a single small sore red at the edges and white in the middle in my upper lip? 6 days after giving unprotected sex at massage parlor.  

Is this herpes?  

[auntiejessi]

I can't say that for sure. You should go get that cultured by a doctor as soon as possible. Ask them to do a type specific culture.

If it is herpes, you could have had hsv1 for decades and not known it, and the stress of this could have caused an outbreak.

It's not syphilis - it's too early for syphilis.

It could also be a burn if you ate food that was too hot, an allergic reaction, etc. If the doctor thinks it's herpes, insist on them culturing and typing it.

[now_scared]

Thanks, Sorry if it's a dumb question but what is the benefit of it being cultured and typed?

[auntiejessi]

Well, for one, if it's herpes, you'll know. You won't always wonder.

If it is herpes, you need to know if it's type 1 or type 2 because the transmission rates are really different for each.

If it's type 1, you've probably had it before. Loads of people have hsv1 orally. In the US, 50% of people under 50 do. Or it could be a new infection that you got from kissing someone, including your wife.

If it's type 2, you probably got that from someone's genitals. It's uncommon to have that orally. Hsv2 doesn't like the mouth, so it very rarely recurs, rarely sheds, and therefore almost never transmits without symptoms present.

It's your call.