Is it possible to spread germs through sex?

You’ve never heard of an STD?

Sexually Transmitted Disease?

Well, yes…sexual contact is close contact…so any contagious conditions are spread that way too.

Yes.

I think what the OP is saying is is it possible to transmit a disease just through the act of sex, whilst ignoring the normal things that would cause disease (ie breathing/close contact)

With regard to the common cold, I don’t think that would be possible as it shouldn’t be transmitable through vaginal/anal/oral sex directly. The cause for this being transmited is through airborne pathogens (in your breath) as well as surface contact (ie saliva/hands) which then reach the recipients body mostly through the breathing pathways. I don’t think the common cold works in any other mechanism than this.

I assume you don’t mean saliva…but other bodily fluids?

@FutureMemory – of course i know about STDs. I was thinking of sickness that are not normally associated with sex

Different germs get spread different ways to different places. Through the air, from touching different surfaces, through bodily fluids or through blood. But yes, sexual contact is a great way to spread all sorts of diseases. People don’t get much closer or exchange more of the stuff mentioned above than they do during sex. And some germs prefer getting to you through your mucus membranes and that makes transmitting some diseases through sexual activity easier. And of course there are those very sexy diseases, STDs. Whatever you’ve got or your partner’s got that’s infectious, having sex is a very, very good way to give it or get it; to infect your partner or to get infected yourself.

Bladder infections can also be caused by having sex, but it isn’t always the case.

lets see, if you can catch a cold from bein close to a sick person what makes you think you couldnt get that same sickness from fuckin them?

Yes.

Yeast infections can be passed back and forth between sexual partners.

Well, I don’t think the rhinovirus, the virus that causes the common cold, is found in semenal fluid or vaginal excretions, but I am not 100% on that, but I would say no you can’t catch a cold technically from sexual contact, with a very strict definition of sex. Cold are caught from introducing the specific virus into your eyes, nose, or mouth, which is why you might here people say don’t touch your face. We move the virus to our face many times because we touch something the sick person touched, and then we rub our eyes, or touch our lips, and boom the virus has made into our bodies. So, during sex, since we are touching each other typically, even if we don’t kiss or sneeze on each other, we could catch the cold if we touch a part of the body of our partner that he has germs on, and then we touch our eyes, lips, or nose.

When my husband is sick, I move to the guest room for a few days.

Aside from the garden variety common colds and flu’s you are a veritable petrie dish for all sorts of recreational bug-a-boos if you fail to take precautions let alone forgetting to wash your hands after kissing your date hello! You need a refresher course in cooties 101 but only if you even are old enough to ask this question!!

@Ame_Evil: trolololo, avoiding close contact during sex? Thanks for the chuckle.

As for the questions, yes, you’re both crawling with life and they’re bound to get swapped.

@Cruiser lol. I think we could all use a refresher course in “Cooties 101” every once in while. Going out into the world armed with a little bottle of hand sanitizer is not only not enough, but may lull you into a false sense of security and may merely kill the weakest 99% of the little buggers leaving the super, mega strong ones alive to reproduce and take an even bigger bite out your ass down the road.

Nah. But the computer keyboard that you typed out your OP on probably has stale piss on it… odds are.

The only way you’re not going to trade bacteria and viruses while having sex is if you’re doing it over the computer. YES,,, body fluids, breathing in each others airspace….close proximity-.. Heck…french kissing alone is enough to catch herpes virus (if one of you has an open sore on your mouth) the common cold, or flu, a thrush infection, even. Gonorrhoea will cause a throat infection spread through oral sex (woman performing on man) and is horribly difficult to treat. Sex is a messy business. It is intimate. You’re sharing what is biologically inside of you, especially if having unprotected sex.

to get a cold, the germs need to be applied to nose or eyes – usual course of transmission
—>hands pick up the germs and then person rubs nose or eyes. So if you wash your hands well before sex, don’t kiss or touch faces in anyway while doing the deed, wash up well afterwards, there is little chance you will pass on cold or flu.

I have seen this question on many sites and typically people reply that yes you would be in close contact during sex and thus likely to catch a cold or flu from airborn pathogens, or through kissing, etc. and then there are STDs,... But I am certain that the questioner knows all that, doesn’t need this advice/type of response and is talking about catching something like a cold soley from direct oral or genital contact with the other person’s genitals. The answer is NO, you can not catch a cold or flu virus directly from the sexual fluids in a vagina or emitted from a penis. But, if the sick person has touched themself there recently with germs on their fingers then you could pick those up through oral sex, just like anywhere else. Cheers.