Driving cautiously can reduce your risk of being in an automobile accident, and using seatbelts can decrease the chance that you will be injured if you are in an accident. Sex can be approached in the same way. By taking certain precautions, you can significantly reduce your chance of becoming infected with an STD. You need to know how to keep yourself safer and then decide what level of risk you are willing to take. What may be an acceptable level of risk for one person may not be acceptable to another. If you need absolute certainty on this issue, you may decide to abstain from sex, or at least abstain until you meet a partner who agrees to undergo complete testing for infections and is found to be uninfected and is mutually monogamous. Or you may decide to use some form of protection, such as condoms, to help avoid contracting an STD, knowing that such methods are not 100 percent effective but do provide a high level of protection.

I hope you will think carefully about the discussion that follows and choose strategies that can keep you safer. The guidelines offered in this chapter are general ones—rules to follow when entering into a sexual relationship when you don’t know whether your new partner has any STDs. The general guideline that is easiest to remember is that sexual practices in which semen, vaginal secretions, or blood come into contact with mucous membranes (such as those found in the genital area, rectum, and mouth) or another vulnerable area (such as cuts or breaks in the skin) could potentially result in the transmission of an STD if one of the sexual partners is infected.

*90\213\8*