There’s a kind of sexually transmitted disease that nobody talks about. While the big H diseases — HPV, Herpes, HIV — get a lot of press, the most common source of minor sexual health ailments is both the least understood among adults and gets the least preventive advice from physicians. These are bacterial infections in the genitals.
“In the United States, vaginal infections are one of the most common reasons women see their doctor, accounting for more than 10 million visits each year”
via http://www.merckmanual
Some bacterial infections can be transmitted by your genitals but more commonly they are transmitted TO your genitals orally or digitally. In plain English, you can get a bacterial infection from someone going down on you (even if they are STD-free) and from a dirty hand (yours or someone else’s). You can even get it from your toileting habits.
The leading cause of bacterial infections of the genitals is BASIC HYGIENE. And by basic I mean the three key basics of sexual health: having a clean, dry, healthy urogenital tract; having clean hands; maintaining a clean and healthy mouth.
THREE HACKS FOR SEXUAL HEALTH
BIDETS
Get a bidet! Yes, it’s a funny French word (pronounced bid-day, with the accent on “day”). Yes, it’s a foreign concept. But it could keep you from getting crotch rot, bacterial infections, and will eliminate ass smell. Showering regularly is great but unless you shower after every poop, your chute still carries germs. If you’ve got an adult-size crack in your butt, it’s a cozy spot for those germs to multiply. Ever get a bad itch or burning feeling back there? It could be hemorrhoids — or it could be some ugly butt bacteria chewing on your skin! A bidet will solve the issue.
We have installed inexpensive bidets, bought on Amazon, in every bathroom in our home. I insisted on it because many vaginal infections actually are brought on by excessive moisture that creates a warm and fertile environment for yeast and bacteria to grow. Second, because bad butt bacteria can come in contact with the vulva. The standard advice for everyone who has a vagina is always to wipe carefully from front to back. This is because the vagina does not produce anything harmful. Urine and the drips and glops of vaginal fluid that leave that area are harmless products of the natural body. It’s safe to wipe them towards your but. This is not true of what comes out your butt. That stuff could cause infections. Women who wipe back to front are at much higher risk of infection than women who wipe front to back.
And, frankly, just “wiping” doesn’t eliminate germs. It removes the visible signs of poop but not the microbes. Pull your pants or panties up over those germs and you are creating an environment for them to flourish.
Toilet paper is an out-of-date technology, just a step up from using leaves. Install a bidet (some units are quick and easy and don’t require a power source either) to give your butt and your genitals a refreshing mini-bath after every poop. Wash those germs away and save on trips to the gyno!
If you have male genitals, no harm in dropping your testicles in to wash away sweat (another environment that germs love). If you are uncircumcised, drop your penis in as well to cleanse the head (retract the foreskin if possible). This is all about reducing germs and keeping your genitals handsome and healthy.
For ideas, you can read the reviews on Amazon for the Luxe Bidet (we have two of them and they do the job very nicely with easy installation). This model has some features that are especially useful for women. Use it to wash away menstrual blood, butt bacteria, and anything else down there that is germy or smelly, and give yourself a little freshening up before sex.
Extra Bidet Bonus! It can help reduce pain, itching, swelling and other discomforts of hemorrhoids. For best results, make sure the bidet has warm water (icy cold is a bit of a shock!) and tack on a few extra minutes after pooping to let the warm water soothe and relieve your achy tush. Regular use can greatly relieve that giant pain in the ass. 😉
BRUSH YOUR TEETH BEFORE SEX
A human mouth that is not regularly cleaned, and teeth that are not regularly brushed, are basically sewers of bacteria. There are many medical reasons why mouth disinfection should be a daily ritual, including reducing harmful plaque known to cause some diseases. If you want the germy details on the medical risks of poor oral hygiene, you can visit this dentistry group’s faq, How Dirty Is Your Mouth.
But that mouth isn’t just going to be sucking on a pina colada. And that can become a sexual health problem. Like it or not, both giving and receiving oral sex with people whose sexual histories you don’t know is as risky as penetrating people raw when you don’t know where their sex organs have been in the last few weeks or months.
Even a regular partner who doesn’t maintain decent oral hygiene can transmit an infection. Again, we have lots of medical data on how oral sex can transmit an STI.
“Oral-genital contact can transmit a number of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including herpes, gonorrhea, and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[19] In various acts of oral sex there is a risk of infection since saliva, pre-cum, semen, vaginal secretions, and menstrual blood can get into the mouth.” via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2840968/
STIs are not the only risk. If you have some bad bacteria lingering between your teeth (for example, tiny bits of food that start to decay, or a non-STI mouth sore or rash) you may pass those germs along to your partner’s genitals or, if you do anal-oral, to their butts.
Chances are you wouldn’t even think of doing this with your regular partner. You’ve probably been immersed in their germs and they in yours. But, again, this isn’t about STIs. It’s about bacteria, which we all carry and are all capable of transmitting, even if we’ve been 100% faithful and even if we never got sick from it before. So if oral sex is on the menu, squeeze in a quick tooth-brushing to reduce or eliminate the chance of transmitting infection.
WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE SEX
The single most important aspect of human health is oddly advised only to people who are already extremely ill, like cancer patients. Simply put: regular hand-washing prevents the transmission infections. This includes everything from common colds to genital and butt infections.
You probably hear health shows on tv seasonally advise you to wash your hands during flu season. If you have a disease that compromises your immune system your doctors may tell you that routine hand-washing is a basic protocol to stay healthy. Now this sexologist is saying that, based on the latest science, washing your hands before sex is just as important.
Harmful bacteria and fungi love to crawl under fingernails and hide in skin folds. That’s why the hotty who puts an unclean hand inside your body cavity could, in addition to giving you pleasure, leave you with the extra gift of an infection that requires a doctor’s visit and antibiotics. In fact, if you don’t wash your own hands before penetrating one of your own cavities, you can give yourself that infection as well.
You know, even five years ago, I would’ve been a lot more casual about it. After all, for thousands of years dirty people gave each other germy sex and lived to tell the tale. But in 2017, I don’t know anymore. There are a lot of gross and crazy infections out there. Some antibiotics aren’t working as well as they used to. Some can’t cure things they once did. Once we get an infection, it opens the door to worse infection and that opens the door to hurting our immune system. This is a good year for all of us to rethink our go-to hygienic rituals.
Handwashing is the simplest one to follow. Most of us are exposed to unknown toxins of one kind or another. Some of us are exposed at work or on airplanes. Some of spray them in our homes. Some of us handle merchandise from China when we shop. Then there are dust particles, pet-hair, grime, grease, traces of food or plant matter that could transmit unwanted viruses, bacteria, allergens, and other microbes that may find harbor in human genitals.
Be good to your skin. Use a gentle soap, lather it up so your hands up to your wrists are soapy, and wash it off with warm water the way doctors do it. There’s a reason they always wash their hands before they touch you. It’s a shame they don’t remind you to wash your hands before you touch someone’s ass or genitals.
Stay healthy and keep those genitals sparkly and fresh.
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