A new study shows that while it’s not a safe bet to have sex with a partner who has STIs, having a sexual relationship with someone who has is not a good idea.
The study, published in the journal AIDS and Infectious Diseases, shows that “sexual contact” between two people who have STIs is “risky” and should be avoided.
In the study, researchers looked at the sexual behavior of 1,500 women and men who were enrolled in the national Sexually Transmitted Infections Study, which is conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the National Institutes of Health.
They were asked to participate in a series of surveys.
Researchers analyzed the responses to the questions: Do you think you have had sex with someone with an STD?
Did you have sex in the past year with someone you have been infected with an STI?
Did your partner have an STD in the last 6 months?
What was the STD/HIV status of your partner?
What is the number of times you had sex during the last year with a sexual partner who you have STDs?
What are the risk factors for contracting an STIs?
The researchers also looked at responses to a series that included questions about sexual partners, health risks, and behaviors that people might engage in during sex.
Researchers found that while “sexual activity with asexual, non-infectious partners” is not an uncommon occurrence, “sexual intercourse between asexual partners is associated with an increased risk for acquisition of an ST I,” they wrote.
The risk is higher for those who have HIV.
In other words, sexual contact “with an infected partner is associated more than twofold with the risk of acquiring an acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS),” the researchers write.
They also note that people who engage in “sexual non-monogamy,” which involves sex with people who are not infected with HIV, are more at risk for acquiring an infection, which can lead to a “prolonged course of viral infection.”
Asexual people are less likely to have STI’s, the researchers found, and “have more unprotected anal intercourse, oral sex, vaginal intercourse, vaginal or anal intercourse with a condom, and sexual intercourse with an uncooperative partner.”
The findings suggest that asexual people who aren’t HIV positive “should be especially careful about their sexual activity, and should avoid sex with an HIV positive partner.”
While the findings do not show that having sex with HIV-positive partners is safe, the study does suggest that people should be careful not to engage in any sex that they don’t think is “safe.”
The authors add that “there is no absolute or reliable way to distinguish between ‘safe’ and ‘risky’ sexual activity.”
However, they do suggest that sexual activity between people who both have and have not been diagnosed with an infection is “more likely to be risky than not.”
“It is possible that a significant proportion of sexual partners who have been HIV-negative will have been diagnosed, which would be a potential risk factor for infection with an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AID),” they write.