What are the risks when performing unprotected oral sex?

[Justanxious3342]

I am 22 years old and was a virgin prior to this first experience, so my knowledge concerning STIs and STDs is very limited. Which sounds silly because I should be more informed before becoming sexually active, but just another lesson learned. Anyways, after getting quite the scare from googling things online, I spent a bit of time on MedHelp for information in regards to STD/STI risk but a vast majority of them were from men receiving unprotected oral sex and I was curious about the risk when performing unprotected oral sex on men. (I apologize if this has already been answered!!)

Simply put, I performed unprotected oral sex twice on two different occasions for one person. The first time didn't leave me with any symptoms relating to STIs and he told me he was clean. I ended up going to the gyno that week due to BV but was told they wouldn't test me for any STIs/STDs since all I'd engaged in was oral sex.

The second time was generally the same and I gave him multiple bjs. He never came in my mouth during any of our times having oral sex because I was less keen on having semen in my mouth. We made out, he fingered me while I was being treated for my BV (no idea why he did that when I told him I had an infection--he didn't give me oral so I guess he decided fingering was safe enough?) And that was as penetrative as it got since I wasn't ready to have vaginal sex.

After reading many of the responses, I know that the chances of contracting STIs/STDs through oral sex is relatively low but not impossible. I guess mainly I'm looking for reassurance since the articles online have really emphasized that contracting STIs/STDs is almost-always going to happen if you're the one performing unprotected oral sex.

My question is if I have no symptoms, and it's been well over 2 weeks since the exposure, should I still be concerned?

[DragonPulse]

Oral sex (both active and passive) exposes you to gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes, but the general risk is much lower than through penetrative (anal/vaginal) sex.

If you perform normally oral sex on people you don't know you should test periodically, at least once per year, for all those stds. If you stop those activities and you want to test to know if you are clear, you should test as follows:

-3 weeks after the oral encounter, test for gonorrhea.
-6 weeks after the encounter, for syphilis.
-For herpes, 3 months after the encounter.

Some people take longer to show a positive result for syphilis, so if yours is negative, it would be interesting to repeat the test 3 months after your last encounter.

All the best.

[Justanxious3342]

Hello! It's safe to say that I won't be sexually active for a long time. But I will be taking your advice on getting tested within those time frames. I know I tested clean for all those recently (before the encounter) so here is to hoping nothing will change over the next few months.

Thank you so much for your response!