POZ Community Forums
HIV Prevention and Testing => Do I Have HIV? => Topic started by: ladyluck118 on September 22, 2006, 04:53:49 pm
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Can you please help me determine my risk here? I had protected sex with a condom...but unfortunately discovered that my partner does not pinch the reservoir tip at all when he places a condom on himself. He didn't know about this. He sometimes will pull on the tip to make sure that there is enough room for semen, but doesn't remember if he did it with me. He just makes sure the reservoir tip is roomy and not squeezed tightly against the head of the penis...and then rolls the condom down the base of his penis with both hands. During intercourse, the condom did not break or tear. He checked afterward for holes, by squeezing down on the tip. Nothing doing. However, he noticed that the condom and the base of his penis were especially wet when he withdrew from me. He just assumed that they were my fluids, since the condom did not break, and he withdrew fairly immediately after ejaculation (like within ten seconds).
My real nitty-gritty question is this:
Since he didn't pinch the reservoir tip, did his semen escape up and out of the condom and get him so wet? It scares me to death that I was exposed that way. However, the "normal" amount of semen was in the tip, and I don't know if it's possible for that amount to be collected in the tip -- if an amount to make such a significant amount of wetness had happened around the base of the condom.
Hope that makes sense. Please help. I'm really scared.
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Yes, your description and your question are clear.
You were protected during this incident. Nothing you have described causes me to think his semen leaked out from the top of the condom at the base of his penis.
And now he knows to pinch the condom in the future.
There's no need for testing in relation to this incident.
Cheers,
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Lady,
You were not at risk in this incident. The pinching of a condom tip is to ensure there is no air left in the tip. An air bubble in the tip can cause the condom to burst. This didn't happen.
You were also not at risk from fluids that may have been on the outside of your body. Condoms really do prevent hiv infection.
Please read through the Welcome Thread (http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=220.0) and follow the Transmission Lesson link.
Here's some additional info for you:
You need to be using condoms for anal or vaginal intercourse, every time, no exceptions until such time as you are in a securely monogamous relationship where you have both tested for ALL STIs together. To agree to have unprotected intercourse is to consent to the possibility of being infected with a sexually transmitted infection.
Have a look through the condom and lube links in my signature line so you can make sure your fella is using them properly. While you're on either of those pages, have a look through the bottom three links in the left-hand column. They discuss ways that you, as a woman, can protect yourself. I recommend the female condom as they are also excellent barriers against hiv infection, and importantly, they give YOU the control over condom use. They can even be put in place in advance so you're not fumbling around at the crucial moment. They're fiddly to use at first, but if you can put a tampon in, you can use these. It gets easier with practice. Give them a try.
Anyone who is sexually active should be having a full sexual health care check-up, including but not limited to hiv testing, at least once a year and more often if unprotected intercourse occurs.
If you aren't already having regular, routine check-ups, now is the time to start. As long as you make sure condoms are being used for intercourse, you can fully expect your routine hiv tests to return with negative results. Don't forget to always get checked for all the other sexually transmitted infections as well, because they are MUCH easier to transmit than hiv.
Use condoms and avoid hiv infection. It really is that simple.
Ann
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Thank you so much for your responses. I'm very grateful!
I do have to ask one question, though. The reason why I was concerned about semen shooting up the sides of the condoms and out into contact with my vagina was because I found a website that said if you don't pinch the "teat" of the condom, the semen will have nowhere to go and will leak out the sides. I had never heard that before, but of course, it terrified me.
But then again, if there was nowhere for semen to go, then NONE of the semen would be able to be present in the tip, right? It would be scattered all over the sides of the condom?
SORRY to beat a dead horse, and I'm not trying to waste your time. I'm just scared and want to fully close this book. Thank you.
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I'm sorry for laughing but the answer is no, the semen would force enough air out of the tip to contain the semen.
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Lady, you are slipping and sliding around on that dangerous slope of "what ifs." The condom held. It did what it is very good at which is preventing HIV transmission.
If there was any risk of an "overflow" of the semen in such a situation we would have known it way before today.
Just make sure everytime you have intercourse your partner is wearing a condom and you will be protected as far as HIV is concerned. No kidding. Really.
Cheers,
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One other question...is the risk for pregnancy and HIV the same when using a condom? I'm not sure of how these "stats" work. Thank you.
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A correctly use condom is 100% effective. A condom failure, you have the about the same risk. There are other factors that you have to figure into the possible risk with condom failure.
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This is an HIV website. We're not here to discuss the effectiveness of condoms in relation to pregnancy.
We do know from statistics and experience that condoms provide very effective protection against HIV transmission.
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Sorry, I was just curious. It was weird to me that condom websites would say that condoms are "highly effective" against transmitting HIV if used correctly, and then say that they were merely "effective" against preventing pregnancy if used correctly. It seemed like they would pose the same risk in case of breakage, so I wasn't sure how they would even calculate that or be able to say that. Sorry.
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The difference is, not using condom from start to finish. Some start without the condom and then place one on later.
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lady,
There's big difference here. Sperm swim. They're persistent little buggers, programmed to swim their little hearts out until they reach an egg. A bit of precum containing sperm smeared on the outside of the female's genitals can sometimes be enough for pregnancy to result.
Hiv is very fragile and it most definitely does not swim or move in any way. It floats around, hoping to come into accidental contact with the correct type of cell it needs to infect. It has to do this INSIDE the body, with no contact with an outside environment. It quickly becomes damaged and unable to infect when it is outside the body.
As you have been told, correctly used condoms prevent hiv transmission. Period. If you've read the Transmission Lesson, you will know that in studies of serodiscordant couples who used condoms consistently and correctly, not one, NOT ONE of the negative partners became infected. Condoms prevent hiv transmission.
Ann
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We're not responsible for what others or other sites say about other issues. We talk about HIV here.
Latex condoms are considered to be effective against pregnancy. If you want to know more specifically, how about discussing it with your gynecologist, who's likely to be informed?
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No need to speak to a gynecologist, I am not concerned about pregnancy. I just read certain stats (which seem to be everywhere), and wanted to ask an informed HIV person on what would make those varying stats. It seemed exposure to semen would carry the same risk for HIV/STIs and pregnancy. But what Ann said made sense. Sperm are programmed to swim. HIV particles are not. That's the answer I was looking for to make sense of the stats. Thanks, guys. Sorry to bug you.