Dear Ryan

assuming no protection is worn is it better to recieve oral sex from a woman(i am male) or to perform oral sex on a woman ( no menstrual blood). I have done both in past and do not know if I should continue and assume I am not at risk for hiv. Do I need to be tested if this is all I have done? I do get viral infections so I am guessing that one could have been ars instead of the flu. I could really use the opinion of somone in the field as that I doubt my doctor has any experience with hiv.

Your risk for infection with HIV from receiving oral sex is practically negligible. The most important thing to remember is that there is no evidence that saliva transmits HIV. The saliva of infected people contains little to no virus, and the virus that is found in saliva is often inactive (not infectious). Studies have found that a protein in saliva inactivates HIV (up to 90% of virus was inactivated in one test tube study) and other factors that may contribute to the noninfectious quality of saliva. This is why transmission through kissing or receiving oral sex doesn't seem to occur.

Performing oral sex on a woman also poses very little risk for transmission. There are only a few documented cases of this happening. See "Oral Sex (cunnilingus)" (http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/SafeSex/Archive/TransmissionSexual/Q89392.qna).

RMK