Dr. Frascino,

Apologies for the strange title of the question, but it does have some relation to my tale.

I know you have answered millions of questions like the one I am about to ask, but as others have said on this board I trust you and value your opinion and a few expert words directly from you can be more useful and credible than any information gained from other sources.

My story begins last year In San Francisco. One of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited, I quickly felt at home here (normally living the U.K). Unfortunatley due to a combination of introversion and lustfulness, which makes it hard for me to get normal girlfriends but eager to have sex all the time, I slept with 4 CSWs around the Tenderloin area. I also repeated this behaviour when I visited Asia in the same year - having sex with another 4 there. I used condoms every time and they all remained intact (to the best of my knowledge) throughout each experience. The only time when I think I made an especially bad decision was when I let one of them perform unprotected oral on me for about 2-3 minutes.

My obvious question is, do you think it likely that I contracted HIV from any of these instances? Would you consider my risk to be high, medium or low?

Anyways I appreciate all the work you do and I think that you are one of those great people that the world is blessed to have and are but all too rare.

Donation forthcoming (as is an HIV test after the 3 month period has expired - still waiting and scared!)

Thanks

Anon.

Hello Anon,

Yes indeed I "have answered millions of questions" like yours, which makes it a QTND (question that never dies)! And like so many QTNDs, it has an ATNC (answer that never changes)! So once again welcome to "The Department of Redundancy Department." I'll make three quick points:

1. Protected sex is indeed protected assuming the latex condoms are used properly and do not fail (break).

2. Unprotected insertive oral sex carries only a negligible risk for acquiring HIV.

3. If you think you've placed yourself at risk for STDs, including HIV, get tested! What could be more straightforward than that???

Do I think it likely you contracted HIV from your double quartet of hookers? No, I do not. Would I consider your risk high, medium or low? Care to take a guess on that one Anon? Your HIV risk is negligible. But you knew that already, didn't you? Of course you did.

Anon, now maybe you could answer a question for me. Since you obviously realize I've answered gazillions of questions nearly identical to yours ("protected vaginal sex, unprotected oral sex with a Naughty Lady from Shady Lane") and since you state you value my opinion such that a "few expert words directly from (me) are more useful and credible than any information gained from other sources," why is it that you can't accept what I've already written time after time after time after time in the archives? Did you really think my answer would change? Once again I urge all readers waiting for a personal response from me to utilize the archives. Anon, I didn't give you any more or any less information than I gave the last gazillion worried-wells who wrote in with nearly identical concerns.

Thank you for your tax-deductible donation to the Robert James Frascino AIDS Foundation (www.concertedeffort.org). It's warmly appreciated. In return I'm sending my good-luck karma that your definitive three-month test is negative. In reality I doubt you even need my good-luck karma and I'm quite confident your test will indeed be negative. Department of Redundancy Department over and out.

Dr. Bob