Gonorrhea and HIV

Sep 17, 2001

I am 23 yr old gay male.I was diagnosed 2 days before I had oral receptive sex with HIV+ man with gonorhea.I think I had recovered from gonorrhea by then. What are my chances of testing HIV+ ?

Response from Mr. Kull

Your question is a bit unclear. If you performed oral sex on this man that would make you the receptive partner (you received his penis in your mouth). If you had gonorrhea in your penis, then this would have no effect on your susceptibility to HIV through receptive oral sex. Your risk for infection would be increased if you had a gonorrhea infection in your throat, but it's hard to quantify the increase in risk. Performing oral sex is generally considered low-risk acitivty, and it should be avoided if you have any oral health problems at the time.

If you mean inserive oral sex (he performed oral sex on you/you put your penis in him), then my response would be that it is highly unlikely that you would become HIV infected through insertive oral sex with an HIV infected person. The risk is theoretical only because we do not see HIV transmitted in this manner.

Having a sexually transmitted infection at the time of sexual contact with an HIV infected person can increase your risk for infection with HIV. However, given the extremely low-risk of insertive oral sex, it is unlikely that your risk is for infection would be changed in any meaningful way.

Try to avoid having someone come into contact with the area where your sexually transmitted infection is located until you are relatively sure that you cannot transmit your infection. Being conscious of this is crucial in reducing the sexually transmitted infection epidemics in the world.

RMK