If you are about to have sex with a new partner, before engaging in sexual activity, ask them about STDs. If they tell you they have no STDs, ask when they were last tested. It’s not because of a lack of confidence; you ask because the possibility of getting an STD is unfortunately still very real, even if they are convinced they don’t have one.
How can that be?
Even if your partner has been tested, it’s still possible he or she has an infection and doesn’t know it. The results of an STD test are only as accurate as the time and date a person was tested. In most cases, you can be confident that your partner’s test results will be equally accurate, as long as no sexual activity has occurred after the test.
However, there are some cases where they may have received a false negative test result at the time of their test. This usually happens if they are tested too soon after coming into contact with an infection. This is because some STDs take some time to fully develop in your body. Take the hepatitis B virus, for example: it has an incubation period of 45 to 160 days and symptoms may never appear. So if you get tested for hepatitis B just days or weeks after having sex with a potentially infected partner, the virus may simply not show up on your test results. But if you get tested closer to the four-month mark, when the antibodies against hepatitis have more fully developed in your body, you’re more likely to get an accurate result.
Consider another sexually transmitted disease, such as gonorrhea. Unlike Hepatitis B, it only takes a few days (about 2 to 5) for this STD to fully develop in someone who is infected. So for gonorrhea it is better to get tested sooner rather than later. If you get tested two to five days after sex with an infected partner, the disease is more likely to show up on a test than if you had waited weeks or months.
The time frames for these diseases are not arbitrary. There’s an actual scientific term for all of this: the “incubation period.” Each disease has a different incubation period, and the optimal testing time for each disease varies depending on the type of STD you have been exposed to. As another example, the incubation period of chlamydia lasts only 14 days before it is fully present in a person’s body. For this reason, it is wise to get tested two weeks after sexual activity with a partner who may have passed on chlamydia.
So if you’re wondering if you can get an STD from someone who doesn’t have one, the answer is: you can, because it’s possible for them to have one without even knowing it. And while incubation periods have a lot to do with this, so do the symptoms, or, in this case, the lack thereof.
Here’s why: Another major reason why it’s difficult to tell if you or a partner has an STD is because many diseases never show symptoms. A sexually transmitted disease that rarely or never shows symptoms is called “asymptomatic.” So you may be wondering, “If the symptoms never show up in my body, why should I get tested?” The skepticism is understandable, but it remains a dangerous game. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. Whenever you prepare for sex with a new partner, you should both get an STD test first. No, you may not be showing any signs or symptoms of an STD, but that’s actually the most important time to check.
Finally, if you and your new partner are only having oral sex because you think it’s “safer,” here’s the hard truth: You can absolutely still contract an STD this way. Unfortunately, it is quite common for sexually active people, especially young adults, to consider themselves virgins if all they do is perform oral sex. To make matters worse, the belief that oral sex is risk-free is just as common. In fact, a recent study found that the “risk-free” factor tops the list for teens when it comes to why they have oral sex instead of vaginal sex.
The truth is that oral sex is still sex, and it comes with its own share of infections and diseases. If you have recently had oral sex with a potentially infected partner, you may test positive for an STD.
Ultimately, the question of whether you can get an STD from someone who doesn’t have one is normal, but ultimately leads to the same answer: maybe. Due to incubation periods, asymptomatic infections, or misconceptions about sexual activity, sexually transmitted diseases are still possible. Be sure to find out and get tested today.