Swingology A Lifestyle Podcast

STD's on the Playground?

• Tori Kist • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Swingology A Lifestyle Podcast is for adult entertainment only and we are not licensed professionals. Our show features adults themes, language and descriptions of sexual acts & desires. If you are under 18, this is not the show for you. 

The ideas & opinions expressed are those of the speaker only and not of any company or entity and should not be considered professional advice. Now let’s stimulate your mind…

STD's on the Playground? 

Tori Kist and her husband Steve Kist share their real life experience's and knowledge about STI's,  STD's and more.  Listeners will learn the differences of STI's,  STD's and more.

Link to Anonymous STD Text Notification:
https://www.stdcheck.com/anonymous-notification.php

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[laughs][music] You are listening to Swingology, a lifestyle podcast. Swingology is for adult entertainment only, and we're not licensed professionals. Our show features adult themes, language, and descriptions of sexual acts and desires. If you're under 18, this is not the show for you. The ideas and opinions expressed are those of the speaker only and not of any company or entity, and should not be considered professional advice. Now, let's stimulate your mind. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Swingology, a lifestyle podcast. We're your host, Tori Kist. And Steve Kist. And today we're going to be talking about a rather taboo subject. Infections and diseases. You, but stay with us, stay with us. We're not going to go into the gross, and itchy, and uncomfortable feelings. We're not going to go into that. We're going to be talking about solid facts that anyone who is in the lifestyle having an open relationship should know about, even if you are asexual and you only sleep with your partner and your partner goes out to swing. So today, of course, today's discussion is going to be about STDs and STIs and infections and transmitting it to other people. It's a topic that's not often discussed in the lifestyle. And sometimes it is, if you're with a group of people and you develop a little bit of a close relationship with. But if you're out at the lifestyle club and you're dancing and you go for a quick vibe and then you go shoot off to one of the side rooms, these conversations generally have not happened yet. And so there's a little bit of like, okay, you have to do a little bit of pre-planning. You have to do a little bit of forethought before you go into these kinds of situations. And that's really what today's episode is about, that in educating you on the different types out there that are the most common and what to do if you get a positive result. I didn't know this before researching for today's podcast, but more than 1 million STIs are acquired every day worldwide. And this is according to the World Health Organization. And according to the United States, CDC, 1 in 5 people have an STI. So let's start with what is the difference between an STI and an STD? So an STI could be anything sexually transmitted. It could even be non-sexual transmitted. For example, like childbirth, mother to child, utensil sharing, kissing, things of that nature. I heard hot tubs. I don't know if there's like a lot of facts on that one though, like hot tubs can really, kind of hot tub really transmit like an STI from one person to another. According to our research, yes. And can you imagine how about your N and orgy room and you're sitting, you just got done playing and you sit on one of the side couches. You happen to have lost your towel because it was a wild night. So you're sitting on one of the couches and you go home. Maybe you're a partner that you played with didn't have any STDs, but you sat on a couch without coverage. Maybe you picked it up from sitting on the couch from someone else sitting on the couch. Yeah, viruses and bacteria can transmit from surface to surface contact. So that could be even handling condoms or touching loo bottles or sex toys. It could be all of those things. So we do know that more than 30 different bacteria and viruses and parasites are known to be transmitted through sexual or I'm going to say intimate contact. Botally fluids and kissing and... But even a grandmother can give it to a grandchild. Maybe she's got cold sores and her grandchild kisses her face and then her grandchild has cold sores. And then what if the grandchild is promiscuous and touches her cold sores because it is and then she touches her privates because you know, maybe she's promiscuous. And then all of a sudden she's got general to her hobbies. Yeah, so if you, that's something that we learned during our research, if you have a cold sore and you scratch and itch it and then you itch down in your private area for whatever reason, you could literally transfer the infection from an oral only to a now a private genital infection. Yep, that's absolutely right. Alright, so anyone who's sexually active or not sexually active, anyone who has a partner that is sexually active, you should know what to watch out for. Basically, you know, anything that's abnormal and ask your partner, does this look normal to you? It doesn't look normal to me. Your partner can tell you if it's different or not. And then at that point, go see a doctor. We're certainly not going to be diagnosing anyone over a podcast. I did want to mention the difference between an STI and an STD. STI is sexually transmitted infection and it is only considered a disease when it causes symptoms. So infections occur when the pathogen or the bacteria or parasite into your body and it starts to multiply. We learned during our research that there can even be sexually transmitted fungal infections. And so I had no idea. So fungal grows on your skin. So literally if someone brushes up against your arm or maybe a woman squirts on you or what have you, someone else touches your arm and gives you a hug, if you still haven't taken a shower at that point, then that person now has that on their hands. They can touch their face, they can touch their private parts, they can touch their eye. And then that's how that's transverse. And that had nothing to do with sexual activity or anything. You just, one person put their arm around the other and now it's on their hand because it was on that person's shoulder, for example. And about the fungal, the sexual transmitted fungal infection that we found out it is M2M, which is male to male. Right now it is found to be M2M, male to male sex. And then Caucasians in Europe. But we know things travel and before we know it, it's going to be something else that we will be tested for or what on the look out for. So I did want to continue infections progress to disease when the pathogen causes damage to your skin cells. That's when you start showing symptoms. So like in our last example, we had Adam and Eve. So let's go back to Adam and Eve. These are just example people, hypothetical characters. So Adam may have symptoms and so therefore he could have the disease. Eve can have the same thing but as an infection, she's not showing symptoms. So those two terms can be used interchangeably, but that's technically what the difference is. And incubation periods vary between infections. From either a few days to months and years. So chlamydia and gonorrhea is just months and days. But HPV and syphilis can be months and years of incubation period. So if you played with someone, let's say four to five months ago and you've had multiple partners between that person and now, you could have been asymptomatic, not known that you're carrying this and transmitting it to all these other partners until you finally show your first symptoms. And which case now there's a whole black book list of people that you have to go contact and let them know that hey, you should probably go get tested. And I would do what I really put some love out there. If you're positive for anything, that is nothing to be ashamed of. Like we mentioned before, more than one million STIs are acquired every day. So one in five people in the US has an STI. It's very likely that the people that you're playing with have had at one point in STI. And if it's something that is permanent, like a virus, you know, those are normally combated with medication daily. But there's nothing to be ashamed of. Find your support system because it is there. When I was doing my research for this podcast episode, I found support systems for syphilis for AIDS. I found support, or HIV. I found support systems for herpes. It's out there. I know it's positive with one of those, don't feel bad babe, don't feel bad. You have a support system. And so what my wife and I do, we get tested every two to three months. And so we know that we're clear and we are eager to show those results to other people anytime that they ask. But we found going through the lifestyle and meeting couples and being in group play events that not a lot of people ask for that information. And so I've heard stories, I haven't experienced it myself, where one couple asks for their results because they were like, oh yeah, we've got results. We just took it like last week. And they're like, oh, I would love to see the results. And then just asking for it provoked a reaction out of that person. I wish I knew what the story was behind that because that sounds like if I ask someone for their results because they just took a test recently and they came back at me with that negative response, I would just like, okay, we're not a good fit. We're going to move on now. Yeah, there's no reason why anyone should be hiding results or being upset about showing results. And if you don't have results, just say you don't have results. I don't have any recent results. Exactly. Just say it. Be honest. Let me tell a personal story about me, my personal STI experience. I was 20 years old. I was a bartender at a hotel and we had a lovely European family from the UK, actually, a UK family come through my hotel and they had a rather hotty son with them. Well we flirted because I'm the bartender. I'm kind of cute, especially when I was 20 years old. You know, one thing led to another. So when I got off my shift, I drove us to a private place and we made out and had sex. Well, my next pelvic exam showed that I received chlamydia. And so when I did my research at that time, the UK was having an outbreak of chlamydia. So I knew it was from that one night stand that I had. I felt very uncomfortable. I actually felt dirty and ashamed, which, you know, I didn't have a support system and I couldn't talk to my family because I felt dirty and ashamed. So I was dealing with all that alone. And then I realized that I was a bit of a bad person. And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry." And we do today. So if you're getting a positive result on something like one of these STDs, there's a support system. Just find it, you know? What about you, Steve? Have you ever had a positive or have you ever received an STI? So learning through this research, we learned that molescom is a possible STI. So what does molescom look like, Steve? They didn't even look like little red bumps. Just look like little moles of skin. With the crater in the middle. I don't remember those, but I just remember there being like little tiny, like extra flaps of skin. Just little tiny little things. Did they burn or itch or sting or a pus? No, none of that. If they didn't itch, they didn't do anything. They were just there, you know? So the doctor prescribed a cream and then you punched some of them off in the cream and then it... Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was, it's a bacterial kind of transmission. So it doesn't have to be a sexual one, but it can be transmitted sexually. And so I don't, I really have no idea where I got that from. And that's not something that an STD test would even come up with. That was literally like a rash. Yeah, again, it doesn't present as a rash. It's just like a few growths or bumps or whatever. Yeah, I got that after you got it. You showed symptoms first and then I showed symptoms. And then we stopped being in the lifestyle for some time. And it stuck around on me a little bit longer. It cleared up on you a lot faster. I was aggressive in the treatment. What, yeah, you were, you just were pinching them off you. I just, apparently the way to get rid of them is to use creams or you remove them physically. And so I just grabbed a knife and removed them physically. And doing that got rid of them much faster than the cream method my wife went for. Yeah, I went to my gynecologist when I started showing them on my skin. And the gynecologist said, wow, I've never seen this down here. She said, what is it? She's like, well, it's melescom, contagious, some or however you pronounce it. And she was like, my granddaughter has this. She got it from the playground playing with kids. And now you have it. I'm like, is it an STD? Like, I don't understand kids. Have it? She's like, no, it's not an STD. But I guess you could get it because it's just from skin touching skin. Yep. So that's another something that you could get from hugging the wrong person. Knowing that when you're out in the lifestyle and you're trying to be safe. And there's things that you could catch from skin to skin contact and it doesn't have to be sucked. That's how those things transfer. So anytime you touch one person to another person, regardless of this sexual activity or not, that touching is a risk factor. The reason why I bring that up is because sometimes we have interacted with other couples. And they were so adamant and so like purposeful that they only play with condoms. And there was no discussion or brokerage of any other way, which is fine. We respect everyone else's boundaries. That's 100% okay. But we were in an environment with this particular couple. And they were very much into educating everyone about safe play. And we only do things safe. And we're going to, you know, one condom for every person. People are going to switch condoms when you transfer from person to person. And in this group event, everyone agreed to that. But internally, I was having like, sure, everyone here could do that. But inside my own head, I'm thinking that's not going to solve anything. In fact, sure you're mitigating some risk in that. But for a guy when you're having sex with a woman and you take a condom off and you put another condom on to have sex with another woman, great. But your hands are contaminated because you're having sex. And so when you take your contaminated condom off with your hands and put on another condom, that condom is now contaminated. So you be washing your hands between each condom change? You should literally wash your body in between each person contact. It's the only way to, like, if you are going to have a safe orgy, the only way to do that is from one person to the next person is to have a full wash down and have a new clean everything. How about a shower orgy? Just stay in the water. Stay soap. That might work. The closer you get to operating room sterile procedures, that's the less risk you're going to have in a play environment. But of course, I'm here I am in this moment where like what four or five couples were all getting ready to play and have an experience. And this person is talking about how they only do the safe condom play and it's the only safe way. And I'm thinking like watching her husband finger another woman and then finger his wife immediately after I'm like, okay, so the condom thing just went right out the window, like immediately within the first five minutes of play. Because whatever that woman has, now she's got it. And now it's on his hands and every other woman is about to get it too because he's no one's washing their hands in between play partners. And a lot of player rooms don't have sinks. Exactly. Well, that's true. That's another thing. Like if you have an LS club and you offer play areas, you should have some sinks nearby. Fountain drinks, like water fountains for one and sinks so you can wash your hands nearby. It doesn't have to be obvious and like in the middle of the room, but you know somewhere where you can take a step back, wash your hands and come back. Yeah, because I do know that if someone wants to finger me, one thing that Steve says, go wash your hands. And I love that he says that. He's always watching out because I get be the infections rather easily. So I kind of have to keep track of my pH down there. And so Steve knows this about me. And so he's always like, yeah, you can play. Just go wash your hands first. It's usually when we're at like the country club. And of course you're touching railings, you're touching other people's drinks, you're touching doors and windows and everything else. And you know, those surfaces are not cleaned very often. And so yes, please wash your hands if you're going to play with my wife. So let's talk about if you get a positive result. What do you do? How do you handle that? Well, we know number one, there's support systems out there. Utilize the support system depending on what it is that you receive. Most things that you get don't require a support system. It requires a doctor visit and a prescription. It requires time away so you can get time to heal. And then you come back after a conversation with your spouse or partner. And you discuss, okay. Was there something we could have done differently to avoid getting that is what we're doing worth getting it possibly receiving that again. Right. So revisit your boundaries. Is this something that we want to change? Is there something we want to add to our boundaries? Or are we good? Was this a lesson learned? All right. So let's talk about if you get a positive result and you have to tell your current partners, maybe you're in a polyamorous relationship or you're dating somebody or your marry, it doesn't matter. And you have to tell your partner, your current partner, not play partners, but your partner. That can be interesting depending on what you're positive for. So in a perfect world, you're going to have a heart to heart discussion and get with some hugs and some understanding. But sometimes people have emotions that are hard to handle. So if you're in a relationship with someone that you think you might be walking on eggshells, it might be better to tell this person over text. But if you have a solid foundation with someone and you're able to be vulnerable and you have that open communication with your partners or partner, then talking to them in person would be ideal. There's a little bit of advice to be given there. If you know you are with a partner and they get angered easily and you have to have this conversation with them, then I would recommend that you have this conversation over the phone. Right. I know everyone would want to say, no, we need to have an in person face to face conversation because it's a serious. Well, yes, do that if you want. But if you're concerned about how they're going to react to you, then you should discuss this over the phone. That way, they've got all that time to process this information before they see you. And will they be mad? Maybe when they see you? Possibly. Of course, their initial knee jerk reaction isn't going to be whatever harsh response it could have been. So this is for your safety. If you feel like you might be unsafe telling this news. Right. And then of course, my next thing to say after that is if you feel like you need to have that conversation over the phone, this person you're with might not be the person you want to be with for the rest of your life. This is true. This could be a transition for you. Maybe you think you got the STD or STI from them. Well, don't be accusing. Just be factual. Right. Because that could make the conversation a lot harder. You could assume that you got it from that your partner and you might have gotten it from some other way that you couldn't even fathom or imagine. It could be a hand to item to hand transmission. And so if that were to happen and you gave it to yourself because you touched something, then you're now blaming your partner for something that didn't do. And so telling new play partners is going to be a lot easier than telling your current partner because they're new people. So just rip off the bandaid and tell them through a text is totally fine because they're just learning who you are. So this is just part of, you know, what you're dealing with who you are. You might say something like before we hook up, we should talk about our status. I'll go first. My last STI test was last month. I am positive for fill in the blank. And that's my update. How about you or you might say something like I have fill in the blank. I'm taking medication to manage it. I just thought it's something that you may want to know in case things get spicy between us. I'm sure you have questions fire away. And so this opens the dialogue via text before they meet you if you're meaning them online or before you get hot and heavy with them. And definitely tell people if you have something you don't want to oh that reminds me I learned something when I was doing my research on this and I want to tell everybody if you have I know it's HIV for sure. I don't know if it's about other STDs and you know about it. You know you have HIV and you have sexual relations with people without telling them that is a third degree felony. Holy cow. I didn't know that. I mean why would I but I learned that and so that's just another fact I wanted to give you guys in this episode. Who knew that let me know if you did. So I wonder if lesser infections like Cholomania or gonorrhea is a second degree felony. You know what it really should be because we let's just break the stigma. There's no shame in having one of these STIs or STDs. There's no shame. You just find your people. This is what I'm thinking. If you have genital therapies that's a virus that's never going away. Sure you're on medication and you have flare ups from time to time and when you're having the flare up that's when you're contagious when you're not having the flare up you're not typically contagious. We know this. But if you can find a lifestyle circle of people that all have the same thing that you have. I mean I would think that those would be your play partners should you vibe with them right and that's part of your community to help you know because when you're having a flare up who's going to understand you more than that community. Sure. How about telling past partners that you were recently diagnosed positive with something. I found a tool for you guys listen up. There is an online tool that lets you text or email previous partners anonymously. It's free. It's super easy to use. It doesn't require sharing any of your personal information and you can let them know hey I was diagnosed positive with that. They've never going to know who you are. That's amazing. Now when I did my research the blog that I found listed off five different sources that do this I went to each of those sources and four of them have been pulled down or canceled. There's one left that I've noticed and it's part of STDCheck.com. So when you go to www.stdcheck.com it's not easily found. So what I'm going to do is link this in the show notes of this episode linking directly to that feature of that site. So if you are tested positive for something and you need to tell previous partners via text message so you need their phone number via or via email so you need their email address you can do that. I will also link this on Instagram. Look for the soundbite of this episode and this would be linked there. I'll do my best to link it. Maybe I'll just type it out. I don't know if I can do the link in the comments. We'll figure this one out. But also because four of those sites have been pulled down or canceled I also wanted to mention if this site goes down or if this feature goes away just google search anonymous STDText and to see what the current options are. Because you know things change all the time and who knows how long this podcast episode will be available. Hey, yeah. While I'm on the topic of the internet you guys should all go to Google type in your city and then type in free STDCheck. So if you're in Atlanta it would be Atlanta free STDCheck. And just see what options because in the metropolitan area that we live there is a company that offers completely free STDCheck and medication. And if you are well off and and are wealthy however you want to see yourself in that way if you have extra money consider donating to those organizations because if they're giving out free test they need income to cover the cost of those tests and the marketing and all of that. So consider donating to those causes. I mean we've talked about STIs and bacteria and fungi. What are the four most like common like STIs? Well there's there's eight most common STIs. Four of them are curable and then the other are viral infections that the virus stays in your body but it can be dormant. So the top four curable STIs is syphilis which by the way is on a rise right now and can cause brain damage and death. So we're going to look up for that. Yeah. If you get a symptom if you're experiencing symptoms and you feel like all my body will fight it. That's the wrong answer because some of these things will continue to grow and multiply and modify different parts of your body like your brain and if you don't get it treated sooner rather than later then now not only are you having to take medication to get rid of the original source of the infection now you're having to take medication to counter act all the other changes that it's doing to your body in various places and it can lead to death. Yes. Another of the top four that are curable is gonorrhea which can also affect the throat. A syphilis can also affect the throat and genitals and chlamydia as well. The throat and genitals and trick a monocias or truck. Those are curable of the STIs of the viral infections. There's four of the top that I want to mention. We have two have vaccines that you can literally be vaccinated for. Oh my gosh go get vaccinated. It's hepatitis B and HPV which the human papilloma virus is HPV. Now the human papilloma virus shot came out between 2007 and 2014. The latest version covers more strains so you want to get updated and it's offered to anyone about ages 16 up to age 45. So if you're under age 45 go to the doctor get your vaccines. I just finished my round of vaccines for the hepatitis B and the HPV. HPV it does hurt and there's three shots if you're above age 16. So yeah, I'm the military. They provide you a lot of vaccines and especially when you get deployed you get like a battery of vaccines and I had assumed up until today that the vaccines that had received include the HPV vaccine. But we pulled out the medical records just this morning and we're kind of flipped through them and I was going through all the vaccines that I've received up until recently and I'm like, oh see HPV is not included. So what is HPV? HPV can cause about nine or so maybe even more types of cancer and if you are a male you can transmit HPV to a female who can then get cervical cancer and if you are a female you can transfer HPV to a male and then you can get Pniol cancer and there's other types as well. Also HPV causes plantar warts and gentle to rewards in which you know those are viruses that maybe you are asymptomatic so you have no symptoms you never get the war but you're still carrying the disease you can still pass it on. Two other viral infections that are the very very common is HSV which is herpes simple x virus this can affect the mouth which is HSV one those are cold sores they can be in the mouth on the tongue or outside of the mouth the HSV two is the anal and organodal version of that the herpes. And then of course there's the HIV virus but honestly nowadays it's probably not necessarily the most scary one exactly it's really not because the people with HIV now can take daily medications that will make it so it's not possible to transmit and a lot of times when those people are taking those medications and they get tested for HIV the test comes back negative because the virus is such to a small minute amount that it's not traceable and so it's it's not necessarily a cure but it's to the point where it's completely manageable and even when tested you don't show as positive. Yeah so what I did part of my research besides going to all the medical sites I also went to Instagram typed in these names of these different STDs to get my information and that's how I found there's whole communities so there's this woman who who post on Instagram this is my pill this is how it's affecting me it's just a simple pill it's not even a horse pill it's just a single she looks as healthy as can be she's a teacher she lives a normal life and she says when she gets tested it comes back negative but she knows she has a wow that's incredible so it's just sorry HIV is not even the scary one anymore I feel like syphilis might be the scary one. I feel like the cancer causing HPV is the scary one. You know what you're absolutely right you can be you could have that and then pass it on to someone else and not even know and they not even know and then if that goes untreated then you know that's developing cancer in someone else and it's like you that whole experience went on and no one was no one knew no one was the wiser you know that's the scary one like nobody even knows like what's so why it's so important just to go get tested you know everyone needs to get tested every so often and that way you know you're clear. When it comes to getting the vaccines what I did I didn't even have to go to my doctor I just walked into CVS long story it actually started with me getting the COVID vaccine then I got the shingles vaccine because someone at work said that their sister who was 41 got COVID which led them to get shingles shingles at age 41 and she was getting major complications from the shingles so I at the time I was like 38 39 I was like okay well I'm going to go get my shingles vaccine so I walked into to the pharmacy I got my shingles vaccine and they're like would you like hepatitis B would you like HPV I'm like oh you have all these it's like a mini oh it's like a restaurant mini oh yeah give me that that that I'll take it all that's why that's why I'm overachiever and so I was the one in school that did the extra credit but I was getting an A plus anyway yeah definitely okay so I'm going to say STI some of them are not actual infect like STI's like it's an infection well like bacterial vaginitis is that considered an infection it's just an infection it's an imbalance of the pH of the woman's sure area so well no the imbalance of the pH is a pH imbalance BV bacteria vaginosis is an infection of the vagina okay and if left untreated it's is so uncomfortable and smelly and it's so simple to treat it the most common cause of BV is on wash hands it's straight up the number one reason why a woman might get BV it's just a guy played with you and he hadn't washed his hands before I get it when I start to have multiple play partners because I go through my cycles I'll have like one or two play partners for a while and then sometimes I get extra spicy and frisky and I'll have like some more play partners and when I get the more that my body's not used to those people's pH doesn't have to be from the hands but that's what I typically would get the BV so what I do ladies is I take a PhD tablet which is Borg acid that's a brand of the Borg acid that comes with different brands I take a Borg acid tablet and pop it up inside of me the day before I play to prevent the BV from happening and it has helped and I didn't have a BV infection until I became a lifestyleer so when I was single and I was dating and I had sexual partners you know I had one at a time back in those days and they would be months apart from each other so I didn't get BV infections I got the occasional UTI from having a new partner in which that is also on this list to be on the lookout for but when I entered the lifestyle that's when I got BV for the first time and I actually spoke to a couple years later I spoke to a single unicorn single female in the lifestyle and she was like do you get like BV infections because she was new I was like yeah all you have to do is pop in a Borg acid tablet and clear it right up she was like okay because she was concerned she was like what is that smell down here right and so exactly and when you're entering the lifestyle and no until you these things all people want to tell you is the smiles and the rainbows and everything's orgasms and life is amazing but there's also this other topic that like okay you should also talk about this too you're going to be experiencing sex with multiple partners there's ways to mitigate risk and you should you should be aware of that that's why this episode exists yeah now there's some new STIs out and about and that not all STD test panels test for it so like it's called Imgen is one of them and this is Michael plasma genitalium and I don't know much else except for that it is new and that you have to ask specifically for this test and so with Imgen you have to specifically ask for it and it presents itself as a bacteria vaginitis and infection to women so and some and most women apparently don't even know they have this bacteria and because it doesn't cause symptoms in most cases there's also something called LGV which is lympho granolomyia you know I'm not going to even say that but I don't even know what that is but it came up as one of the new things to be on the look out for as well as what is it's TM7 or something like that all of these new things are coming up so if you have anything that's wrong like that's a bum or smells or itches down there in your STD panel comes in negative but there's still something going on dive into some research yeah dive into research and tell your doctor to start testing for uncommon uncommon ones exactly now here's something that I wanted to mention scabies versus crabs what is crabs crabs is pubic lice and it's different from scabies did you want to touch a base on that nope okay I will touch base on that the subject of pubic lice and scabies okay scabies is mites that infest the gentle skin and pubic lice also known as crabs is parasites that infest the pubic hair so if you're completely shaven you're probably not going to have crabs if you're playing with someone that doesn't clean up down there like shave wise it's possible you know so that's just the different scabies is and might that infest your gentle skin also be on the look out all some of these STIs can affect the throat and so if you're getting an STD test you're you know to be thorough you're going to want to also do a throat swab and who loves go throat swab something that some people don't take into consideration in the lifestyle some people that you come into contact with have a polythera of toys they have toys that involve women the women contact or self play and that kind of stuff and you know as a couple looking to explore the lifestyle you probably don't have a box of toys in your bedroom maybe you do but you're going to come across stuff that you normally wouldn't spend your money on because someone else spent their money on it and you might want to give it a try just in those situations it's okay to try other people's toys just make sure that they're clean ask them to wash them or ask them did you recently clean this if you don't want to trust them on that have your own bacterial wipes with you alternatively you can put a condom on the sex toy sure absolutely all right so other ways to reduce risks besides cleaning your sex toys and putting condoms on sex toys would include using gloves for hand jobs using dental dams for oral sex using condoms for any type of sex and always wash your hands between changing those out it's almost impossible to have 100% you're not going to be in an orgy and it be 100% safe even if everyone wears condoms that's just it's not going to happen recently we came in communication with some new friends online on social media and we began our conversation and they said oh well we just found a couple that we're going to become exclusive with so that means we don't have to be playing with protection anymore we're going to be exclusive with just them so we're not looking for other play partners but we're totally down to party I think that's great too like maybe that's your type of swinging if you're not going to be like open to you know you know viving all the time with different people maybe you're just open to one couple and those are the people that you play with outside of your marriage it's completely acceptable and then maybe maybe what you do is you know in order to prevent like for some exact some swingers don't want emotional attachments involved so maybe what you do is you focus on one couple a year and then you transition to another couple that you might meet at an LS event and then you kind of not cold turkey but kind of fade away and let life drift you away from the one couple that way you're not developing feelings and attachments and then you can kind of focus on another couple you know yeah and remember that one of the benefits of having multiple sexual partners is learning new tricks and skills in the bedroom and that's you know it's fun too explore those flavors it's having different unique experiences that your partner can't give you all right guys we talked a lot about STIs STD is not shaming anyone who has one because it is very normal it is something that we all in the polyamorous or in the lifestyle community have to be aware of one of my favorite things about the lifestyle is the judgment free vibes you know there's not a lot of judgment in the lifestyle and I love that and let's just keep that overflowing to STIs and STDs as well and keep that communication open homework for new people or couples regardless of how experienced you are go get a full STI STD panel check and then agree to do it once every three months or so and if you have not received the hepatitis B immunization or the HPV immunization my personal request or homework assignment would be to look into that and get that on the calendar and start it now I did actually have a little I don't know what to say issue this past spring when I got my final hepatitis B immunization like two weeks later I went over to talent test services and got my my test my STD test and it came back positive for hep B but I had literally just gotten my vaccine and I forgot I got the vaccine because I live a very busy life I just do what's on the calendar and so when they said oh you're positive for hep B I'm like wait a minute I'm getting immunizations for that they're like oh well show us you're getting that and it was two weeks prior they're like okay we'll come back in next week and we'll see if it's still positive and I came back in next week it was negative yeah if you're taking the vaccines and then you go get a test immediately after that vaccine will actually show up as a positive on your recent STD test false positive a false positive that's something just to take into consideration so spread those spread those out from each other if anyone has any questions or comments feel free to reach out to us I prefer on Instagram look up swingology a lifestyle podcast you can also message us through the show notes of this episode if you do message us there please include your contact information so we can get back in touch with you because it is not automatically included on our receiving end unless you add it to your message that's right all right everyone tune in next time to stimulate your mind thank you so much for listening to swingology I'm truly honored to have you as a listener if you like what you've heard consider subscribing to our podcast or connecting with us on social media the links can be found with the episode show notes this is Tory Kist reminding you to stimulate your mind[Music][Music]

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Tori & Steve Kist

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